Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#21

Post by dsl » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:39 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #2

> More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it. Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

Reddit brings together far more diverse communities than any other site, who then slam head on in to each other in the generic subreddits.

You used to have to go actively seek out the toxic parts of the internet (except for the occasional raid of your forum by a rival, but you could usually ride that out). Now because they refuse to ban the like of The_Donald, it is like a Knitting website and Stormfront trying to share a single forum.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#22

Post by chronogram » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:41 AM UTC

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #14

keyle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barrier of entry for someone to go and write counter-productive / aggressive / abrasive comments online is very low now. In the past you had to have half a brain to even be online. I don't mean internet connection wise, I mean to set it up and find stuff. What scares me the most is "justice by social media". People felt wrong doing against them burning torches and calling for pitchforks online, instead of getting…

I agree with the second point emphatically. I enjoy that the barrier to entry with places like IRC are higher because it's directly correlated with the quality of discussion, in my experience at least. Regarding the other points, we may well look back at things like Myspace as Halcyon days of somewhat pure Social Media usage. It's a pity we can't still have a social media platform that isn't mined to hell for analyti…

> I enjoy that the barrier to entry with places like IRC are higher because it's directly correlated with the quality of discussion, in my experience at least.

Opposite experience here. Examples: the #archlinux channel on Freenode I had on autojoin for ages but never saw that higher quality discussion there. The #Fedora channel is pretty good but not so much chatting there.

Last I used IRC was over a year ago, so maybe things changed.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#23

Post by ethbro » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

keyle wrote: post #7

ralusek wrote: post #2

> More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it. Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

The barrier of entry for someone to go and write counter-productive / aggressive / abrasive comments online is very low now. In the past you had to have half a brain to even be online. I don't mean internet connection wise, I mean to set it up and find stuff. What scares me the most is "justice by social media". People felt wrong doing against them burning torches and calling for pitchforks online, instead of getting…

> In the past you had to have half a brain to even be online

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#24

Post by thought_alarm » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #2

> More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it. Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

    > Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way 
    > we interact with each other online, in general.

Welcome to 1989.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#25

Post by o10449366 » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:50 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #16

axaxs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a broader sense, sure. But I've witnessed very little of that here, which is mostly self moderated with a nudge from the admins. I've noticed this also in other smallish niche communities. Reddit has become so mainstream that everyone has a place. I think the big problems arise in the more general subs where all the miscreants from the web intersect. Same with YouTube, or any large community really. No amount of c…

The moderation here goes far beyond "nudges".

Not to mention that flags on HN are much more powerful for suppression discussion than downvotes are on Reddit. I find discussion on this website pretty unrewarding because a story can go from hundreds of upvotes and top of the front page to discoverable only through search in a matter of minutes--just from a handful of flags and an extremely opaque weighting system. I also dislike that moderators here can arbitrarily rearrange the comment tree. I've seen several good responses and rebuttals get buried or get taken out of context unfairly as a result of this heavy handed moderation, which also often comes without warning or acknowledgement.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#26

Post by jarfil » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

dsl wrote: post #21

ralusek wrote: post #2

> More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it. Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

Reddit brings together far more diverse communities than any other site, who then slam head on in to each other in the generic subreddits. You used to have to go actively seek out the toxic parts of the internet (except for the occasional raid of your forum by a rival, but you could usually ride that out). Now because they refuse to ban the like of The_Donald, it is like a Knitting website and Stormfront trying to sh…

I don't think that's really such a problem, it alleviates the echo chamber effect of personalized searches, ads, content, forums, etc. on most of today's internet. Some community intermingling is good, and afterwards everyone can go back to their own subreddits.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#27

Post by thepangolino » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #2

> More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it. Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

I actually do blame the way Reddit has been managed. The decisions the admins made made it what it is today.

I do still enjoy going on 4chan (hardly a heaven of civilized discussion) and this very website. So in my mind, it can't be just because of a general trend in online discussions.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#28

Post by petepete » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:56 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #18

krtkush wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is true. But when I discovered reddit about 7 years back it was nothing like this. Now the website leaves me feeling absolutely crap, angry and frustrated. Plus, it is addictive.

I started using Reddit around the same time (actually 9 years ago!) and I feel the same way about it now. Recently, I've gone totally cold-turkey on the platform. Where as previously I had been posting daily for 9 years!

I've used Reddit since almost the beginning and it started off how HN is, being more tech-focussed than general. The discussions were, like here, the main selling point.

It can still be great, you just need to take a bit of time and subscribe to subs that interest you without being too popular.

With popularity comes the inevitable drop in quality.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#29

Post by vortico » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:56 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #2

> More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it. Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

It certainly has to do with Reddit. It's unnatural for humans to communicate with priority of "most popular". If you walk in a room with strangers, meet two friends at their house, or talk in private with your mother, all of those discussions are "bump order", meaning that your most likely discussion to respond to is the most recent "thread" (or subject) that someone brought up.

Online communication should function the same way. Reddit/HN/Facebook's algorithms based on voting and popularity are absolute garbage for carrying on normal human discussions. That's because discussion is not their purpose, it's addiction to horde bickering and engaging in popularity contests for content.

The only natural/real-world scenario that you'd find "popularity" to sort discussions is a screaming fight, political campaign, or those dreaded high-school popularity years. And surprise, that's what Reddit feels like most of the time.

Re: Reddit Terminal Viewer development is shutting down

#30

Post by kkarakk » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 7:02 AM UTC

vortico wrote: post #29

ralusek wrote: post #2

> More concerning, I no longer wish to support reddit as a platform. Widespread astroturfing, manufactured controversy, politics, bullying, incessant nitpicking and arguing. I don't like how people treat each other on the platform, and I don't like how it makes me feel when I use it. Don't think this has to do with Reddit so much as the way we interact with each other online, in general.

It certainly has to do with Reddit. It's unnatural for humans to communicate with priority of "most popular". If you walk in a room with strangers, meet two friends at their house, or talk in private with your mother, all of those discussions are "bump order", meaning that your most likely discussion to respond to is the most recent "thread" (or subject) that someone brought up. Online communication should function t…

You can sort by new if you really believe that-and change default sort order in the settings. i've kept mine to controversial