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Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

qz.com

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Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#121

Post by modo_mario »

semicolonandson wrote: post #52
xelhark wrote: post #23

I think a much bigger point can be summarized with this sentence from the article: > Seven of the top ten results are trying to sell you something, which really makes you question the objectivity of the advice. This is true when searching for pretty much everything in Google nowadays, that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results.

I just finished listening to an engaging series of podcasts by Michael Lewis (author of Flash Boys, The Big Short etc.) about the loss of referees in our society. It's called Against the Rules: https://atrpodcast.com/ Much of reddit still has functioning referees in the form of its moderators, but I'm seeing signs of it cracking — e.g. when I researched the backgrounds of certain moderators I found out that they prod…

Some issues i think reddit has is that they haven't been great about helping their helpers. I remember toolbox being the only way to moderate properly. It not actually being a tool by reddit itself and a massive resource hog and hampered by the size of the wiki for big subs.

Also reddit not curating the moderatorship of it's big subs unless there's controversy. Making it so the top mod can basically take over, disappear, etc. Basically the tiered nature of mods is an issue imo.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#122

Post by wincy »

WA wrote: post #105
swarnie_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/wallstreetbets

Don’t know who downvoted you, but as someone who joined WSB two months ago, it is mind blowing. Yes, these are bets. You are likely to blow it all. But imho it gives perspective to the topic of personal finance. Even if it’s just to understand one’s own limits. Valuable sub.

If you’re following Nassim Taleb’s 80/20 rule, and have 80% of your money in bonds and 20% in high risk options, it can certainly pay off.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#123

Post by jerf »

DelightOne wrote: post #50
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a matter of time I think before subreddits and / or moderators are replaced by sales / marketing representatives. It's probably already the case in e.g. the political subreddits. Always investigate who is behind a statement that advises you one way or another.

> Always investigate who is behind a statement that advises you one way or another. What would you do here, specifically?

If you are implying that it can be difficult to investigate a particular person like, say, a reddit mod with very little biographical information and no particular post history, then I'd suggest that finding that someone giving advice is not themselves investigatable is itself an answer. Yeah, that metric will have false positives, but, alas, fewer and fewer over time as a site grows.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#124

Post by TecoAndJix »

noahbradley wrote: post #114
cool-RR wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share your collection of art subreddits?

/r/art is a mixed bag but pretty good. /r/specart has a lot of good stuff. /r/imaginarylandscapes (and their sibling subreddits) is really high quality. /r/earthporn if you like nature photography.

I'm a big fan of /r/wimmelbilder/ !

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#125

Post by neves »

xelhark wrote: post #23

I think a much bigger point can be summarized with this sentence from the article: > Seven of the top ten results are trying to sell you something, which really makes you question the objectivity of the advice. This is true when searching for pretty much everything in Google nowadays, that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results.

You can say this about any advice. My brother worked in a bank. They gave bonus for everyone that sold a specific financial product for the clients. The internal name of the product was "good for suckers".

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#126

Post by Nasrudith »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #47
prawn wrote: post #22

People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources than when they’re incentivised by money. Think about how often you turn to Stack Overflow, Reddit, forums (Whirlpool in Australia) over AdSense/affiliate blogs. The latter are almost always biased and essentially misleading.

>People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources than when they’re incentivised by money. People are incentivized by karma to create popular advice. Sometimes this overlaps with good or better advice but not always. Anyone who's got in depth knowledge of any particular field has probably seen this in action when that field comes up. In my observation detail/nuance and ability to accurat…

To be fair I think detail and nuance aren't generally well transmitted period. Like the proverbial lie getting halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on. Say for a given chemical Y "Y is harmless." and "Y is responsible for all diseases in modern society!" are both way faster than "Y has a biological halflife of two weeks and is safe below certain thresholds. Spray it on crops but wash it off before consuming to avoid problems." regardless of the truth of any of the three statements.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#127

Post by ImprovedSilence »

noahbradley wrote: post #114
cool-RR wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share your collection of art subreddits?

/r/art is a mixed bag but pretty good. /r/specart has a lot of good stuff. /r/imaginarylandscapes (and their sibling subreddits) is really high quality. /r/earthporn if you like nature photography.

Thanks for those lists. I can’t believe I never thought to use reddit like this! Google reader used to be my go to for scolling through art, and I’ve never quite recovered from its closure in terms of having interesting stuff to just look at.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#130

Post by stjohnswarts »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #46
disiplus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and that's mostly thanks to subreddit moderators, if they weren't that aggressive it would be full of spam. u can notice that on some subreddits when moderators are away or some that have lax rules.

It's only a matter of time I think before subreddits and / or moderators are replaced by sales / marketing representatives. It's probably already the case in e.g. the political subreddits. Always investigate who is behind a statement that advises you one way or another.

The political subreddits are mostly echo chambers of a single party that has taken over there especially in "nonpartisan" groups, especially in news subreddits like politics, news, and worldnews. Even moderates aren't really welcome and I've seen anyone who said something even slightly conservative get ripped to shreds and moderators are like "I'll allow it", pretty crazy. There are many, many good informational forums though, like the article mentioned you just have to look out for marketeers and snake oil a bit.
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