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Storming Reddit's Moat

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Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#141

Post by asdff »

bredren wrote: post #83
mbgerring wrote: post #36

The funny thing about using Craigslist as the example for unbundling is that Craigslist, to this day, works better than anything that's attempted to replace or unbundle it. Craigslist remains a stable, profitable company that provides an enormous amount of value.

I dispute this. Craigslist may appear to work better however: - Many unbundled categories have far better products available now. AirBnB and Trulia are great examples. - In areas Craigslist still has a hold, such as in rental housing, what we don't see is the cost of Craigslist's failure to provide advanced features. This includes people getting scammed, and bad landlords continuing on without record just like bad ta…

There are probably just as many scams on other public sites like facebook marketplace

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#142

Post by asdff »

paxys wrote: post #67
tlianza wrote: post #7

> and “for sale” became Facebook Marketplace. Ummmm... 1. Does the data suggest that is true? 2. If it were true, would it support the "unbundling" narrative given that it would be a case of something being part of another bundle?

Craigslist's unchecked spam, moderation and safety problems have slowly made it unusable. And yes the data does show exactly this. FB Marketplace had 800 million users in 2018 ( https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-marketplace-is-used-in-70... ) while Craigslist's revenue has been falling year over year ( https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/craigslist-revenue-fe... ).

I don't see how fb marketplace avoids these issues

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#143

Post by ohgodplsno »

fakedang wrote: post #138
afavour wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thousands of data points" sounds awfully scientific. Can you show me the dataset? Or are you using the word "data" in a more abstract sense here? I'm not well versed enough to know if what you say about /r/uk or /r/europe is true, but I'm quite sure /r/askhistorians is not the only well run subreddit on the site. You're just picking examples of subreddits you say are badly run and using them as evidence that all oth…

I was using data in the abstract. AskHistorians is still a niche sub for history nerds, and is well run, like most of the niche subs. I don't disagree, reddit is my goto for niche topics. But if you look at all major country subs, or major subs such as politics, news, world news, etc., all are badly run, with a hard bent to the left. > It sounds a lot like your actual complaint here is that you don't like perceived p…

> But if you look at all major country subs, or major subs such as politics, news, world news, etc., all are badly run, with a hard bent to the left.

Not exactly the left's fault if the right on the internet tends to be, you know, literal nazis and people calling for hatred. If /r/Conservative is representative of the average right wing user, yeah, it's normal they're getting banned, as they are absolutely incapable of reasonable discourse.

You also conveniently forget the local subreddits absolutely overrun by the far right. /r/canada was so bad that /r/onguardforthee had to be created. /r/metacanada regularly calls for eugenism. /r/france has the far right coming out of the woods every day.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#144

Post by wott »

fjabre wrote: post #132
abcdjdjd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, what alternatives have you found that are similar to what reddit used to be (besides this site)? Also, what alternative sites have you found replaced Reddit for you, even if they are not similar to what Reddit once was?

Ruqqus.com but unfortunately still small. And also infected. I've been on Shroomery lately and I really like that forum. I think the concept of Karma points is bullshit and punitive. It makes people negative. PG should know that by now and so should Reddit. Karma is inherently toxic. Anything that encourages vanity is. And karma encourages it more than anything. As do likes / dislikes. Numbers of votes. Numbers of li…

> Ruqqus.com but unfortunately still small. And also infected.

I just went to see what it was. I selected the category 'Hobby' and here's the list of themes of the posts which came up top:

GunsNAmmoDeals, GunsNAmmoDeals, Cannabis, Guns, ProGuns, LASER, TheFirearmBlog, TheFirearmBlog, Plinkn, TheFirearmBlog, bobross, Physical_Removal

I mean, that's some hobby I guess, but a bit monomaniacal :-/

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#145

Post by cblconfederate »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #108
cblconfederate wrote: post #51

I don't think reddit is that unique. The main problem is that forums are no longer monetizable, so people don't have an interest in maintaining and moderating separate websites, so not unbundling. My use of reddit, and what i observe in general (by looking at other people's post history) is to visit a few specific subreddits often, not the homepage, not r/all. It seems there used to be a time when everyone was there…

If you were old enough (:) everything you've written above could be rewritten by just substituting "[rR]eddit" with "[uU]senet". plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

usenet died out because it did not have moderators. Reddit will do the same because of moderators

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#147

Post by mariusor »

howlgarnish wrote: post #125
betwixthewires wrote: post #109

One thing I think ignored in the article is the rise of FOSS federated servers. There are a few prominent examples to those who follow these sorts of developments, but there are two in particular that I find interesting: Lemmy and Littr.me. Lemmy is basically a clone of reddit's functionality that federates over ActivityPub. It is a very high quality piece of software. A single server can host multiple communities an…

Is this meaningfully different from the user's point of view than just subscribing to a set of different subreddits? What does the user or the host get out of using federated servers? From my POV this seems to be the same issue that has prevented federated social networks or chat services from taking off: there's no meaningful, concrete advantage to it.

I'm the developer behind littr.me. In my mind, the best reasons for migrating to your own service as a reddit community is the fact that you get ownership of it. You can monetize, you can enforce rules that are different to reddit's, you can focus your interface more specifically towards custom UI, etc.

The main downside of moving off reddit would be that you lose access to the larger pool of reddit users and communities. That however is mitigated by the fact that federated communities can still interact with each other despite being independent services.

Personally this would be my main goal for the project: managing to get one of the cool subreddits to leave reddit in favour of starting their own independent community using my code. However some of the things that are made easier by the centralized model of reddit are quite more difficult in the federated case (moderation as an example), and I don't feel confident (yet) to push for this.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#148

Post by fjabre »

wott wrote: post #144
fjabre wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruqqus.com but unfortunately still small. And also infected. I've been on Shroomery lately and I really like that forum. I think the concept of Karma points is bullshit and punitive. It makes people negative. PG should know that by now and so should Reddit. Karma is inherently toxic. Anything that encourages vanity is. And karma encourages it more than anything. As do likes / dislikes. Numbers of votes. Numbers of li…

> Ruqqus.com but unfortunately still small. And also infected. I just went to see what it was. I selected the category 'Hobby' and here's the list of themes of the posts which came up top: GunsNAmmoDeals, GunsNAmmoDeals, Cannabis, Guns, ProGuns, LASER, TheFirearmBlog, TheFirearmBlog, Plinkn, TheFirearmBlog, bobross, Physical_Removal I mean, that's some hobby I guess, but a bit monomaniacal :-/

This is what happens when we divide people. People congregate form tribes and fight each other.

We keep calling each other Nazi's and Socialists - every social network online today.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#149

Post by fjabre »

intended wrote: post #139
fjabre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that you've framed a logical argument. There is definitely some sound logic in what you are saying. I think of it a bit differently. Reddit could have its 10 commandments and adhere to that. That would be clear and transparent and it should apply both to mods and users alike. There should be no cider house rules. A community is given power by its userbase. Mods should respect their userbase more than the…

I wish this were possible too. I want to engage with my users and explain things. But look at this conversation, it is going to take me hours to walk through the whole thing with you, and I am luckily a policy/forum history wonk. I thrive on figuring this stuff out. Doing this for ALL users who are angry or disagree with our moderation? Goddamn man, this is a volunteer role, and we are already tired from dealing with…

Perhaps the underlying system is flawed in some fundamental 'unfixable' way. Maybe there's a better way.

I agree. This is volunteer work. And despite the bad apples there's quite a few good mods out there! I just wonder about the ways in which Reddit motivates its moderators. It certainly isn't positive.

As I said I don't believe in the wisdom of crowds. I think we become a herd easily and forget the crowd.

I think the entire system of upvoting/liking is flawed. It encourages our worst behavior. At least the way PG and friends have designed it.

It only works for tight use cases like HN. It doesn't work for Reddit IMHO. It's too big. It's become a herd.

We are not witnessing the wisdom of Crowds. We are witnessing the chaos of herds.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#150

Post by lordloki »

optimalsolver wrote: post #123
cblconfederate wrote: post #51

I don't think reddit is that unique. The main problem is that forums are no longer monetizable, so people don't have an interest in maintaining and moderating separate websites, so not unbundling. My use of reddit, and what i observe in general (by looking at other people's post history) is to visit a few specific subreddits often, not the homepage, not r/all. It seems there used to be a time when everyone was there…

>HN is nothing other than r/technology or r/programming without the politics How many front page posts have we had in the last two weeks whining about political censorship? HN has politics alright, just the other side's politics.

I disagree. HN has actual discussions and is, for the most part, politically neutral. That is, while some discussions will have a political component to them, such as discussing tech censorship, no opinions are being buried for simply existing "on the other side."

While being a free speech advocate is political, it does not fit into the US left/right political structure. So I don't see opposing the censorship of political speech as being "the other side's politics."

It's funny because I clearly remember when it was the other side with a "moral majority" who was trying to silence all opposing views. I was against it then as well. I think we should all be against authoritarianism no matter which political party we support. As I see it authoritarianism has led to suffering of the common people almost every time.

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