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Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

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Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#151

Post by thaumaturgy »

arp242 wrote: post #120
thaumaturgy wrote: post #48

The end result was a stalemate. Reddit did not change any of its policies. Enough of the people responsible for posting and managing content left the platform to cause a noticeable impact on it. Here's a fun thing to look at, https://subredditstats.com/ for any major subreddit, e.g.: https://subredditstats.com/r/worldnews https://subredditstats.com/r/explainlikeimfive https://subredditstats.com/r/videos All of the mo…

That data seems wrong. I don't use Reddit much, but I checked the data aginast some smaller subs I sometimes check, and according to those charts they have just a few comments per day, but I know for a fact that's wrong. It's wrong for all subs I checked. For example: https://subredditstats.com/r/thethickofit Just 3 comments for Nov 22, 8 for Nov 23. But how does that square with the existence of this thread from Nob…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38425056

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38425415

You should probably also point out the big red text on the subredditstats pages. I didn't see it when I posted the links, since I'm colorblind and hues of red are entirely invisible to me. Also I have trouble counting past the number of fingers on my hands, so I didn't notice that the numbers were a bit off. If I had noticed that, I still would've needed one of the very clever people here to explain the significance.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#152

Post by treyd »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #2

Some Reddit communities fled to other platforms such as Lemmy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(social_network) Many subreddit moderators protested in various ways and were removed and replaced. Reddit never agreed or compromised and for the most part the movement seems to have run out of steam. Maybe if Reddit squeezes more, more users will go to Lemmy and similar alternative platforms?

I wrote an article [1] back in June about Lemmy and how reddit communities leaving should approach it but it seems like in practice it's been a lot more unstructured than I thought it should have been. Most users/boards are on lemmy.world. That's probably fine though, there are still some more niche boards. I just wish there was a better automatic cross-posting between parallel boards.

Personally I have essentially not used reddit since June outside of following links there from searches. It was the thing that got me to make an HN account after being a passive reader for like 7 years.

[1] https://tr3y.io/articles/tech/reddit.html

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#153

Post by intothemild »

chaosharmonic wrote: post #86
rabbits_2002 wrote: post #43

A massive decline in post quality. I don’t know what happened but ever since the blackout only garbage gets posted. Even the quality of niche subreddits has fallen. I think the blackout meant that all the well moderated “good” subreddits closed while the bad ones stayed open. Now the bad subreddits are more popular and have eclipsed the good subreddits. As for other websites, Lemmy and other federated aggregators hav…

Yeah, several of the more technical subs that I used to frequent either just never reopened or splintered off to Lemmy. Some (like /r/Android) actually have entire instances. I personally wrote a userscript to wipe every post comment I've ever made, and have limited my usage to a few particular subs that I still lurk (/r/LocalLLaMA in particular) just bc Lemmy still doesn't seem to have a comparable level of activity…

I think that of the people that have left Reddit. There are two basic groups.

Those that replaced it with Lemmy, and those that took it as a moment to kick a habit.

I think the latter is the larger group.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#154

Post by kmlevitt »

arp242 wrote: post #120
thaumaturgy wrote: post #48

The end result was a stalemate. Reddit did not change any of its policies. Enough of the people responsible for posting and managing content left the platform to cause a noticeable impact on it. Here's a fun thing to look at, https://subredditstats.com/ for any major subreddit, e.g.: https://subredditstats.com/r/worldnews https://subredditstats.com/r/explainlikeimfive https://subredditstats.com/r/videos All of the mo…

That data seems wrong. I don't use Reddit much, but I checked the data aginast some smaller subs I sometimes check, and according to those charts they have just a few comments per day, but I know for a fact that's wrong. It's wrong for all subs I checked. For example: https://subredditstats.com/r/thethickofit Just 3 comments for Nov 22, 8 for Nov 23. But how does that square with the existence of this thread from Nob…

I still have mod status on a large-ish (70k+) subreddit so I can view reddit's internal traffic statistics for it, and these estimates are definitely wrong.

These stats claim the sub has had 10-20 comments per day in just the past month, so maybe 300-600 tops.

In reality it's had 1200+ comments just in the past week alone and probably closer to 5000 for the month. And you can see the activity with your own eyes in every thread, so I definitely trust reddit's own stats more.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#155

Post by ryandv »

hamandcheese wrote: post #45

I never was a huge Reddit user before, but I have noticed an increase in lower-quality reddit-style comments here on HN in the last year or so. Thankfully they usually get downvoted or are already dead. I might have to turn off showdead though.

Be careful bringing up this phenomenon, it's already been explicitly mentioned in the rules [0] - which means that it can't possibly be actually taking place here at all.

Discourse on the internet in general is becoming less open and candid as people self-censor out of fear of retribution, ostracization, and/or cancellation. Expect more people to withdraw into exclusive, closed communities and cliques where frank, quality discussion can actually be had, away from the preying eyes of the censorious authoritarians and moderator types, as well as the vapid Tweet-length, Reddit-style shitposting that the masses bring with them.

Prepare to enter a new informational dark age, far from the original ethos of the early Internet hackers and engineers who sought to democratize and maximize open access to information for all. Now information can be dangerous - it can be false, misleading, misinformative, and therefore its dissemination should be strictly controlled and moderated to prevent people from getting "the wrong idea." Moreover whatever you say online is more likely to be used against you, and so it is preferable to practice a policy of reticence and silence than speak at all.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#156

Post by dv35z »

sixothree wrote: post #136
candiddevmike wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you switch to?

For me it is YouTube 100%. I really just used Reddit as a way to kill time. Now I just watch makers doing their thing.

Care to share strong recommendations? Interested in maker spaces, agile, entrepreneurship & prototyping.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#158

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

hamandcheese wrote: post #45

I never was a huge Reddit user before, but I have noticed an increase in lower-quality reddit-style comments here on HN in the last year or so. Thankfully they usually get downvoted or are already dead. I might have to turn off showdead though.

How do you know they're Reddit-style if you weren't a regular Reddit user? This is literally one of the most common complaints about HN, and has been repeated continuously since HN's inception. It's in your mind. Every forum's activity changes over time, especially as it continues to grow. It's not becoming more like Reddit. Reddit just becomes more like "a forum that grows over time", like every other forum does. Eternal September.

But just to comment on the idea that some comments here are "low quality, like Reddit", I'd like to note that your preferred form of comment isn't necessarily "high-quality". Not in the way you probably mean. Almost all HN comments are low-quality. They're made by the inexperienced, usually sharing opinions rather than facts, with no evidence, often arguing over something banal or subjective, with an aim to correct rather than educate.

There's just not that many experts out there. When there are, and they do comment, they often get downvoted by the ignorant. Instead most people share comments which are more like opinions dusted with a little information they read once and probably don't remember completely accurately. Often comments and conversations get downvoted or flagged purely because someone doesn't like their opinion or disagrees, regardless of whether they might be right or have a genuine argument.

The big difference between Reddit and HN is a HN user believes they are superior. Intellectually, morally, behaviorally, or just in the company they keep. You keep seeing this comment all the time, "Reddit is low-quality, HN is high-quality". But it's not. "Quality" can have many different dimensions and each of those be subjectively preferred based on the person. HN encourages people to share thoughts even if they have no idea what they're talking about. And discussions often devolve into the ignorant arguing over nonsense. It's like a sewing circle for nerds who believe that believing you are smart or right is more important than actually being right. That argument for its own sake is better than making a light-hearted joke. HN is where levity goes to die, and the intellectually insecure reign.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#159

Post by irrational »

valianteffort wrote: post #148
swores wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe 81 of the 84 comments were either third party bot comments, or a Reddit-run LLM designed to make the sub look more active than it really is (the 2023, fewer people hours, version of what they did to launch the site), and subredditstats.com has detected that? I doubt that's the case, but just as there are sites that analyse an Amazon product's reviews to judge real vs. fake, it's not impossible that a Reddit com…

One of my favorite conspiracies is that reddit is mostly just LLM's and paid agents talking to eachother. Employed by various intel agencies, governments, and reddit themselves trying to astroturf and sway conversation in one direction or another.

This is why I say that anonymous sites like Reddit are not Social Media. If I am on there, there is zero proof that anyone else commenting is a human. They all could be bots and I have no way to prove otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: What was the outcome of Reddit blackout?

#160

Post by Banditoz »

I still mindlessly scroll sometimes on a third-party app with a personal API key (crappy habit, I know) but there's definitely some interesting subreddits that got popular on the (not signed in) frontpage when the cutover happened. r/amiugly, r/amiuglybrutallyhonest, r/presidents, r/howtolooksmax, r/whatifalthist (this is an odd political subreddit), two more r/amitheasshole themed subreddits popped up, and some others that I'm forgetting.

Definitely worse before the API changes, feels like there's less content now. I don't have to scroll very far to find niche subreddits anymore, which is a plus I suppose.

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