Can Digg make a run on Reddit? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#21

Post by sp332 » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:42 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #3

They can through algorithms, which is something that is painfully lacking on most social media sites (including HN). Give users the ability to dislike something strongly enough that anyone who voted it up is excluded from all vote counts/rankings/recommendations as provided to that user for some period of time. While this leads to a filtered world, that is exactly what users expect from sites like these. Reddit is es…

Two things: trivially, you can change the subreddits you are subscribed to and remove the "fictitous FB pic" etc. posts.

Second, and more interestingly: people have different facets that they show in different subreddits. As an example here on HN people prefer tech-oriented stuff. But not everyone here is that into tech. They just sort or organize the content, so they come to HN for in-depth stuff, and (say) Engadget for rumors, and sbnation for sports etc. So someone who upvotes a stupid FB pic in /r/funny might vote the same photo down in /r/politics. If the person is "sorting" content that's appropriate in different situations, it's not useful to discount their opinion entirely.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#22

Post by huggyface » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

AlexanderZ wrote: post #16

huggyface wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which subreddits do you subscribe to where you see that unwanted content? It shouldn't matter what subreddits I subscribe to (and the encroachment of certain trends keeps herding people to yet new subreddits. /r/gaming -> rage comics and DAE remember. Okay, everyone to /r/games...rinse repeat. /r/atheism -> ridiculous and obviously fake caricatures for people to knock down. /r/programming -> beginner material, so wha…

If you think that subreddits don't matter, then you are clearly expecting from Reddit something that it was not designed to have. The most popular subreddits are swarmed with teenagers and the quality has gone downhill, that's true. But the value of Reddit is in its (less popular) subreddits.

If you think that subreddits don't matter

Categorization does still matter (in the Netflix example they can competently recommend and rank for me, but they still allow me to filter into specific categories). Subreddits are useful.

However subreddits are a very coarse, manual solution to what I described.

To the comment about what reddit is designed for, it started sans subreddits. Indeed, an original focus was recommendations, but either the algorithms or the hardware wasn't there to support it, the result being a bit of a disaster. So they went down the manual binning approach.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#23

Post by thisAintNoGame » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:45 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #13

raldi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which subreddits do you subscribe to where you see that unwanted content?

Which subreddits do you subscribe to where you see that unwanted content? It shouldn't matter what subreddits I subscribe to (and the encroachment of certain trends keeps herding people to yet new subreddits. /r/gaming -> rage comics and DAE remember. Okay, everyone to /r/games...rinse repeat. /r/atheism -> ridiculous and obviously fake caricatures for people to knock down. /r/programming -> beginner material, so wha…

I'm not sure machine learning algorithms are the right approach. Crowd curation mechanisms (i.e. the upvote/downvote systems but one could imagine other systems) have the advantage of quickly adapting to the ever changing tastes of a community. I don't think machine learning approaches can be simultaneously good and flexible in such a diverse environment. The Netflix analogy isn't the best because Netflix deals with a pretty structured problem in comparison to the "recommend me things on the internet that I will like" problem.

I will also claim that subreddits are by no means a hack. They are THE key feature of Reddit that allows users to join together on the basis of common interests. There's no replacing subreddits because they are a killer feature in their own right.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#24

Post by columbo » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #3

They can through algorithms, which is something that is painfully lacking on most social media sites (including HN). Give users the ability to dislike something strongly enough that anyone who voted it up is excluded from all vote counts/rankings/recommendations as provided to that user for some period of time. While this leads to a filtered world, that is exactly what users expect from sites like these. Reddit is es…

I agree. Subreddits are nice but I want to see the equivalent of Netflix "other movies you may enjoy" on a social network.

I want to be encouraged to upvote/downvote things because I know it will impact my experience, not because it will modify some arbitrary score to an unknown individual.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#25

Post by Sodaware » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:49 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #3

They can through algorithms, which is something that is painfully lacking on most social media sites (including HN). Give users the ability to dislike something strongly enough that anyone who voted it up is excluded from all vote counts/rankings/recommendations as provided to that user for some period of time. While this leads to a filtered world, that is exactly what users expect from sites like these. Reddit is es…

It would be nice if Reddit could filter out content based on previous voting patterns. I know people suggest unsubscribing from the bigger subreddits, which helps a little, but rage comics/memes have a habit to leak across over time. The same goes for pun threads and other worthless (albeit amusing) comments.

The experience would be more pleasant (for me at least) if it could cut out comments & stories I'm uninterested in, possibly with a summary of the article / conversation.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#26

Post by jmduke » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:51 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #21

huggyface wrote: post #3

They can through algorithms, which is something that is painfully lacking on most social media sites (including HN). Give users the ability to dislike something strongly enough that anyone who voted it up is excluded from all vote counts/rankings/recommendations as provided to that user for some period of time. While this leads to a filtered world, that is exactly what users expect from sites like these. Reddit is es…

Two things: trivially, you can change the subreddits you are subscribed to and remove the "fictitous FB pic" etc. posts. Second, and more interestingly: people have different facets that they show in different subreddits. As an example here on HN people prefer tech-oriented stuff. But not everyone here is that into tech. They just sort or organize the content, so they come to HN for in-depth stuff, and (say) Engadget…

I see this argument a lot, and I have two counterpoints:

1. I don't want to have to spend time researching subreddits just to figure out what I'd like. Content aggregators are meant to remove steps from the process, not add them. 2. While the content of smaller subreddits are usually improved, the level of discourse in comments are not. Even if you say 'okay, no meme posts, no meme comments', the fact is that you're going to have a glut of commentors whose first impulse are to crack a joke or make a surface-level comment. The difference in comments between a post on here and a post on /TrueReddit/ are astounding.

(The one pretty ready example to the above are < 100 member subreddits, but those usually have the issue of insufficient content.)

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#27

Post by betterth » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 2:52 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #22

AlexanderZ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that subreddits don't matter, then you are clearly expecting from Reddit something that it was not designed to have. The most popular subreddits are swarmed with teenagers and the quality has gone downhill, that's true. But the value of Reddit is in its (less popular) subreddits.

If you think that subreddits don't matter Categorization does still matter (in the Netflix example they can competently recommend and rank for me, but they still allow me to filter into specific categories). Subreddits are useful. However subreddits are a very coarse, manual solution to what I described. To the comment about what reddit is designed for, it started sans subreddits. Indeed, an original focus was recomm…

Manual binning is more than the "hack", it's the reason Reddit is successful and the reason why Digg will not be (unless they emulate).

Manual binning does something magical: each bin is a separate community run by moderators. Each one has different rules, different posters, different content and different discussion.

If you automatically sort into bins, then you will automatically lose the distinction between bins.

You cannot get your users to respect the difference between communities if you are unwilling to show them that each community is different, and deserves individual attention.

Sure, find a better algorithm for the front page and logged out users.

But to destroy the autonomy of the subreddit would be to destroy the very thing that makes reddit successful.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#28

Post by huggyface » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:00 PM UTC

betterth wrote: post #27

huggyface wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that subreddits don't matter Categorization does still matter (in the Netflix example they can competently recommend and rank for me, but they still allow me to filter into specific categories). Subreddits are useful. However subreddits are a very coarse, manual solution to what I described. To the comment about what reddit is designed for, it started sans subreddits. Indeed, an original focus was recomm…

Manual binning is more than the "hack", it's the reason Reddit is successful and the reason why Digg will not be (unless they emulate). Manual binning does something magical: each bin is a separate community run by moderators. Each one has different rules, different posters, different content and different discussion. If you automatically sort into bins, then you will automatically lose the distinction between bins.…

Why do you think they can't coexist? In fact my actual suggestion is that they should coexist. But the "just subscribe appropriately" response is fundamentally broken, and only provides a partial solution. This approach absolutely benefits any subreddit as well.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#29

Post by derleth » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #13

raldi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which subreddits do you subscribe to where you see that unwanted content?

Which subreddits do you subscribe to where you see that unwanted content? It shouldn't matter what subreddits I subscribe to (and the encroachment of certain trends keeps herding people to yet new subreddits. /r/gaming -> rage comics and DAE remember. Okay, everyone to /r/games...rinse repeat. /r/atheism -> ridiculous and obviously fake caricatures for people to knock down. /r/programming -> beginner material, so wha…

> It shouldn't matter what subreddits I subscribe to

Also, it shouldn't matter what Usenet newsgroups I read and what TV channels I watch.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#30

Post by AlexanderZ » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:10 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #18

AlexanderZ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that subreddits don't matter, then you are clearly expecting from Reddit something that it was not designed to have. The most popular subreddits are swarmed with teenagers and the quality has gone downhill, that's true. But the value of Reddit is in its (less popular) subreddits.

huggyface's point is that Reddit should hide uninteresting-for-me material and surface interesting-for-me material automatically. Subscribing to subreddits is a manual process that shouldn't be necessary.

How is subscribing to a subreddit fundamentally different from upvoting? To get recommendations, you need to somehow feed the recommendation engine with your interests.

Look at it this way: when you upvote a fitness-related submission, you say "hey, I'm somewhat interested in fitness", when you subscribe to /r/fitness, you say "hey, I'm really interested in fitness."

So, both upvoting and subscribing are actually manual actions.