Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#31

Post by w1ntermute » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:53 PM UTC

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #5

FigBug wrote: post #4

Looks good. I'm always looking for better ways to read reddit. I don't like their UI. I've been experimenting with the best way to read reddit. My first idea was a specialized browser that has 5 tabs open. When you close one tab, another automatically opens with the next unread story from the current subreddit. That way, as fast as you could smack Ctrl+W, you'd get the the next unread story, already loaded. It worked…

The biggest problems with reddit aren't so much how to read it, but rather what can be read there. Most of the major subreddits are no longer worth following, unless you're interested in hipsterism or curious about the meme-of-the-hour. The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community. Censorshi…

> The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community.

Not true. There are several smaller subreddits with excellent communities and excellent moderation. The major issue is discovery - it took me years before I (accidentally) stumbled across these subreddits.

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#32

Post by dotjosh » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 4:55 PM UTC

I built a proof-of-concept that I put in the chrome store a year and a half ago that looks just like this. I was just playing with angular and I didn't realize 1000+ users would use it so it's been ignored since then.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-reader/hjee...

https://github.com/dotjosh/redditreader

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#33

Post by bbx » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:00 PM UTC

lftl wrote: post #3

This is a bit pedantic, but elastic in design context usually refers to a design element that changes with respect to the user's font size. Reedit, has a few elements where that is the case, but I think the term that's more descriptive is responsive, meaning the layout changes with respect to the client's window size. Saying it was elastic actually had my interest piqued, because you don't see many layouts that reall…

You're right. It is responsive and not exactly elastic. But even without changing your browser's width and just zooming in, the layout goes from 3 columns to 1 column and doesn't just make everything bigger. So you could say it is elastic too in some way.

I used to experiment in elastic designs (using em for all widths) but it was clearly difficult to maintain. But the main reason why I quit doing it is because nowadays most browsers' zoom in function isn't only increasing the font size but increasing all widths accordingly too. It's a complete zoom rather than a simple font increase.

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#34

Post by jacobparker » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:13 PM UTC

I made a version for viewing in w3m (and other console-based browsers) and my phone: http://ja.cob.xxx/r/ (to get subreddits use urls like reddit. The default is http://ja.cob.xxx/r/programming+truereddit+literature )

The font is big to make the stories easier to click on the phone. It is missing basically every feature of reddit other than links and comment reading because I do not use them (I do not have an account.)

Example comment page: http://ja.cob.xxx/r/programming/comments/15ye3l/scala_2100_n...

The source code is available at https://github.com/j3parker/minimal-reddit

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#35

Post by Posibyte » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:26 PM UTC

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #5

FigBug wrote: post #4

Looks good. I'm always looking for better ways to read reddit. I don't like their UI. I've been experimenting with the best way to read reddit. My first idea was a specialized browser that has 5 tabs open. When you close one tab, another automatically opens with the next unread story from the current subreddit. That way, as fast as you could smack Ctrl+W, you'd get the the next unread story, already loaded. It worked…

The biggest problems with reddit aren't so much how to read it, but rather what can be read there. Most of the major subreddits are no longer worth following, unless you're interested in hipsterism or curious about the meme-of-the-hour. The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community. Censorshi…

I think this is a radical idea, but hear me out: I fully believe the community could be better curated if they took the down-vote button away. (Or, at least, reserved it for the highest echelon of users)

Looking from the island of HackerNews, back to the continent of Reddit where I wasted so many years of productivity, I've seen amazing wonders in the way HN uses its down-vote systems. In essence, it's there to "nudge" the discussion back into the right direction, and overall a great tool for curating a community from those that have been decided by their peers to curate.

To me, a down-vote button puts an undue weight on the negativity of a discussion. There's three states: "I liked this", in which you up-vote, "I didn't like this", in which you ignore it, and "I didn't like this", in which you down-vote. Even reddiquette dictates that it should only be used for anything that doesn't contribute. It's very clear that's not how it's used, and in my opinion that can only be fixed by changing the official meaning of the button or restricting its use altogether. I think the latter has amazing effects on community discussion, as I've seen here on HN.

Stuff I know I didn't discuss above: The effect of a non-focused forum discussion, abuse in voting systems, impacts of large communities.

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#36

Post by rmc » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:30 PM UTC

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #5

FigBug wrote: post #4

Looks good. I'm always looking for better ways to read reddit. I don't like their UI. I've been experimenting with the best way to read reddit. My first idea was a specialized browser that has 5 tabs open. When you close one tab, another automatically opens with the next unread story from the current subreddit. That way, as fast as you could smack Ctrl+W, you'd get the the next unread story, already loaded. It worked…

The biggest problems with reddit aren't so much how to read it, but rather what can be read there. Most of the major subreddits are no longer worth following, unless you're interested in hipsterism or curious about the meme-of-the-hour. The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community. Censorshi…

Censorship has become an issue within some subreddits, too. It's not about getting rid of blatant spammers any more. Far too often we've seen contributing, albeit unorthodox, members of these communities banned for expressing views that may be controversial, but still worth expressing.

This is a good thing. Individual subreddits can and do have particular rules. For example, r/lgbt, r/transgender etc. all have rules banning homophobic or transphobic comments. In a world where trans people are killed for living as themselves (or driven to the edge of society and commit suicide), it's good to have a place where they don't have to continually verbally fight to support their human rights.

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#37

Post by cryptoz » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #36

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problems with reddit aren't so much how to read it, but rather what can be read there. Most of the major subreddits are no longer worth following, unless you're interested in hipsterism or curious about the meme-of-the-hour. The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community. Censorshi…

Censorship has become an issue within some subreddits, too. It's not about getting rid of blatant spammers any more. Far too often we've seen contributing, albeit unorthodox, members of these communities banned for expressing views that may be controversial, but still worth expressing. This is a good thing. Individual subreddits can and do have particular rules. For example, r/lgbt, r/transgender etc. all have rules…

> This is a good thing.

No, it's not.

The moderators of r/conservative think that climate change is a hoax. If you write an on-topic, polite comment that even suggests that climate change is real, you will be banned. This is a terrible, terrible way to run a community. The conservatives on reddit live in a bubble where all science is banned. It's not a positive state of affairs.

(Edit: I'm not conservative, but I frequent that subreddit to educate about science, climate, etc, and have been banned many times for these comments.)

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#38

Post by cryptoz » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:37 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #29

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problems with reddit aren't so much how to read it, but rather what can be read there. Most of the major subreddits are no longer worth following, unless you're interested in hipsterism or curious about the meme-of-the-hour. The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community. Censorshi…

>Software won't fix these major problems. They're issues with the community itself. Each sub is its own community. If you're having troubles like you mentioned above, you haven't found the right ones yet.

That's not a legitimate way of thinking about the problem, though. Some of the communities in question are very large and powerful places; making a popular comment there can have a large impact on a huge number of people's lives. And many of the subreddits are run by totalitarian dictators, so you end up with large and powerful subreddits that are curated by crazy moderators.

It's not about finding the "right community" for you, it's about hosting a real and legitimate platform for discussion.

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#39

Post by redwood » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:48 PM UTC

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #5

FigBug wrote: post #4

Looks good. I'm always looking for better ways to read reddit. I don't like their UI. I've been experimenting with the best way to read reddit. My first idea was a specialized browser that has 5 tabs open. When you close one tab, another automatically opens with the next unread story from the current subreddit. That way, as fast as you could smack Ctrl+W, you'd get the the next unread story, already loaded. It worked…

The biggest problems with reddit aren't so much how to read it, but rather what can be read there. Most of the major subreddits are no longer worth following, unless you're interested in hipsterism or curious about the meme-of-the-hour. The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community. Censorshi…

I disagree. There's no doubt, however, that a static reddit experience (e.g. one where you don't change your usage patterns over the years) will leave you bummed, as you've been.

If you continue to find the interesting subreddits -- and they're out there -- and cut the crap, you'll be fine! There as subreddits of essentially the same quality as HackerNews, for example, for many other subjects.

Perhaps some subject areas are more lacking than others. On a non-subject basis, but simply for in-depth interesting reading, like reddit was back in the day, I recommend these subreddits: - r/truereddit - r/truetruereddit - r/foodforthought

There's no doubt people are trying hard to keep things from getting worse (hence creating truetrue above on top of true). But if you remain part of the community I think you'll be surprised what an amazing ecosystems of subreddits have been created.

Re: Reeddit - Minimalist, elastic and read-only web app client for Reddit

#40

Post by koko775 » Sat, Jan 05, 2013, 5:50 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #37

rmc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censorship has become an issue within some subreddits, too. It's not about getting rid of blatant spammers any more. Far too often we've seen contributing, albeit unorthodox, members of these communities banned for expressing views that may be controversial, but still worth expressing. This is a good thing. Individual subreddits can and do have particular rules. For example, r/lgbt, r/transgender etc. all have rules…

> This is a good thing. No, it's not. The moderators of r/conservative think that climate change is a hoax. If you write an on-topic, polite comment that even suggests that climate change is real, you will be banned . This is a terrible, terrible way to run a community. The conservatives on reddit live in a bubble where all science is banned. It's not a positive state of affairs. (Edit: I'm not conservative, but I fr…

That's their right, though.

The same process that allows a teen to invade a subreddit and fill it with memes is the same thing that allows anyone to invade a subreddit and fill it with their opinions.

No matter how valid that opinion is, it's still disruptive to a community. If subreddits are to be self-policing, they can't be obligated to not live in a bubble, however unfortunate that bubble may be, if that is what they have agreed upon.

If you want to see an example of a heavily moderated forum done right, head to SomethingAwful. It has some lightly-moderated pressure valves, but the more topical forums keep a leash on discussions without chilling the conversation.