Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit

#301

Post by Gracana » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 10:28 PM UTC

ebfe wrote: post #216

zethraeus wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not identifying as a feminist or not being a feminist? You can identify however you want, but if you're truly not sexist, you're a feminist as far as I can tell.

The word "feminist" is more commonly understood to mean a supporter of the modern women's advocacy movement, rather than anyone who believes in equality of the sexes. Imagine a Republican telling you that "Republican" is defined as someone who supports natural human rights, and therefore anyone who truly supports natural human rights is a Republican. The feminist definition of "feminism" is inaccurate for the same re…

I hate it when people give this definition of feminism. Feminism supports gender equality and there are ways that benefits everyone, but that's obviously not the whole of it, and I dislike the idea that men can only be sold on feminism if they think there's something in it for them.

Re: Reddit

#302

Post by rezashirazian » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 10:36 PM UTC

kyro wrote: post #9

Exciting news. One thing I sincerely hope reddit will do with the new injection is to increase the level of quality of content and discussion across the board. Often the advice given is "you've got to find the smaller subreddits" and while that's true, I think having the first few layers filled with terrible content and hive-minded, often racist/sexist discussion is incredibly detrimental to both the site's image and…

I have to disagree. 'Quality' is subjective. Trying to decide what should and should not be part of reddit goes against its overall 'democratic' mantra. It should remain open to all without much prejudice beyond the public's upvote/downvote.

Increased level of quality in both content and discussion should come naturally by attracting and retaining intelligent individuals.

Re: Reddit

#303

Post by kvl7 » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 10:54 PM UTC

sujosh wrote: post #282

I enjoy Sam's writing but I am wondering why is he doing this ? Of course, its his money and he has 100 % right to do with it whatever he wants but still -- 1. Reddit is site which promotes hatred. Radical men hatred is quite common to find out. 2. Almost all mods are SJWs. It is almost impossible to find or carry out rational discussion on reddit. This hatred is so strong that many FEMINAZIs recommend getting rid of…

I completely agree with your points, and just created this account to post something similar until I saw your post.

Reddit is indeed a shithole, filled with an extremely radical left-wing hive mind that is completely devoid of critical thinking skills.

Re: Reddit

#304

Post by Crito » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 11:06 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #221

sliverstorm wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being a feminist doesn't make you sexist, last I checked.

Last you checked, eh? Where did you do your checking? Let's review some definitions for feminism: "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities" "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes" Which part of that do you disagree with that makes you not a feminist? And, if being a feminist means one supports gender equality (which is what it means), how do you belie…

Feminists calling other people "not _real_ feminists" is a full-time hobby for some people. Some people even consider watching the drama to be a spectator sport of sorts. There are entire subreddits dedicated to just observing this sort of drama.

Some people, having been accused of being "not _real_ feminists" one time to many, stop self-identifying as such (even though their views on gender equality have not changed).

Re: Reddit

#305

Post by jseliger » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 11:13 PM UTC

giulianob wrote: post #75

As a long time Reddit user, I've been really disappointed lately with Reddits "battle" against content creators and the little recourse you have if you are marked as a spammer or shadow banned. See the recent /r/indiegaming debacle for example, where a subreddit where mainly indie devs would post about their games now allows very little self promotion ( http://redd.it/2fdwyv ). Some of these rules are Reddit wide so…

if you are banned from a subreddit (even a default one) the moderators can basically choose to ignore you and you are SOL

This touches an issue I'd like to elaborate on: the psychology of someone who is willing to moderate a Reddit subsection—or any similar site, like many mailing lists—is probably not good. It takes someone willing to spend a fair amount of time at a thankless task that is hard to do well and rarely if ever remunerative.

A lot of the people who start at that task do so optimistically but quit as their lives change or the task becomes more onerous. Who gets left? People with axes to grind; people with no sense of perspective; petty tyrants; and so on. I don't use Reddit much for many reasons, but one is the low quality of moderators. I don't bother messaging them anymore, ever, because doing so is largely a waste of time.

The problem with moderators is not dissimilar from the problem of users: people who regularly have something interesting to say and the means to say it well get blogs, as I wrote here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/social-news-sites-a... . Those who don't stay on Reddit.

Re: Reddit

#306

Post by fragmede » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 11:13 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #264

fragmede wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think its asking way too much of someone who wants to join a casual site known for cat pics and meme jokes to read through the couple dozen default sub rules. But it's not asking too much of that same cat-and-meme based system to be a focusing point for decently written short-stories and a good place to discuss books? I mean, you're saying that it's asking too much of people that they just click 'unsubscribe' on…

My point is that the system at writingprompts worked fine before they were made a default sub. I imagine 2X was a better place before as well, but I'm not a reader of that sub, so I can't really comment. Reddit's management simply has an economic incentive to promote these gems to defaults to draw in users and make the site more attractive to those unwilling to dig down, but in the end this hurts those subreddits. I…

> Reddit's management simply has an economic incentive to promote these gems...

Management's economic incentive is purely to get more money from existing sponsors and to get more sponsors - and if they had to close down /r/writingprompts to achieve those ends, it'd happen. Look at how Reddit handled the celebrity nudes leaks were handled.

Re: Reddit

#307

Post by jseliger » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 11:14 PM UTC

smikims wrote: post #82

cryoshon wrote: post #13

Mod/admin censorship, government manipulation (out of Eglin AFB most likely), and corporate advertising/shilling are pretty blatantly huge in reddit right now, with many users openly looking for alternative websites. The admin team has shown again and again that they're willing to tolerate anything until there's bad PR. One of the founders (Alexis) has a PR firm, Antique Jetpack, which is on record [1] as cooperating…

>Mod/admin censorship I'll admit that mods aren't always perfect, but they're (for the most part) regular users who are making communities the way they want to. I've very rarely seen people remove posts or ban users just to promote a particular agenda, and the ones that did were hated by their fellow mods. And I'd really like to see some good examples of admin censorship. The more common complaint I hear about the ad…

I'll admit that mods aren't always perfect, but they're (for the most part) regular users who are making communities the way they want to

I agree with the rest of your comment but would like to qualify this, for reasons I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8391963 .

Re: Reddit

#308

Post by Uhhrrr » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 11:21 PM UTC

anonbanker wrote: post #119

alexis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally false. Check my comment history: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20r4o8/talking_bitc...

Went through four pages, and didn't see a single zero-point comment. That's pretty rare for reddit.

Eh, there are plenty of 1's and 2's.

Re: Reddit

#309

Post by Implicated » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 11:25 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #116

minimaxir wrote: post #7

I like Reddit. I recently obtained a data dump of every single submission and comment so I could perform interesting data analysis and may just determine what make a post on Reddit viral. The problem I have with Reddit is that I'm still unsure if it's a positive externality. There's a lot of good aspects of Reddit (discovery, community), but there's so much bad about Reddit that it's impossible to overlook it (abusiv…

Where did you get the data dump from?

I'm fairly curious as to the source of this as well.

Re: Reddit

#310

Post by prawn » Tue, Sep 30, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

AJ007 wrote: post #297

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I'm a male and why is this on my reddit page" and people that just barge in without reading rules to post things against our rules I think its asking way too much of someone who wants to join a casual site known for cat pics and meme jokes to read through the couple dozen default sub rules. There's no practical educational solution here. The volume of new users and the labor of understanding all these rules is huge…

For those of us who have run online communities, there certainly is a strong inverse relationship between age & size. A big community continually fractures off disgruntled users. There certainly are some exceptions to this, and examples to follow. If, "In several years, I think reddit could have close to a billion users" then the quality of reddit will be just that. Hell, with a billion users, the average person will…

"For those of us who have run online communities, there certainly is a strong inverse relationship between age & size."

The same is very often true of physical social spaces too. How often do you see a new, niche bar later attract a broader crowd and turn into the sort of place that attracts thugs? Or how often alcohol-fuelled violence starts around the larger venues because they attract a less thoughtful crowd?

Perhaps the early arrivals subscribe to the ethos while the late-comers are just there because their base needs are met. In the case of a social site: regular content, people to troll or others to upvote their jokes. In the case of a club: a reliable meat market and cheap drinks.