Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit

#371

Post by Tomte » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 4:27 AM UTC

VLM wrote: post #210

lambda wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just somewhat puzzled that twox is a default. It seems like a prime candidate not to be just due to these sorts of inevitable problems. Lots of people new to discussion boards tend not to understand there may be different rules, sets of expected behavior, or the like on different sub-boards, so making something a default is likely to attract lots of people who are new and don't understand the rules. Once you coup…

"I'm curious why the mods decided to let it become a default." Seeing as reddit is just usenet of the 80s and early 90s on a web page in 2014, both in application, discussion topics, and more or less in culture, one lesson from usenet readers of the dark ages was there are or should be no default groups. I don't remember any default usenet groups in nn, tin, gnus... The same social pressures that lead to no defaults…

> I don't remember any default usenet groups in nn, tin, gnus

The news protocol specifically included a recommendation mechanism for "default subscribed groups", so that a news administrator could point new users to some important groups.

In Gnus that behaviour is triggered by the variable gnus-default-subscribed-newsgroups.

I'm certain that nn, tin and whatnot supported it, as well.

Re: Reddit

#372

Post by daimyoyo » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 4:35 AM UTC

jn1234 wrote: post #57

minimaxir wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, the lack of transparency can lead to baseless speculation, which can be just as toxic, if not worse . Case in point, during The Fappening, a large number were filled with conspiracy theories on why the administrators hadn't banned it yet before Wong's blog post, which was only made a week after the first incident.

The problem with reddit right now is that community managers are rather ineffective at actually handling the community which leads to the other employees of reddit (engineers) to finally step in. The only time when reddit does usually act is when there are some serious legal implications. This is what often leads to the reddit administrator's actions to be labeled as arbitrary. Although, as of recently the reddit adm…

The admins didn't want to ban /r/TheFappening but decided to after they got a flood of DMCA takedowns from the celebs lawyers. The sub actually broke the site because of how much traffic it was generating and that was almost 5 days before it got banned. They knew about the sub for several days and let it go because they have a hands-off policy and don't generally step in unless something drastic happens.

Re: Reddit

#373

Post by zmmmmm » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 4:47 AM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #271

fourstar wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mods don't decide to make a subreddit a default, admins do.

The mods were absolutely involved in the decision to make the subreddit a default. Unfortunately, moderators are not elected and they cannot be usurped. They have no obligations to their subscribers, and indeed in this case they made the decision behind closed doors.

> Unfortunately, moderators are not elected and they cannot be usurped. They have no obligations to their subscribers,

This is one of the big weaknesses of Reddit right now. As far as I can tell, who gets to moderate powerful subreddits comes down the the accident of history of who happened to think of it first. Several of the subreddits I frequent have had moderators slam down rules that most of the community disagree with (just for example /r/Android has a rule that you cannot post "questions", it is only for "news about Android" ...). This leads to a high variability in the quality of the moderation and curation of various subreddits. I'm not sure what the best alternative idea woudl be, but something better than "whoever thought of it first" should be possible.

Re: Reddit

#374

Post by BrandonM » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:01 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #59

It's a good time to invest in reddit. Not because it will become cooler over the coming years, but because it will become more valuable as it monetizes itself and sells off it's goodwill/equity. Reddit as a platform peaked in 2013- quantitatively[1] and qualitatively. It's mainstream now, and will soon be passe (something like SomethingAwful). If reddit has any value as an investment, it's for advertising and persona…

Your '[1]' link doesn't make the point that you claim it does. That post says that 2014 data isn't available yet.

Re: Reddit

#375

Post by peteretep » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:07 AM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #301

ebfe wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

    > Feminism supports gender equality

There are enough highly vocal people calling themselves feminists who seem more interested in manufacturing outrage, scolding men, and pursuing self-promotional agendas that it's hard to make any generalisations that will ring true about what feminism is and isn't.

    > I dislike the idea that men can only be sold on feminism
    > if they think there's something in it for them

Try convincing a nerdy, overweight white male high-school student who's never kissed a girl that he occupies a position of privilege compared to the popular girls at school.

You'll do better if you wait ten years, and then try to explain to the software engineer he became that he has relative privilege compared to the sophisticated VP of Sales who dresses to kill, or girls he meets in bars, but still, you're going to have a bit of a struggle.

You and I can reel off 50 ways in which he's privileged, and the inherent advantages he has by being white, male, smart, etc, but what he knows is that he has a daily grind, and that he has a lot of relationships in his life with women where they hold /all/ the cards.

While people continue to be blind to their own privilege, and only see the highlight reels of other people's privilege (eg: forever), you're only going to be able to sell it on gender equality, rather than "women's rights need to increase beyond where they are now".

Re: Reddit

#376

Post by sytelus » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:08 AM UTC

How do these people get time for reading reddit, twitter, FB and blogs? Just reading HN once in a while sips away pretty much all of my "free" time.

Re: Reddit

#377

Post by wingerlang » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:14 AM UTC

atko wrote: post #230

We are in the process of raising first round of funds for http://whoaverse.com and things are starting to get interesting. We have major plans for both enterprise and private use of the platform and when it comes to giving back to the community - we plan to use the same model big players like YouTube and Twitch have for rewarding content creation (actual money). This will be a fun ride which currently feels like Davi…

This is literally a reddit clone, what's your edge?

Re: Reddit

#378

Post by circuiter » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:20 AM UTC

Excellent. The comments here simply further the notion that HN is slowly turning into reddit.

Re: Reddit

#379

Post by pimlottc » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:47 AM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #99

foobarqux wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some examples of good quality subreddits?

They'll be very person specific but sure I like these (some are less than perfect). /r/futuresynth (no one comments but the stuff is great, nearly perfect ;)) /r/ada /r/embedded /r/raspberry_pi /r/bicycling /r/programming /r/linux /r/nottheonion There are some subs I try to like /r/minimalism (which on any given day is either "I have nothing...but these apple products" or "Two arms..one too many?") and /r/zen which i…

I still subscribe but I definitely wish /r/bicycling weren't so clogged with image posts (new bike day, first century, weight loss, etc...).

Re: Reddit

#380

Post by pimlottc » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 5:57 AM UTC

foobarqux wrote: post #49

noir_lord wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been using reddit for about 6 years, some of the smaller subs are amazing and I think it comes down to two major things, excellent moderation and community below a certain size (usually). I've thought about this for a while on and off and I'm not sure how you could scale that up in terms of moderation, some of the defaults do well while others are just a wasteground (I've also wondered if that is partially intentiona…

Can you give some examples of good quality subreddits?

I really find the various city subreddits to be quite useful, such as /r/chicago and /r/sanfrancisco, for local news, discussions and events. I've learned about many interesting activities this way and it also helps you stay in touch with the local culture when you're away.