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Reddit is still in turmoil

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Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#191

Post by psyc »

twblalock wrote: post #6

I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations. It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake…

I use Reddit heavily, and subscribe to a wide variety of different sized subs. AskReddit is the only one I'm aware of that's still remotely anything-goes. Every other sub is so heavily modded that I have no expectation of any given thread I start staying up more than a couple hours. It's going the way of Wikipedia - so policed, it's no longer worth the effort to contribute at all.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#192

Post by afarrell »

xnull2guest wrote: post #121

Reddit's content curation has come at a time when social media writ large (Facebook, Twitter) has become linked into State Department and DoD programs. Counter-intelligence objectives are fought on the 'private property' of social media servers that host the content of individuals. Fighting the 'War of Ideas' in the 'cognitive domain of warfare', the effort to starve unwanted ideas for a place to roost and feed other…

I too long for the days of the ARPAnet, when the Internet was not associated with DoD programs.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#193

Post by RangerScience »

bane wrote: post #39

Why the hell is Reddit trying to make their own content when the entire point of the site is for the users to create the content? Don't make a Reddit podcast, make Reddit a podcast hosting network. Don't make a Reddit video show, make Reddit a video hosting site. Don't make a Reddit magazine, make Reddit a source for anybody to publish their own magazines. Why does Reddit have writers and editors and creative directo…

Why the hell is [Netflix] making their own content when the entire point of the site is for [existing studios] to create the content?

On the other hand, you're not wrong. Just because it works for Netflix doesn't mean it CAN work for Reddit, or that Reddit can execute on the idea.

...but Netflix is an amazing example as to the value of a content aggregator/distributor turning their hand to content creation.

fake edit

Flower arrangement does sound pretty useless, but your comment reminds me of the "no brown m&m's story": http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp

Maybe they're a hippy rock band and instead of a pyrotechnician to light the shit out of the drummer, they need a flower arranger to nature the shit out of it, instead?

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#194

Post by gaius »

gdwatson wrote: post #16
twblalock wrote: post #6

I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations. It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake…

Part of the problem is that Reddit even more than Twitter is structured as a meta-community, and so any standards which are imposed will be external to a given sub-community. That means that they will be perceived as, and may sometimes be , social and political censorship.

It is perfectly possible for communities with different conventions to co-exist peacefully. The problems only come when you "cross the streams" and I think many people who do do it deliberately, precisely for the controversy (attention, clicks) it will generate.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#195

Post by neotek »

twblalock wrote: post #6

I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations. It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake…

>It will be difficult for Condé Nast to get its money's worth out of Reddit now.

Condé Nast hasn't owned Reddit for half a decade now. Advance Publications owns both of them, and Reddit was split off as a separate entity with its own board and shareholders, one of which is Advance.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#196

Post by rat87 »

mgalka wrote: post #138
Mahn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on the nail. To me personally, the moves Reddit has been doing the past couple years read as if they don't know exactly what Reddit should be or what they want it to be. I imagine it's not easy, Reddit is massive and somehow not quite killing it, but somehow it feels like there's a strange lack of focus.

The mobile version of the site doesn't work and they only just released a mobile app. That says it all about their lack of focus.

Android has at least a few very good reddit apps (including the open source Slide), they don't really need an official client.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#197

Post by gaius »

olegious wrote: post #28
LA_Banker wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. Reddit could easily sell targeted ads based on subreddits (e.g. inking a deal with Uniqlo to advertise on /r/malefashionadvice or /r/femalefashionadvice). It chooses to pursue other monetization means to preserve the Reddit experience. We'll see if it's able to stumble onto another sustainable business model.

The problem is most high quality advertisers don't want to have their brand promoted along side user generated content. So while Reddit has a ton of traffic, much of that traffic is worthless to the most desirable advertisers.

Exactly the same problem as Tumblr.

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#198

Post by r721 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #153
kickme444 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a thesis that is basically identical to yours about unmanaged expectations and community being the main root of the problem that reddit/twitter/etc are facing, which is part of the reason why we started Imzy https://www.imzy.com/imzy We got some press early on that really told an untrue narrative of what we are trying to do, but we've made a ton of progress in a few months of our private beta and our communiti…

Would you care to give a true narrative of what you're trying to do? You linked to an empty page where I can request an invite, and the "about us" page just says you're "rethinking" communities online. What is the nature of moderation and communication on the site? I can glean a bit of info from news sites, but not very much if you say they're fundamentally misunderstanding you.

Relatively recent HN discussion of Imzy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11556017

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#199

Post by gallonofmilk »

beefsack wrote: post #23
twblalock wrote: post #6

I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations. It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake…

> If there is a lesson in this, it is that online communities which plan to implement anti-harassment policies ought to do so from the beginning, and develop the expectation among the users that such policies exist, and will continue to exist. A few relatively popular programming languages have begun publishing official community code of conduct documents[1][2]. While initially I thought it was a bit overreaching, I…

there is an inherent trade off though. would reddit have ever become so big and popular if it had enforced a strict conduct policy from day 1? many of the early users of reddit were not necessarily the mainstream "good" users that eventually came post-digg.

it can be a distraction to focus on that early on when what's most important is user adoption...

Re: Reddit is still in turmoil

#200

Post by apatters »

Practicality wrote: post #107
eropple wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason web forums exist is because people are lazy about adopting decentralized Free software Or because that open-source software is user-hostile and has no serious argument for its use for 99% of people. When users don't do something you like, in almost every instance it's your failing rather than theirs.

Probably because it's free software. "Beggars can't be choosers" There are very few open software engineers who like improving UX. Since it's free you have to like it to do it, so I don't know if this will ever change.

Is it really that they don't like improving UX, or is it that they don't know how, or don't respect people who understand UX?

I like improving UX but when I look at many open source projects from the outside they are run by cranky ubernerds who triumph technical merits above everything else and I can't imagine them being very cooperative with someone whose specialty was "UX."

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