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Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

cnn.com

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Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#21

Post by bdcravens »

dfc wrote: post #9

Can any HN/reddit folks recommend some interesting and useful subreddits? Whenever I stumble across a link to reddit I am not impressed with the level discussions. I have tried a number of different subreddits across a wide range (this is a wide net: anything from Call of Duty to Woodworking to Security) of topics and I usually find inane chatter or comments with nothing more than a link to the latest animated gif of…

/r/programming is good in that most of its links you've already seen on HN - there's less churn, and it's less ephemeral than HN. (Links persist at the top for days rather than less than 24 hours) Not better than HN, but if HN had a "best of the week", it'd closely mirror /r/programming.

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#22

Post by FraaJad »

dfc wrote: post #9

Can any HN/reddit folks recommend some interesting and useful subreddits? Whenever I stumble across a link to reddit I am not impressed with the level discussions. I have tried a number of different subreddits across a wide range (this is a wide net: anything from Call of Duty to Woodworking to Security) of topics and I usually find inane chatter or comments with nothing more than a link to the latest animated gif of…

I love the /r/nfl (American Football) subreddit. It is one of the better moderated and informative subreddits if you are into American football.

Almost all my knowledge of Am.Football can be sourced to that subreddit.

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#23

Post by bluthru »

dfc wrote: post #9

Can any HN/reddit folks recommend some interesting and useful subreddits? Whenever I stumble across a link to reddit I am not impressed with the level discussions. I have tried a number of different subreddits across a wide range (this is a wide net: anything from Call of Duty to Woodworking to Security) of topics and I usually find inane chatter or comments with nothing more than a link to the latest animated gif of…

I've found the best subreddits to be the ones about hobbies or an activity you'd like to learn more about. I think of it less as a "community" and more of a good dump of information and news on a topic.

Part of the problem is that it often just turns into instagram for _____. Examples:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gardening http://www.reddit.com/r/BBQ http://www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#24

Post by psbp »

minimaxir wrote: post #14
r-s wrote: post #8

I know its easy to hate on Reddit, but there is certainly some good content on a few of the smaller subreddits. I suspect that the majority of people in this 6% are only going to the front page and a few of the large sections.

The problem is that Reddit encourages low-quality content (/r/funny, /r/AdviceAnimals) because it generates more engagement (the picture bias). And as with many social networks, discovery is nonexistent.

Most of the smaller subreddits are dead until they hit a critical mass where it just becomes a flavored microcosm of the front page. Strict moderation helps, but its hard to distinguish a community that is necessarily part of a much larger community.

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#26

Post by dfc »

bluthru wrote: post #23
dfc wrote: post #9

Can any HN/reddit folks recommend some interesting and useful subreddits? Whenever I stumble across a link to reddit I am not impressed with the level discussions. I have tried a number of different subreddits across a wide range (this is a wide net: anything from Call of Duty to Woodworking to Security) of topics and I usually find inane chatter or comments with nothing more than a link to the latest animated gif of…

I've found the best subreddits to be the ones about hobbies or an activity you'd like to learn more about. I think of it less as a "community" and more of a good dump of information and news on a topic. Part of the problem is that it often just turns into instagram for _____. Examples: http://www.reddit.com/r/gardening http://www.reddit.com/r/BBQ http://www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing

The woodworking reddit was very much like instagram. I was surprised by the amount of pictures of pieces people wanted to build or pieces they were given/paid someone to make.

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#27

Post by atondwal »

dfc wrote: post #9

Can any HN/reddit folks recommend some interesting and useful subreddits? Whenever I stumble across a link to reddit I am not impressed with the level discussions. I have tried a number of different subreddits across a wide range (this is a wide net: anything from Call of Duty to Woodworking to Security) of topics and I usually find inane chatter or comments with nothing more than a link to the latest animated gif of…

Here's my subscription list, ranked by popularity (you might want to read it backwards...)

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=tMxvZrRQ

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#28

Post by sampo »

dfc wrote: post #9

Can any HN/reddit folks recommend some interesting and useful subreddits? Whenever I stumble across a link to reddit I am not impressed with the level discussions. I have tried a number of different subreddits across a wide range (this is a wide net: anything from Call of Duty to Woodworking to Security) of topics and I usually find inane chatter or comments with nothing more than a link to the latest animated gif of…

r/rust is a nice place to keep up with what happens with the rust programming language. r/scala, sometimes quite quiet, has scala news. r/ocaml is very quiet, but probably still all you need to keep up with the news. (There are also other programming language subreddits.) r/programming is quite generic, HN is better, often links appear in both.

r/math is sometimes okay-ish. If interested in politics and general discussions about Europe, r/europe is nice, they are running a series of threads on what people know about different countries. (Maybe other parts of the world also have active subreddits.) r/worldnews is a nice-ish feed of current news, r/news if you're American.

r/truereddit values links to insightful articles, tries to be like the Reddit of old, but not particularly geek-oriented. r/depthhub collects links to insightful comments elsewhere in Reddit.

r/metal used to run a series of "letter of the day", for bands the names of which begin with the letter, great way to discover new bands [1]. r/cocktails has pretty good quality mixology content. Some surprisingly specific hobbies sometimes have nice subreddit communities, like r/telecaster, r/bourbon, r/firefly.

[1] archived here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Metal/comments/17ztap/metal_az_bonus...

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#29

Post by danso »

I'm kind of surprised the number is that high, actually, and I've been an active member for 3 years. Outside of my tech/media circle, I know almost no one who uses Reddit. My local subreddit, r/nyc, could potentially be a good community board except that it's badly managed, though most of the local news sites skim content from it.

Re: Study: Reddit used by 6% of adult Internet users

#30

Post by seanmcdirmid »

minimaxir wrote: post #13
dfc wrote: post #9

Can any HN/reddit folks recommend some interesting and useful subreddits? Whenever I stumble across a link to reddit I am not impressed with the level discussions. I have tried a number of different subreddits across a wide range (this is a wide net: anything from Call of Duty to Woodworking to Security) of topics and I usually find inane chatter or comments with nothing more than a link to the latest animated gif of…

It's interesting how the Reddit hivemind tries to reconcile images and low-quality content. Case in point, /r/atheism recently banned direct links to images, requiring users to put links to them in self posts instead (where they would earn no link Karma). A mass exodus ensued due to these "two-click memes" to /r/atheismrebooted. Which subsequently imploded due to low-quality content and bad moderation. Reddit drama i…

Drama...

/r/pyongyang is a joke subreddit where users are banned immediately if they don't tow the DPRK party line and ingratiate themselves with the Kims. OK, this is good for a 30 second laugh, but /r/conservative is mostly the same way! I guess conservatives feel they are in a siege with the rest of left-leaning (6% of US adults) reddit that they ban anyone who might seems not to toe the line.

On the other hand, /r/askscience and /r/askhistorians are of amazing high quality. There is tons to learn in many gems subreddits like these ones.

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