21–25 of 25 posts
I'm surprised that no mention was made of the big rewrite. A lot of us early users were lisp/Graham followers and intrigued by the fact that the site was written in lisp. I seem to recall the rewrite being a big deal.
I'm surprised that no mention was made of the big rewrite. A lot of us early users were lisp/Graham followers and intrigued by the fact that the site was written in lisp. I seem to recall the rewrite being a big deal.
We did a post-acquisition python-to-python rewrite -- clean out the cobwebs, switch frameworks, and redo the database schema -- which was much harder, longer, and more painful to deploy. Though in that case it was one of those drastic changes whose primary side effect was that no none notices a thing.
I was interviewed for this article (as well as many of the other early reddit folks), and I think it turned out well. It's one of the few articles about reddit where the author actually spoke to any of us, and it shows in the depth and accuracy.
Not perfect, but it really was pretty damn close to 100% accurate.
This article only touches lightly on what I believe to be Reddit's primary weakness, namely the inability to elect moderators for various subs. If someone is able to do a Reddit-like site with a fair means for nominating and electing moderators they will have a good chance at eclipsing Reddit's success. Reddit could also implement this themselves, and given the sometimes questionable actions of some moderators (e.g.…
I hope you don't mean elected by the users, because I can't imagine a more miserable online community than one where moderators are chosen by user vote.
When you operate an open platform on the modern web, the first thing you quickly learn is that you will end up being embroiled in a lot of random controversies you never expected to have a role in. We've had doxxing issues, got caught in some "Gamergate-esque" drama, and even had a DDoS site (using jQuery, pretty ingenious actually) put up that ended up taking down the President of Mexico's web site (you can't make this stuff up). That little stunt got me a few threatening emails from, literally, the Federales (Mexican Federal Police). And of course, there's the usual litany list of pill spam (arbitrage between other countries and US citizens who pay full price is, somewhat hilariously, one of our biggest spam problems) and whatnot.
The biggest epiphany I've had over the course of the year is on the true nature of "freedom of speech" on the internet. You start to learn very quickly that not all speech is free or equal. It may be under the Constitution, but if you're a startup and a multi-million dollar corporation or university (yes, we've had issues with Universities too) shows up and has high-powered (and bored) lawyers to waste your time and money harassing you, it doesn't matter if their complaint is legally valid or not. Your last resort of defense becomes public opinion. If you can't get public support for defending someone's freedom of speech, it doesn't matter what the Constitution says. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "the boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave".
I'm not trying to sound dismal or depressed. Neocities has been exhausting at times, but I'm having a lot of fun. I tend gravitate to stressful startups, and (I blame this on my previous work in political activism) tend to prefer them. Neocities overall has been going very strong, and it gives me a lot of joy to check out the new sites every day and see people learning how to write HTML. It's worth it. And I think, with knowledge and experience, the issues are manageable.
Tying this back to Reddit: Controversies aside, I think Reddit has done a great job over the last few years, and I want to congratulate them for the growth, and salute them for weathering the "boisterous seas" of being a tolerant, open platform. I don't know Yishan Wong personally and can't vouch for him on a personal or operational level, but I feel that Reddit has done a good job under his leadership, and I hope that people don't unfairly pigeonhole him as a failed leader because of the difficult nature of their work. In perfect honestly, having context for some of the issues they've had to deal with, I may have done far worse in his position.
This article really makes me want to meet the Reddit team. I bet there's a lot I could learn from them.
TLDR: Running an open platform is tough. Cut them some slack.