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Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

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Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#211
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of toxic people we are talking about on Reddit are not toxic for their politics. Racism, bigotry, and misogyny are not political topics. It isn't like tax policy or any other topic that can be debated. There is one clear side that is wrong.

Racism, bigotry and misogyny are politics. You perfectly demonstrate my point in that you hold the political aspects above all other aspects in determining the validity of an entire persons life and contribution to society because of the ideas they express. For example, Roseanne making one tweet and ruining her whole career. Reddit doesn't force that sort of political conformity on people.

If you think Roseanne's sins were limited to a single tweet, you're woefully uninformed on the matter. It was the sum of all of her past transgressions, the tweet was merely the straw breaking the camel's back, surprisingly. I would have thought it was the Nazi cookie photoshoot.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reddit works because it’s anonymous Are you sure there? Anonymity doesn't really exist anymore on the internet for the average person. Reddit has the illusion of anonymity which gives its users a false sense of privacy so they can act the way they truly are (parallels to Westworld if you watch the show). It would be incredibly easy for Reddit to de-anonymize its user base, the same way Facebook was trying to do wit…

You can make a new user account on Reddit in 30 seconds and don't even need an email (last I checked). Pretty easy to maintain a significant degree of anonymity by just deleting your account and making a new one. With that said, most users are more concerned about being anonymous to their peers in conversation than they are to Reddit's administration itself, IMO.

You do need an email to sign up, although since they allow a user to be 'logged in' as more than one user at a time, they may allow more than one account per email address. And they don't do email confirmation, though. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#213
post #15

Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Change any one of those three and the user base will abandon you. It’s been Reddit’s dilemma since the beginning: you can’t monetize a toxic user base that has total freedom. Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects. I’m still skeptical of Reddi…

Yeah and right now they’re trying to change more than one to fail faster.

Has Reddit tried “periodic fundraisers” like public TV and Wikipedia?

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#214
post #194
post #15

Reddit works because it’s anonymous, information-dense and relatively ad-free. Change any one of those three and the user base will abandon you. It’s been Reddit’s dilemma since the beginning: you can’t monetize a toxic user base that has total freedom. Sure you can try to drive away the toxic users, but it turns out that those toxic users are also pretty influential in non-toxic aspects. I’m still skeptical of Reddi…

> and relatively ad-free The redesign that's currently in beta seems to mostly be driven by the desire to embed more ads. Instead of just one ad at the top of the page, there's new several spread throughout the feed, very similar to Twitter's promoted tweets.

I didn't visit the site in while since the last "sub cleanse" made really obvious the direction they where steering to, today i saw it due to a google search and the new "Facebook-esque" layout made me throw up a bit in my mouth.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#215
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like a reddit-like site that is more exclusive, it filters out the non-serious users with a yearly subscription fee of say $100.

"I'd like a reddit-like site that is more exclusive, it filters out the non-serious users with a yearly subscription fee of say $100." This exists: https://www.metafilter.com/ The fee is $5 which turns out to be an insurmountable barrier for just about everyone. I personally like the site very much.

This is cool, I may join! Thanks

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#216
post #94

The biggest value gain from Reddit, to me, is the ability to centralize effectively around different hobbies and activities. In the past, if you wanted to find an online community for a movie or a game, you had to find a forum for that community. Finding forums that are well managed and capture a good segment of the community is hard -- and Reddit just becomes a default place to look now. Let's say a new TV show star…

> and you really like it and want to discuss it more

Reddit is a terrible place to discuss anything. Great place to see funny memes about your favorite hobbies and TV shows though.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#217
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's essentially usenet for current times. Which I've always found interesting, as usenet would give reddit users back the freedoms they often crave: no ads, no censorship, no tracking, etc.

Few Reddit users actually crave that, hence the success of Reddit. Neo-Nazis for one example, do crave that, because otherwise they’re shut down. If you want unfettered freedom, try Voat, it’s downright pestilential, but it’s free.

TIL: pestilential

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#218
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of toxic people we are talking about on Reddit are not toxic for their politics. Racism, bigotry, and misogyny are not political topics. It isn't like tax policy or any other topic that can be debated. There is one clear side that is wrong.

So there's no debate to be had on affirmative action, and everyone who supports it is racist and wrong? Plenty of people I know consider it racist. The reality is, how people and groups define terms like racism, bigotry, and misogyny is often very politicized.

Sure? You'll find tons of /relatively/ civil and non-toxic discussions of the issue on places like CMV. Toxicity comes into play when the trust that all parties are having an honest discussion break down and everyone believes everyone else is speaking with the two sides of their mouth.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restricting CSS and wikis to be standardized is fantastic - it means that mobile users and desktop users might actually get to see the same subreddit.

For my interests, I guess I can't see the value in a mobile user; maybe in some really one-off cases in my interests it would be prudent for a unified view? The most I've seen a Reddit board do is have fancier sidebar links. My thoughts when it comes to having differentiated Reddits are forum-like features such as shoutboxes, hyper-specific file uploads, or even flat-out disabling Karma on that board (dunno if that o…

The value of a mobile user is that a huge proportion of social media usage comes from people using their smartphones. I appreciate the quirky designs for a few subreddits (r/mildlyinfuriating is a standout), but I have my user settings configured to ignore custom CSS on desktop, just for ease of use.

Re: Reddit just passed Facebook as #3 most popular website in US

#220
post #94

The biggest value gain from Reddit, to me, is the ability to centralize effectively around different hobbies and activities. In the past, if you wanted to find an online community for a movie or a game, you had to find a forum for that community. Finding forums that are well managed and capture a good segment of the community is hard -- and Reddit just becomes a default place to look now. Let's say a new TV show star…

I think it's okay to some extent but I find that forums definitely are a much better resource and controversial threads or posts in forums don't get buried or hidden by a downvote. Some of the most humorous threads you'll read would have had a -inf rating and thus never seen on reddit. To me, reddit seems a great way for a community to reinforce groupthink. Instances I can think of are forums for motorcycles, cars, p…

Don't assume forums are somehow freer of group-think because they are less accessible. Once they get established, the existing user base tends to push out anyone that doesn't agree with their views.

Some subreddits are awesome, and some are way less awesome. And much of the best, most informative and technical information out there lives on subreddits.

Many people pine for the days when only the most savvy users knew about the forums, but I don't think there is any way to bring that era back.

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