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Reddit can't build a better search engine

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Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#221

Post by ravenstine »

quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #206

I've searched for Reddit in the past because Reddit is the only site where I can get community answers to an important question. In those cases, the community aspect mattered to me - for example, I recently moved to Boston, so I solicited Bostonian's recommendations from r/boston; my partner and I were having troubles, and I wanted to hear from people who'd gone through similar experiences; I wanted to learn about co…

Reddit doesn't replace all of search, but for me it does effectively replace search engines when I'm looking for an opinion. Life is short... I don't have time to weigh all the facts about something and make my own decision. While I do that a lot, when getting started with something, an initial opinion to go on is very useful.

Search engines have become really bad at surfacing genuine opinions. Crappy GPT-2 generated blogs have overwhelmed the ability of search engines to surface human generated blogs, and even the human ones are often clearly just someone's hour of research on a topic with the conclusion being "decide for yourself". Sites like Quora make it too easy for someone to insert their opinion without it being adequately tested in the public space. YouTube was once a fairly decent place to hear opinions but, like with regular search, it's currently optimized for the equivalent of low-effort blog posts: videos that are ~12 minutes long with little valuable information.

Reddit has many issues, but at least it's still a useful place to find opinions that are also openly tested against their respective subcommunities. The usual blog type content doesn't last long in most Reddit communities without becoming substantially downvoted. If I want to know why people are choosing a particular programming language, for instance, I can do `site:reddit.com why use c++` and actually get some concise and even nuanced opinions. An equivalent search across all sites on a search engine usually leads to long treatises with little value appearing first above the fold.

If I couldn't use `site:` syntax on DDG or Yandex, I'd probably go directly to Reddit's own search engine a lot of times. So Reddit wouldn't necessarily replace all of my searching, but it definitely would replace a large portion of it.

And I wish that wasn't so. I wish more of what appeared in search engine results could either be Reddit-type content or academic articles as opposed to all the flotsam we get that's somewhere in between those two yet fulfilling the needs of few readers.

EDIT: Somehow I forget how I'll also use HN in a similar way, though less often for some reason.

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#222

Post by pydry »

valar_m wrote: post #210
never_a-pickle wrote: post #203

Reddit results are not organic at all but maybe appears to be on the surface. Subs have their own "reddit" brands in accordance to the topic. They also have their own "reddit" opinions shared among almost every sub with enough people in it for justify propaganda. I already did my own informal research on this - reddit has transitioned into consumption. I went sub by sub for thousands of posts, even a few years ago, a…

> Subs have their own "reddit" brands in accordance to the topic. They also have their own "reddit" opinions shared among almost every sub with enough people in it for justify propaganda. Which is actually the cool thing about Reddit, because you can just create your own subreddit about a topic and set the rules as you see fit. Don't like that camping pics have products in the background? Alright, set a rule for your…

This used to work well but moderators have "professionalized" and nowadays will viciously stamp out any kind of separarism.

Creating a forum has never been hard. Attracting people is.

I would imagine this would get worse as money corrupts reddit the same way money corrupted google.

Whomever moderates /r/camping probably isnt doing it for free.

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#223

Post by miikavonbell »

petenick wrote: post #216

“The best way to fix the system is to prioritize websites that are there to share knowledge, not websites with their primary priority to make ad revenue.” The best way to fix the system is to prioritize the best content irrespective of monetization strategy. Search engines should not penalize websites trying to make money. They should penalize spammy websites that add little value but know how to game the system. The…

I haven't seen much discussions about solving the entire "search sucks" mess by simply introducing rich filtering for the results.

The way I see it is that Google is still some weird magic box that throws a bunch of random results out based on some black magic logic.

It's beyond my comprehension that there are no filters on any on the search engines (at least I don't remember seeing any).

By having some filtering options, such as "No JavaScript", "No ads", "SSGs only", "Page size < 1MB" and so on, search would be much better.

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#224

Post by adventured »

alphabetting wrote: post #198
300bps wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now the majority of the first page of results on Google are ads.

80% of queries have no ads

Which makes sense, that means they can't fill the inventory for those searches. The majority of queries likely yield garbage these days and or are just searches for things like conversions, definition look-ups, searches for the homepage of gmail or facebook (which is how many older people get back to those places), or people wanting to go directly to a specific page on Wikipedia (knowing that's half of what Google is good for now) and countless other similar searches.

It's quite amusing that so much of Google's value is now in being a glorified link generator for Wikipedia and Reddit.

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#225

Post by silent_cal »

I think this is actually a good argument. Once you build a search algorithm then people start trying to exploit it for visibility. It creates a reward system that conflicts with Reddit's voting system that's already there.

I just wish Reddit would get rid of all the NSFW content on the site, it makes for a juvenile atmosphere.

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#226

Post by nivethan »

jrussbowman wrote: post #220

I built https://www.unscatter.com using Reddit to source links for the search index. Last year I added Twitter as another source. I don't think it's a "better" search engine. It's a different lens through which to search. Reddit and Twitter are an information source for what people are talking about. This is why I limit my index to articles that have popped in my Reddit/Twitter input in the last 30 days, deleting any…

Very cool site! Is there a way to get the words in a list instead of a cloud?

I am interested in what your thoughts are about being in an echo chamber and getting out of it, but this is a great way to get a high level view of whats happening on reddit.

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#227

Post by ABraidotti »

never_a-pickle wrote: post #203

Reddit results are not organic at all but maybe appears to be on the surface. Subs have their own "reddit" brands in accordance to the topic. They also have their own "reddit" opinions shared among almost every sub with enough people in it for justify propaganda. I already did my own informal research on this - reddit has transitioned into consumption. I went sub by sub for thousands of posts, even a few years ago, a…

My hot take is that this represents actual human behavior, like in a human Sturgeon's law sense. 90% of campers are going to camp less than X times a year. (X == 3? IDK. some low number) They're going to go to Reddit and look for "best tent" and then go to REI and buy it and feel great. That's all they need.

10% of campers are going to camp > 10 times a year and have nuanced opinions about tents. Occasionally, these campers will post their lengthy tent opinions on Reddit, but mostly they'll stay quiet because they already know what the best tent for their own uses is and don't need to deliberate on it.

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#229

Post by [deleted] »

quixoticaxolotl wrote: post #206

I've searched for Reddit in the past because Reddit is the only site where I can get community answers to an important question. In those cases, the community aspect mattered to me - for example, I recently moved to Boston, so I solicited Bostonian's recommendations from r/boston; my partner and I were having troubles, and I wanted to hear from people who'd gone through similar experiences; I wanted to learn about co…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine

#230

Post by valar_m »

pydry wrote: post #222
valar_m wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Subs have their own "reddit" brands in accordance to the topic. They also have their own "reddit" opinions shared among almost every sub with enough people in it for justify propaganda. Which is actually the cool thing about Reddit, because you can just create your own subreddit about a topic and set the rules as you see fit. Don't like that camping pics have products in the background? Alright, set a rule for your…

This used to work well but moderators have "professionalized" and nowadays will viciously stamp out any kind of separarism. Creating a forum has never been hard. Attracting people is. I would imagine this would get worse as money corrupts reddit the same way money corrupted google. Whomever moderates /r/camping probably isnt doing it for free.

> This used to work well but moderators have "professionalized" and nowadays will viciously stamp out any kind of separarism.

How would they go about doing that? I see new, competing subreddits being created all the time. Like, what could a mod do to stop me if I wanted to create a new competing sub?

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