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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

#261

Post by lightyrs »

echelon wrote: post #171

Anyone interested in building an open source, add-free, Creative Commons-licensed (perhaps not the posts as these belong to users, but the posts in aggregate) copy of Reddit? My ideal "Reddit" more closely follows the freedoms of Wikipedia / FOSS. Reddit currently allows 3rd party clients to have access, but I envision more - an analytics API, ML tools to train your own consumption / discovery agent about what you li…

The federation aspect is very interesting to me. Can you describe in more detail?

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

#262

Post by dbasedweeb »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #250
dbasedweeb wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disagree. I think many people want ad-free, untracked experiences. Censorship is a value that different communities have different opinions on, but for some reason often drowns the debate on alternative communities.

The alternative communities often speak for themselves, while the popularity of the mainstream does as well. For a perfect example, look no further than here at Hacker News. The moderation is very active, but here we are enjoying civil conversation because of that moderation. To go back to my previous example, look at Voat, it’s just the worst place to be. I don’t love Reddit, but it has its upsides, such as science, history, tech, and other subs. Voat has fulminating hate boners and tumbleweeds, and literally nothing else.

So again, we can talk about what we think people want, their declared preferences and ideologies, or we can just look at what they do. The revealed preferences of a significant majority is to be free of trolls and shit stirrers, unless they’re trying to troll or stir shit themselves, then suddenly they’re 1st amendment activists.

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

#263

Post by cwperkins »

acdha wrote: post #196
TheForumTroll wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it quite amusing that you two see "reddit downvote conservative posts" and "/r/politics having a clearly left lean". I stopped using Reddit because of two things: Everything is extremely US-centric and everything is clearly right leaning. I guess it depends on your point of view. At least as a European I can't recognize the left-lean at all.

The use of “left” by American conservatives doesn’t have a meaning beyond “political opponent”. The absence of an organized movement means people just assume that everything they dislike is “left”.

I completely disagree and think it's very well defined. For instance in r/nyc I was downvoted for leaving a comment saying how I wouldn't vote for a candidate voting against John Crowley in Queens because part of her campaign is the abolishment of ICE. This to me is idiotic politics (I get that the intention is to move the Overton window to the left) and I was downvoted to oblivion on reddit. Stuff like this is idea suppression.

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

#264

Post by baby »

kkarp wrote: post #181
cm2012 wrote: post #59

Keep in mind: 1) Most Facebook users use the app, not the website, which Alexa doesn't track (Which is also why Facebook doesn't fear commonly used ad blockers). 2) Alexa uses a number of metrics to rank sites, including pages visited. Reddit users load many more individual pages than FB users. In reality, Reddit is nowhere near close to the traffic and engagement leviathan that is Facebook.

plus a lot of Facebook users concerned about their privacy installed some third party script blockers. They are probably now below Alexa's radar

There's no way this amount to a significant number.

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

#265

Post by cwperkins »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #148
cwperkins wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This lack of diversity of media/thought just propagates our current media landscape where people generally fall into 2 camps: Liberal sources (CNN/NBC/NYT) and then Fox viewers. With reddit there's a real opportunity to give readers a diversity of opinion, but in this upvote/downvote scheme usually the opposing opinion is buried so that it may never be seen. At least from my POV the thing reddit could improve from in…

Wouldn't removing the down button just end up with more trolling, and wouldn't the same stuff sink to the bottom anyways as it's passed over for the more upvoted material?

The majority are more powerful here because they have a higher number to downvote posts they disagree with. It can only be postulated until reddit removes the downvote button, but I suspect that conservative posts wouldn't make the top but at least rise in the ranks as the majority would not be able to suppress them.

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

#266

Post by bitL »

exelius wrote: 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…

> Reddit’s ability to turn a profit

Maybe our society should recognize that some platforms should be treated as utilities, impose a small tax ($5? 0.05%?) which individuals can dedicate to a platform of their choice, and keep these vital forums away from crushing forces of market?

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

#267

Post by cwperkins »

idoh wrote: post #251
cwperkins wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This lack of diversity of media/thought just propagates our current media landscape where people generally fall into 2 camps: Liberal sources (CNN/NBC/NYT) and then Fox viewers. With reddit there's a real opportunity to give readers a diversity of opinion, but in this upvote/downvote scheme usually the opposing opinion is buried so that it may never be seen. At least from my POV the thing reddit could improve from in…

You are looking at reddit solely through the lens of politics. I do agree that it is not a great place for political debate. However, would you allow for the fact that setting aside USA national politics, there is a lot of value? I subscribe to subreddits about kombucha making, MTG, retirement saving, minimalism, and in those areas there is quite a lot of reasonable discussion.

That's my primary use case for reddit. I joined more than 10 years ago during the big digg migration. I think there are many wonderful communities in the space and it is something to cherish. But when r/news is a default subreddit and the majority have power to sink opposing viewpoints I think it merits a discussion on the importance of diversity of thought.

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

#268

Post by hokkos »

bradlys wrote: post #195
Shank wrote: 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…

Subreddits and forums are fundamentally different.

Forums are linear and your are expected to have read all the post to post in one thread. There is also the old members who nag you into not creating a new thread but use the search tool to comment on an old one. There is forum local stars that control the discourse far more than on subreddits, and the photo + footer customization make them more prone starification and to group think.

On subreddit freshness is always welcomed even it is an old subject with a different spin. You are not expected to present you, there is no random subforum, you can be focused.

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

#270

Post by function_seven »

GSimon wrote: post #203
volkl48 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now they ask for e-mail before you can sign up, but you don t have to go to your inbox to activate you accounts so basically it's the same.

It's a dark pattern. They pop up a dialog with just an email field and a [Next] button. Makes you think you have to enter something before you proceed. But you can leave it blank and move to the username/password stage.
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