Can Digg make a run on Reddit? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#41

Post by huggyface » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

AlexanderZ wrote: post #34

huggyface wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think they can't coexist? In fact my actual suggestion is that they should coexist. But the "just subscribe appropriately" response is fundamentally broken, and only provides a partial solution. This approach absolutely benefits any subreddit as well.

What exactly is fundamentally broken in subscribing to subreddits? If you are interested in fitness, you subscribe to /r/fitness. Fitness materials won't all of a sudden be posted to /r/gaming where you (if you are not subscribed) will miss them. So, what's the point of automatic recommendations on Reddit? If there is any fitness-related material on Reddit, I'll see it in /r/fitness anyway. Besides, how are you going…

What exactly is fundamentally broken in subscribing to subreddits?

"I like action movies" "Here's Megashark vs 747. You like action movies, so you like this"

How is any given subreddit any different? Being into fitness does not mean you share an identical interest/taste/discernment with everyone else who is into fitness. Further social news sites are subject to the tyranny of the minority -- aka the lowest common denominator. When people are more likely to express approval than disapproval, a small percentage of users with a common interest will tend to dominate.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#42

Post by AlexanderZ » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:30 PM UTC

jmduke wrote: post #26

sp332 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: trivially, you can change the subreddits you are subscribed to and remove the "fictitous FB pic" etc. posts. Second, and more interestingly: people have different facets that they show in different subreddits. As an example here on HN people prefer tech-oriented stuff. But not everyone here is that into tech. They just sort or organize the content, so they come to HN for in-depth stuff, and (say) Engadget…

I see this argument a lot, and I have two counterpoints: 1. I don't want to have to spend time researching subreddits just to figure out what I'd like. Content aggregators are meant to remove steps from the process, not add them. 2. While the content of smaller subreddits are usually improved, the level of discourse in comments are not. Even if you say 'okay, no meme posts, no meme comments', the fact is that you're…

And how are you going to tell content aggregators what you like? By upvoting/liking? Doesn't it count as spending time?

I don't want to spend time upvoting 50 submissions to tell the recommendation engine what my interests are (and with the current state of technology it will get my interests wrong anyway). I just want to click one button (subscribe to a subreddit) and that's it.

And when I become less interested in a certain topic (fitness, starcraft) I can just press the unsubscribe button once and never see submissions for that topic again.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#43

Post by schneby » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:31 PM UTC

No.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#44

Post by huggyface » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:33 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #40

huggyface wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you say "hey, I'm really interested in fitness." With which you also say -- or so Reddit believes in its current level of imperfection -- "and I have complete affinity with everyone else who happens to vote in /r/fitness". Is that true? Is there any subreddit where that is true? It perplexes me that this is being treated like an either/or. It is not. In reality subreddits see a constantly exploding entropy as users t…

the fact that I like gaming doesn't mean that I like the same thing as every other reader of /r/gaming, for instance. So, the site should be unique for each user, right? But if you take the tactic you mentioned in a previous post: "Give users the ability to dislike something strongly enough that anyone who voted it up is excluded from all vote counts/rankings/recommendations as provided to that user for some period o…

While I'm being extreme, in practical application it would be a simple reduced weighting of negative correlation users. e.g. if five people I correlate heavily with liked a /r/programming entry, that will rise above a post liked by one hundred people I have a poor correlation with. Rinse/repeat.

Heavy math/statistical analysis that can be tuned to create a productive enjoyable experience, with the side benefit that it reduces gaming and exploitation.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#45

Post by huggyface » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:43 PM UTC

derleth wrote: post #29

huggyface wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which subreddits do you subscribe to where you see that unwanted content? It shouldn't matter what subreddits I subscribe to (and the encroachment of certain trends keeps herding people to yet new subreddits. /r/gaming -> rage comics and DAE remember. Okay, everyone to /r/games...rinse repeat. /r/atheism -> ridiculous and obviously fake caricatures for people to knock down. /r/programming -> beginner material, so wha…

> It shouldn't matter what subreddits I subscribe to Also, it shouldn't matter what Usenet newsgroups I read and what TV channels I watch.

Let me welcome you to the modern era. While you might have once had your content dictated by the radio station you listened to, or the one channel your TV could receive, here in the 21st century we have other, slightly more refined mechanisms. "I like NBC" or "I enjoy the Top 40 station" are no longer the limits of your filtering mechanism.

Enjoy your stay.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#46

Post by jmduke » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:45 PM UTC

AlexanderZ wrote: post #42

jmduke wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this argument a lot, and I have two counterpoints: 1. I don't want to have to spend time researching subreddits just to figure out what I'd like. Content aggregators are meant to remove steps from the process, not add them. 2. While the content of smaller subreddits are usually improved, the level of discourse in comments are not. Even if you say 'okay, no meme posts, no meme comments', the fact is that you're…

And how are you going to tell content aggregators what you like? By upvoting/liking? Doesn't it count as spending time? I don't want to spend time upvoting 50 submissions to tell the recommendation engine what my interests are (and with the current state of technology it will get my interests wrong anyway). I just want to click one button (subscribe to a subreddit) and that's it. And when I become less interested in…

Ideally -- and take this with a huge caveat, as I'm not exactly in the aggregation business -- measure it by clicks, comments made, and time spent on page/bounce.

Overall, I'd like to see aggregators move to the Pandora model, rather than the Hype Machine one. With Pandora, I can specify a jumping off point (genre, artist, song) but it still refines my tastes from there.

Hype Machine, I've 'liked' hundreds of songs but I still need to manually peruse through specific blogs to find new songs I like. It's unideal.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#47

Post by AlexanderZ » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:49 PM UTC

huggyface wrote: post #41

AlexanderZ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is fundamentally broken in subscribing to subreddits? If you are interested in fitness, you subscribe to /r/fitness. Fitness materials won't all of a sudden be posted to /r/gaming where you (if you are not subscribed) will miss them. So, what's the point of automatic recommendations on Reddit? If there is any fitness-related material on Reddit, I'll see it in /r/fitness anyway. Besides, how are you going…

What exactly is fundamentally broken in subscribing to subreddits? "I like action movies" "Here's Megashark vs 747. You like action movies, so you like this" How is any given subreddit any different? Being into fitness does not mean you share an identical interest/taste/discernment with everyone else who is into fitness. Further social news sites are subject to the tyranny of the minority -- aka the lowest common den…

Being into fitness does not mean you share an identical interest/taste/discernment with everyone else who is into fitness.

I think you are missing the point of subreddits. They are not for finding people that agree with you, they are for creating communities with all kinds of opinions. I go to /r/fitness exactly because I don't share most of the ideas there. I go there to learn something new.

If I want to know everything that happens in the world of fitness, I subscribe to /r/fitness. With automatic recommendations (and without subscribing to /r/fitness) I'd never see stuff that I didn't know I was interested in.

That's the problem with automatic recommendations - paradoxically, you can't discover new interests with their help. You can discover what's happening inside your sphere of interests, but you can't discover new interests.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#48

Post by AlexanderZ » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:53 PM UTC

jmduke wrote: post #46

AlexanderZ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how are you going to tell content aggregators what you like? By upvoting/liking? Doesn't it count as spending time? I don't want to spend time upvoting 50 submissions to tell the recommendation engine what my interests are (and with the current state of technology it will get my interests wrong anyway). I just want to click one button (subscribe to a subreddit) and that's it. And when I become less interested in…

Ideally -- and take this with a huge caveat, as I'm not exactly in the aggregation business -- measure it by clicks, comments made, and time spent on page/bounce. Overall, I'd like to see aggregators move to the Pandora model, rather than the Hype Machine one. With Pandora, I can specify a jumping off point (genre, artist, song) but it still refines my tastes from there. Hype Machine, I've 'liked' hundreds of songs b…

I believe that in the future that's the way to do it, but not right now.

Besides, I'm not a fan of automatic recommendations as they have a lot of drawbacks. Their major problem is: they won't help you find something you didn't know you liked.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#49

Post by huggyface » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:53 PM UTC

AlexanderZ wrote: post #47

huggyface wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is fundamentally broken in subscribing to subreddits? "I like action movies" "Here's Megashark vs 747. You like action movies, so you like this" How is any given subreddit any different? Being into fitness does not mean you share an identical interest/taste/discernment with everyone else who is into fitness. Further social news sites are subject to the tyranny of the minority -- aka the lowest common den…

Being into fitness does not mean you share an identical interest/taste/discernment with everyone else who is into fitness. I think you are missing the point of subreddits. They are not for finding people that agree with you, they are for creating communities with all kinds of opinions. I go to /r/fitness exactly because I don't share most of the ideas there. I go there to learn something new. If I want to know everyt…

I'm not missing the point of subreddits at all, and I would suggest that you are so far down the rabbit hole of the cure all subreddit that you refuse to acknowledge the point.

I have never said that subreddits should go away. Ever. Each post that again argues one versus the other is tossing up a distraction.

They are not for finding people that agree with you

Correlation isn't about agreement: An upvote does not mean "I agree with this". It means "I found this interesting/useful/enjoyable/educational", whereas a downvote should mean "I find this uninteresting/not useful/unenjoyable/not educational".

In no universe does that preclude learning new things. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#50

Post by huggyface » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:55 PM UTC

AlexanderZ wrote: post #48

jmduke wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally -- and take this with a huge caveat, as I'm not exactly in the aggregation business -- measure it by clicks, comments made, and time spent on page/bounce. Overall, I'd like to see aggregators move to the Pandora model, rather than the Hype Machine one. With Pandora, I can specify a jumping off point (genre, artist, song) but it still refines my tastes from there. Hype Machine, I've 'liked' hundreds of songs b…

I believe that in the future that's the way to do it, but not right now. Besides, I'm not a fan of automatic recommendations as they have a lot of drawbacks. Their major problem is: they won't help you find something you didn't know you liked.

Their major problem is: they won't help you find something you didn't know you liked.

This is patently untrue. It is more likely to find you stuff that you didn't know you like than the lowest common denominator strategy.