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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

#421
post #244
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, those two things are also Reddit's problems. For starters, everything being centralised means one party now has control over multiple communities, which allows for censorship that wasn't there in the days of separate forums. And tying identities together... well that's probably why there's so much drama online now. Because everyone presents themselves differently to different groups in the real world,…

One of the major issues not often discussed is the "powermods", or the small subset of users who are the moderators of a huge number of subreddits. They can and often do enforce their biases on multiple unrelated communities. Reddit's moderators selection process ensures that they cannot be replaced even if a majority of the community don't support them without creating a brand new subreddit.

I have a major issue with this too. I posted an idea for the admins to counter this type of thing by allowing users if they wish to, to blacklist mods so that a user can still view content that those mods have removed without having any effect on users who don't blacklist those mods.

It went as we'll as I expected it probably would have.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ideasfortheadmins/comments/8mrqyh/a...

I don't know if I went about it the wrong way but I felt I had well reasoned responses but the few replies I got were weak, and the votes indicate that mods don't want to even think about losing any power or being undermined. A sort of I'm right, you're wrong mentality - the kind that my idea would combat.

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

#422
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…

> drive away the toxic users

I am surprised there isn't some kind of NLP based solution for that. I think labeling of slashdot-like informative/funny would be useful.

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

#423
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The amount of the network, data center engineering resources between facebook and reddit aren't even on the same magnitude.

That's not really comparable. Facebook needs much more computation while reddit is basically just a database full of text.

Each user has their own view of the frontpage though, which is computationally pretty expensive. Trees of comments similarly can get data heavy. Hard to compare IMO

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

#424
post #324

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An absolute ton of Reddit users browse the site via apps too. Something to keep in mind. I still agree that Facebook is larger though.

I don't know the usage stats, but I think the app/website ratio is nowhere near the one of facebook. Some probable reasons for this (unbacked) claim: 1) Long sessions are more suitable on a laptop/desktop than on a smartphone (the average session time is ~15mn). 2) There is still a nerdy userbase (mostly early users) who prefer to use the website with all the features. 3) The app is relatively recent (April 2016 vs 2…

People who visit reddit regualry have most probably some client on their mobile.

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

#425
Reddit frightens me way more than Facebook ever did. Reddit gives the impression of what ideas are popular with its rating and comment system. But those systems are remarkably easy to manipulate.

Imagine a Russian troll farm operation making a certain favored candidate look far more popular than he is, for example. Or a corporation rallying fake support around a piece of legislation.

Sock puppetry on an industrial scale could pose a serious threat to our democracy. Reddit needs to figure out how they could mitigate that threat.

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

#426
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 also appreciate the open nature of Reddit. No account is required if you just want to read, and you don't need to be first "approved" to most subreddits to be able to contribute. No "real-name" policies that often do more harm than good either. While Facebook by default erects walls around content, Reddit by default promotes the free sharing and equal access to information, which resonates much more with the origin…

I go to Reddit and HN for technical topics I have an interest in. Mostly Machine Learning on Reddit.

For more political and personal topics, Facebook is far better. Mostly because there are far more Facebook groups than there are subreddits, so in a controversial topic you tend to get vicious, abusive individuals taking control of a given category on Reddit. Because there are a lot of these folks out there and there's no objective way to remove them. On Facebook, you can create a group on topic X, run it sanely and gradually get credibility and get people migrating from the less-sane groups. If there's a way to do this on reddit once some dubious character has claimed a given topic, I'd like to known.

And for really small groups, Dischord seems best.

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

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pseudonymity makes this possible. Users don't post selfies on Reddit, nor their names, nor do they friend people (though you can follow users). On FB users fear for their privacy, and users fear moralizers.

But there is a lot of groupthink on Reddit, too. Some popular forms you just have to stay out of if you have a different opinion.

Why? The worst that will happen is you get downvoted.

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

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is that a dark pattern? Seems the same as almost every other site, except with the relaxation of the requirement for an email

Notice all the sibling comments that insist the email is required now? It’s an understandable misread of that sign up flow. Only one field and then a Next button.

Almost no other input flow allows you to hit “next” when the only form field hasn’t been addressed yet. Why not put username, password, and email on one page instead of splitting it up the way they do? Then you can mark the two fields as required and the third as optional.

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

#429

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.

I'm not talking about email, IP address or any other convenient mode of identification.

Think voting patterns, date/times active, submission categories, comments, writing style, punctuation ...

Facebook had a project to cross-reference user behavior to anonymized medical data. Say patient A's history says he visited a foreign country in the Mediterranean, came back with the stomach flu, was hospitalized for 3 days ... Maps to: holiday photos, dates, locations, status updates, friends commenting get well soon etc.

I hear they were pretty successful at it too! Makes you think what a government actor can do with enough data.

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

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is a lot of groupthink on Reddit, too. Some popular forms you just have to stay out of if you have a different opinion.

Why? The worst that will happen is you get downvoted.

You will get rate limited more severely the more downvotes you get.

I've also run into subreddits run by very biased moderators who will mark any stories as spam they disagree or competes with their friends. And due to the shadowban system, many people never realize it.

That's why I stopped submitting comments and stories on reddit. I only browse it now.

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