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

Post by swyab55 » Thu, May 31, 2018, 1:51 AM UTC

braindongle wrote: post #360

fhood wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

IMO, groupthink is worse here than on Reddit, or at least the subs I visit. Divergent thinking is often celebrated. Here it's more about convergence to the most defensibly informed perspective. I may be wrong, and these differences are subtle in any event. Regardless, any discussion of groupthink on HN should include some critical self-reflection. Please downvote me!

Post by systematical » Thu, May 31, 2018, 2:00 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #426

asclepi wrote: post #375

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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'…

Post by xur17 » Thu, May 31, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

DaveWalk wrote: post #403

potatote wrote: post #28

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As an immigrant with no family to rely on in the US, I always give credit to Reddit for helping me learn so many things from buying old/used car, applying to grad school, to looking for an apartment. Just like you said, its diverse user base means it has almost all the information one needs. I hope it never changes (although with the recent re-design, I'm afraid it might have unintended repercussions...)

I often use reddit as a search engine for answers with a "human touch" for lack of a better word. I once did this with del.icio.us back in the "social bookmarking" days. I'm curious if this is a big use case for Reddit users do this too? Maybe not based on the low quality of their search engine...

Post by chasontherobot » Thu, May 31, 2018, 2:49 AM UTC

systematical wrote: post #434

joe_the_user wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

I had to stop going to any thing political related on reddit, between russian trolls and hyper-liberals downvoting reasonable opinions it got to be to much. I installed the Reddit Enhancement Suite plugin to hide /r/politics and /r/the_donald from my home page. If I do read something political on there its from /r/NeutralPolitics which requires anything you post to be cited with evidence. For everything else reddit i…

Post by _xnmw » Thu, May 31, 2018, 3:01 AM UTC