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Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

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Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#61

Post by huggyface »

derleth wrote: post #58
huggyface wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, because trying to use an algorithm to filter a firehose will never end up with a firehose blasting through that particular kleenex. If you want to see a bad job of filtering, by all means rely on an algorithm that is designed to give minimal acceptable performance because anything else would soak up too much CPU. I'll stick to moderation and subfora.

Your false dichotomy is an enjoyable bit of fiction.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#62

Post by betterth »

ceol wrote: post #38
betterth wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manual binning is more than the "hack", it's the reason Reddit is successful and the reason why Digg will not be (unless they emulate). Manual binning does something magical: each bin is a separate community run by moderators. Each one has different rules, different posters, different content and different discussion. If you automatically sort into bins, then you will automatically lose the distinction between bins.…

Was it really the reason reddit is successful? Or was that a combination of the creation of imgur, reddit moderators allowing any and all meme posts (low-investment content) in most of their subreddits, and Digg's v4 disaster? Sure, there are users who adjust their subreddits, but (if I'm remembering this correctly) jedberg has stated the vast majority — some 90%— of users never make an account. I'm betting subreddit…

The front page of Reddit that is seen by the 90% of lurkers is content from the top 20 subreddits by activity. They come to see the content that 20 individual communities curate.

All content on Reddit -- all of it, comes from these individualized communities.

Also the 90% number -- that's true of almost any site, it's the "1% Rule"[1] (or a rule by a number of other names). Instead of focusing on the 90% lurkers, realize that it's the 1% of creators and 9% of contributors that create/submit and curate the content that brings the 90% to the front page.

So how do you attract the best 10%, the best curators, the best original creators?

In my opinion: individual communities dedicated to any topic they choose. Decentralized power that makes the 90%'s front page nothing more than the best-of-the-biggest subreddits. Sure, many subreddits will not be worthy of the 90%'s front page -- but then again, many communities don't want on the front page (and the massive influx of 'eternal september' users that it brings!)

Some subreddits, like /r/askscience, have over half a million users and maintain a rigid, empirical comment section that actively prevents layman speculation. Think about that, 600,000 users and they run a community with very little to no layman speculation.

Other subreddits, like /r/f7u13 (or /r/circlejerk) run very anarchistic comment sections where ridiculousness is supported and mods abusing power is par the course.

The beauty of Reddit is the freedom the subreddits have and the wonderful communities that create and curate the content that makes the 90%'s front page as good as it is.

I do not understand how you can emulate the result of a strong, engaged community by preventing communities from forming at all.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#63

Post by ceol »

betterth wrote: post #62
ceol wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it really the reason reddit is successful? Or was that a combination of the creation of imgur, reddit moderators allowing any and all meme posts (low-investment content) in most of their subreddits, and Digg's v4 disaster? Sure, there are users who adjust their subreddits, but (if I'm remembering this correctly) jedberg has stated the vast majority — some 90%— of users never make an account. I'm betting subreddit…

The front page of Reddit that is seen by the 90% of lurkers is content from the top 20 subreddits by activity. They come to see the content that 20 individual communities curate. All content on Reddit -- all of it, comes from these individualized communities. Also the 90% number -- that's true of almost any site, it's the "1% Rule"[1] (or a rule by a number of other names). Instead of focusing on the 90% lurkers, rea…

> So how do you attract the best 10%, the best curators, the best original creators?

You don't; at least, reddit doesn't. Reddit aggregates "original" content from other places (scare quotes due to that content often times being a repost itself.)

Did you happen to see the week f7u12 decided to have no moderation aside from blatantly illegal content? Meaning, they didn't remove reposts/off-topic material? The very first day, an image that wasn't even a rage comic hit the front page with 300+ upvotes. The meta subreddits were quick to point to that as proof that most redditors don't vote based on category. Reddit users don't care about subreddits, and they don't care about granular curation. As long as they like it, it could be in any subreddit— as is what happened when /r/funny became a dumping ground for off-topic content when the admins removed /r/reddit.com.

> 600,000 users and they run a community with very little to no layman speculation.

There are loads of off-topic, speculative, and joke comments in /r/askscience. Loads! The mods, however, rule with an iron fist, and only in the first hour of a thread's existence will you see them littered throughout the comments. Take a look at this thread[0], pulled from the current front page of /r/askscience. Do you see the top comment? It's an official mod statement about a certain joke. In most threads that get 100+ comments, you'll see this same type of comment near the top.

[0]: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/xhyhr/is_there_a...

> Other subreddits, like /r/f7u13 (or /r/circlejerk) run very anarchistic comment sections where ridiculousness is supported and mods abusing power is par the course.

I'd hardly call anything the f7u12 or /r/circlejerk mods have done as an abuse of power. 99.99% of the time, the users are pitchforking over what amounts to either a misunderstanding or something that Just Doesn't Matter. Oh my word, BEP changed the CSS for 10 minutes to prank the subreddit? How dare he! Downvote every comment he's ever made to prove how important this is!

That's beside the point, though. Excuse my digression.

> I do not understand how you can emulate the result of a strong, engaged community by preventing communities from forming at all.

I'm saying the community doesn't exist in the first place. It's a bunch of kids online who like to think they're part of a secret club of close friends. It's easy to point to the most prominent feature of reddit, the micro-communities, as the reason it has become successful, but the real bread and butter is probably the crap that clogs /r/all.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#64

Post by derleth »

huggyface wrote: post #61
derleth wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because trying to use an algorithm to filter a firehose will never end up with a firehose blasting through that particular kleenex. If you want to see a bad job of filtering, by all means rely on an algorithm that is designed to give minimal acceptable performance because anything else would soak up too much CPU. I'll stick to moderation and subfora.

Your false dichotomy is an enjoyable bit of fiction.

If my post is a false dichotomy, you really suck at expressing an idea in written English.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#65

Post by raldi »

huggyface wrote: post #22
AlexanderZ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that subreddits don't matter, then you are clearly expecting from Reddit something that it was not designed to have. The most popular subreddits are swarmed with teenagers and the quality has gone downhill, that's true. But the value of Reddit is in its (less popular) subreddits.

If you think that subreddits don't matter Categorization does still matter (in the Netflix example they can competently recommend and rank for me, but they still allow me to filter into specific categories). Subreddits are useful. However subreddits are a very coarse, manual solution to what I described. To the comment about what reddit is designed for, it started sans subreddits. Indeed, an original focus was recomm…

> the result being a bit of a disaster

If doubling your traffic every 8-12 months for seven years is a disaster...

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#66

Post by raldi »

huggyface wrote: post #49
AlexanderZ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

> I'm not missing the point of subreddits at all

Yes you are.

-former reddit employee

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#67

Post by huggyface »

raldi wrote: post #66
huggyface wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

> I'm not missing the point of subreddits at all Yes you are. -former reddit employee

No, I'm not. The fact that you're a former reddit employee is entirely irrelevant, and if anything undermines your perspective on the merits of subreddits.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#68

Post by huggyface »

derleth wrote: post #64
huggyface wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your false dichotomy is an enjoyable bit of fiction.

If my post is a false dichotomy, you really suck at expressing an idea in written English.

Alternately, you're just entirely too dense to have any participation in this conversation, completely miss the point in your haste to post "witty" and hilariously inappropriate analogies.

Re: Can Digg make a run on Reddit?

#69

Post by huggyface »

raldi wrote: post #65
huggyface wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that subreddits don't matter Categorization does still matter (in the Netflix example they can competently recommend and rank for me, but they still allow me to filter into specific categories). Subreddits are useful. However subreddits are a very coarse, manual solution to what I described. To the comment about what reddit is designed for, it started sans subreddits. Indeed, an original focus was recomm…

> the result being a bit of a disaster If doubling your traffic every 8-12 months for seven years is a disaster...

I remember when RIM was bragging about their subscriber growth while everyone could see the writing on the wall. This seems kind of similar.

Reddit has the inertia effect right now. The potential upside shrinks while the potential downside explodes.

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