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Storming Reddit's Moat

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Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#81

Post by detaro »

abcdjdjd wrote: post #73
fjabre wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree with this more. As someone who has gotten to the top of Reddit front page twice with my free (no ads) web app I now cannot. It's all but impossible. Mods are so over protective they will ban you for practically nothing. If you attempt to evade the ban even innocently they will sniff you out. I think Reddit's mod tools are disgusting and foster censorship and make Reddit a more negative and critical p…

I have left reddit mostly at this point as well, with some exceptions with some subreddits. The entire site is garbage at this point and filled with groupthink and mod abuse at this point. I'm curious, what alternative sites have you found at this point, besides this one, that seem to have what Reddit used to be? Or maybe even if it isn't exactly what reddit used to be, at least some good alternative for sites to go…

> besides this one

You do realize how far from "moderators only remove illegal posts" HN is, and how much that shapes what HN is?

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#82

Post by kevincox »

cblconfederate wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #9

> Reddit content ranks really well on Google The most public contribution I made to reddit's codebase when I was there was the SEO features. I did all the usual stuff like cleaning up title and meta tags, and adding a sitemap. But the change that had the largest effect, by far, was adding the title of the story into the URL. As soon as we launched that, our Google traffic shot up. The way you know you have truly mast…

I never understood why google gives juice to this kind of URLs. It makes URLs longer and is barely useful anymroe but google keeps demanding it.

Because the URL is naturally short so you have to be very selective about what you put in it. So if the URL is "on topic" the page likely is. Just like if the domain is "on topic" it is very likely the site is, because it is short and hard to change.

IIUC some of the biggest factors that Google uses for the page itself (network effects obviously play a huge part) are domain, url then title. If you notice these are fairly space limited and user visible which means that it is harder for the website author to spam these with possibly relevant keywords.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#83

Post by bredren »

mbgerring wrote: post #36

The funny thing about using Craigslist as the example for unbundling is that Craigslist, to this day, works better than anything that's attempted to replace or unbundle it. Craigslist remains a stable, profitable company that provides an enormous amount of value.

I dispute this. Craigslist may appear to work better however:

- Many unbundled categories have far better products available now. AirBnB and Trulia are great examples.

- In areas Craigslist still has a hold, such as in rental housing, what we don't see is the cost of Craigslist's failure to provide advanced features. This includes people getting scammed, and bad landlords continuing on without record just like bad taxi drivers prior to Uber/Lyft.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#84

Post by abcdjdjd »

detaro wrote: post #66
x86ARMsRace wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me as well for the same reasons. I get curious about what's happening there sometimes, and at this point it's just a wasteland. It's difficult to find a thread that isn't politicized in some way, or does not have at least some toxic elements to it. I've been told sometimes that it's 'just the mainstream communities', however the most toxic encounters I have had were always in the more niche threads. It devolves into…

The answer to flame wars because of too much politicization is fairly certainly not "we need less moderator powers!".

When those mods are literally playing a role in it and removing posts from one side of the political argument, but not the other side, in that discussion then yes they are part of the problem.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#85

Post by mjmayank »

maxk42 wrote: post #75
mjmayank wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really interesting to hear about. Were you the creator of both communities that you unbundled from Reddit? Or did you bring the moderators on board with your business plan? Also how did the users react when you killed the community?

> Were you the creator of both communities that you unbundled from Reddit? In both cases I was not the original creator but was a longstanding moderator who inherited an active community. > did you bring the moderators on board with your business plan? They brought me on board with theirs. > how did the users react when you killed the community? Positively. Reddit as a corporation isn't actually well-liked by the maj…

Nice! Would you be willing to share the new sites you operate?

>But there will be a few who loudly complain about any change or no change at all.

Totally agree

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#86

Post by abcdjdjd »

jefurii wrote: post #30
brodouevencode wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gave up on reddit a long time ago because of the moderation problems.

How is this different from other media? It's already common practice with magazines that contain product reviews. There's nothing stopping companies from doing this with bulletin boards and blogs.

Ahhh, yes, and you literally just described Section 230 exemptions vs. being a publisher.

Yes, publishers are able to act as publishers and also get held responsible for what they publish. Social media sites are exempt from this under Section 230 rules, but that assumes they are not unfairly moderating their sites and turning into publishers.

Yes, you literally just described what is a publisher and why their abuse of Section 230 law is not ok. You all who are supporting this overmoderation of Reddit seem to want Reddit to be a publisher.

Well, with becoming a publisher and unfairly moderating the site, you lose Section 230 protections. You can't have your cake and eat it too, but that is what Reddit and many of the supporters of overmoderation want to do.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

abcdjdjd wrote: post #86
jefurii wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from other media? It's already common practice with magazines that contain product reviews. There's nothing stopping companies from doing this with bulletin boards and blogs.

Ahhh, yes, and you literally just described Section 230 exemptions vs. being a publisher. Yes, publishers are able to act as publishers and also get held responsible for what they publish. Social media sites are exempt from this under Section 230 rules, but that assumes they are not unfairly moderating their sites and turning into publishers. Yes, you literally just described what is a publisher and why their abuse o…

> Social media sites are exempt from this under Section 230 rules, but that assumes they are not unfairly moderating their sites and turning into publishers.

No, it doesn't. Section 230 has nothing about “unfair moderation”; it explictly allows online services to act as publishers within certain boundaries (to which the “fairness” of any moderation is not relevant, only whether the content is user-generated rather than first-party) without being legally treated as publishers for most civil liability purposes.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#88

Post by klank »

ah27182 wrote: post #43

>Reddit is great for lurkers I disagree with this, at least for non-account users. Slowly the mobile website has gotten more and more closed for newcomers. It is not always possible to just read a quick reddit thread that comes up on google because of the "Sign-in to read more" that bombards your screen.

Generally, I've not encountered the term "lurker" to mean account-less. Only that these people don't actively contribute to content or discussion.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#89

Post by thefz »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections. Some of this occurs naturally. People who were deep enough into a niche to become moderators of a subreddit in the late 2000s and early 2010s are also likely to end up working in that industry or starting business in that industry. However, many companies have realized that being in the good graces of subreddit moderators can be ver…

> Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections.

There's a dangerous cabal of Reddit "power mods" who rule the great majority of most popular subreddits. Its existence and composition goes way beyond the simple "being in the field".

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#90

Post by x86ARMsRace »

detaro wrote: post #66
x86ARMsRace wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me as well for the same reasons. I get curious about what's happening there sometimes, and at this point it's just a wasteland. It's difficult to find a thread that isn't politicized in some way, or does not have at least some toxic elements to it. I've been told sometimes that it's 'just the mainstream communities', however the most toxic encounters I have had were always in the more niche threads. It devolves into…

The answer to flame wars because of too much politicization is fairly certainly not "we need less moderator powers!".

There's a few sides. Sometimes giving the moderator too much power means they also have too much power of abstention. If they selectively don't enforce rules, toxic behaviour can be enabled. Worse when rules are enforced against one participant but not another. Sometimes vague rules get arbitrarily used against the unpopular.
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