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Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

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Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#81

Post by mustacheemperor »

deergomoo wrote: post #18

Good read. Interesting that the author’s takeaway is that folks consider Digg v4 to be a catastrophic launch because of the myriad technical issues. I don’t even remember there being technical issues, I just remember logging in one day to find a website I enjoyed replaced with a bunch of crap I wasn’t interested in.

It’s interesting that as users, we think of v4 as this pivotal moment when the platform changed forever - but the article’s author seems to think of it more as the inflection point of ongoing problems that had built up for a while.

Especially with a high profile implosion like this, it’s really interesting to contrast our experience in the userbase to an internal perspective.

>Digg V4 is sometimes referenced as an example of a catastrophic launch, with an implied lesson that we shouldn’t have launched it. At one point, I used to agree, but these days I think we made the right decision to launch. Our traffic was significantly down, we were losing a bunch of money each month, we had recently raised money and knew we couldn’t easily raise more. If we’d had the choice between launching something great and something awful, we’d have preferred to launch something great, but instead we had the choice of taking one last swing or turning in our bat quietly.

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#82

Post by radarsat1 »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #51
deergomoo wrote: post #18

Good read. Interesting that the author’s takeaway is that folks consider Digg v4 to be a catastrophic launch because of the myriad technical issues. I don’t even remember there being technical issues, I just remember logging in one day to find a website I enjoyed replaced with a bunch of crap I wasn’t interested in.

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Even the smaller subs catch the contagion year over year. I’ve been a Redditor since before the narwhal baconed at midnight.…

I don't know about the social justice issues, but I've found that a growing problem with reddit is what I'll summarize as "the rules".

I admit I'm much more of a lurker than a contributor, but I do post things from time to time. Comments fairly frequently in technical forums, and posts much less frequently, but when they are, they are either: 1) to show a project I did, or 2) to ask a technical question.

Basically all of these use cases are more and more an exercise in frustration. I've been using the site for at least a decade, but I can't remember having so much trouble using it until quite recently. The last several posts, let's say during 2023, I've made get either manually or auto-removed. Every single subreddit no matter how small has its own, different, set of "rules" and if you don't memorize them you get your post removed. These rules are often very antisocial, in my opinion.

For example, in one forum that I read very often, I never post anything because I only like to post my own work, as I consider such work to be "original content" -- I'm not one to spend my time scouring the internet for other people's work to share, instead I like to share when I've got something to share, right? Seems natural enough to me anyway. Well, I posted a project that I spent 2 months developing, yes as part of the startup I work for but it was a for-fun April-fools type project, intended to amuse. Banned. Immediately. For "self promotion". (There were literally no ads in it or anything, just a website with a fun interaction, and the startups logo in the corner.) Thanks guys. Guess I'll take my ball and go home. Apparently they prefer reposted nonsense to original contributions? Bizarre, backwards..

Another example, someone was asking where they could go for some discussions on a certain topic, so naturally I responded to point to some other subreddits. Immediate auto-remove due to "posting links to other subreddits". Really? So, like, they have rules against hyperlinking? That thing that is at the foundation of the web?

Similarly I posted a question to a Python forum, actually quite an advanced question about an interesting phenomenon I noticed related to async generators -- auto-removed. Told to repost it in LearnPython. Great. Did so, got a bunch of beginner replies, as I expected, instead of the in-depth discussion I was hoping for.

Now, I understand that these rules and bots exist for a reason .. mainly one reason actually, which is to fight spam. But enough is enough. At what point does spam fighting become intrusive to normal, community sharing of ideas? To be honest, this has gotten me so down regarding reddit that I'm considering just not using the site any more, as it's gotten quite boring because I can barely contribute without jumping through hoops. Trying to post or share something is just depressing because either it breaks some rule, or people jump all over it with negative comments. It just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort anymore.

Does anyone else have this experience, or is it just me?

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#83

Post by silvestrov »

faefox wrote: post #57
ohgodplsno wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget about production, how did this make it into python? This is so unbelievably stupid it makes PHP look like a sensible language.

This is the question people should be asking rather than trying to identify which Digg employee should be retroactively thrown under the bus. Just a completely insane design decision.

This is one of those things that are so bad it warrants breaking backwards compability, possibly by releasing a python v4.

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#84

Post by kristiandupont »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #51
deergomoo wrote: post #18

Good read. Interesting that the author’s takeaway is that folks consider Digg v4 to be a catastrophic launch because of the myriad technical issues. I don’t even remember there being technical issues, I just remember logging in one day to find a website I enjoyed replaced with a bunch of crap I wasn’t interested in.

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Even the smaller subs catch the contagion year over year. I’ve been a Redditor since before the narwhal baconed at midnight.…

>every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy.

Nobody on Reddit has called me any of those things.

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#85

Post by [deleted] »

kristiandupont wrote: post #84
unsupp0rted wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Even the smaller subs catch the contagion year over year. I’ve been a Redditor since before the narwhal baconed at midnight.…

>every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Nobody on Reddit has called me any of those things.

[deleted]

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#86

Post by [deleted] »

donatj wrote: post #74

I have been through several full rewrites of major money makers. It’s almost always a really bad idea. Almost being the key word. Beyond second system syndrome, you really have no idea what your users actually like about your product vs your competitors. You’re too close to the product. A rewrite that breaks users muscle memory and frustrates them is the perfect time for a jump to a competitor. You are basically alwa…

[deleted]

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#87

Post by unsupp0rted »

radarsat1 wrote: post #82
unsupp0rted wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Even the smaller subs catch the contagion year over year. I’ve been a Redditor since before the narwhal baconed at midnight.…

I don't know about the social justice issues, but I've found that a growing problem with reddit is what I'll summarize as "the rules". I admit I'm much more of a lurker than a contributor, but I do post things from time to time. Comments fairly frequently in technical forums, and posts much less frequently, but when they are, they are either: 1) to show a project I did, or 2) to ask a technical question. Basically al…

You’re not crazy.

Others have noticed the very same effect and felt disenfranchised by it.

In some subreddits your post gets removed because the title didn’t end in a period.

It results in subreddits full of boring recycled dreck, because the smart folks take their ball and go home.

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#88

Post by castillar76 »

radarsat1 wrote: post #82
unsupp0rted wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Even the smaller subs catch the contagion year over year. I’ve been a Redditor since before the narwhal baconed at midnight.…

I don't know about the social justice issues, but I've found that a growing problem with reddit is what I'll summarize as "the rules". I admit I'm much more of a lurker than a contributor, but I do post things from time to time. Comments fairly frequently in technical forums, and posts much less frequently, but when they are, they are either: 1) to show a project I did, or 2) to ask a technical question. Basically al…

I’ve had similar experiences in other subreddits, yep. Not so much things being removed, though. Instead I ask nicely for help with learning something and get fried with “you’re doing this all wrong, lrn2notsuck noob” responses, or I spend a good chunk of time on a thoughtful response to a question and it gets no votes or responses at all.

Some subreddits are notable exceptions, though—-those are the ones I’ll actually miss if this thing collapses. By and large, they’re small, very focused subreddits on particular topics; seems like once a subreddit reaches a certain size it just collapses into the above mess of behaviors.

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#89

Post by iopq »

kristiandupont wrote: post #84
unsupp0rted wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Even the smaller subs catch the contagion year over year. I’ve been a Redditor since before the narwhal baconed at midnight.…

>every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Nobody on Reddit has called me any of those things.

Me neither, they just banned me for posting on subs they didn't like

Re: Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity (2018)

#90

Post by fantasizr »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #19
biorach wrote: post #3

> Our API server was a Python Tornado service... and one of the most frequently accessed endpoint was used to retrieve user by their name or id. Because it supported retrieval by either name or id, it set default values for both parameters as empty lists. This is a super reasonable thing to do! However, Python only initializes default parameters when the function is first evaluated, which means that the same list is…

Forget about production, how did this make it into python? This is so unbelievably stupid it makes PHP look like a sensible language.

It's one of the top python posts on S/O, every python developer finds their way to this discovery https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1132941/least-astonishme...
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