OP goes to subreddits full of hyper-polarized edge lords
OP tries to respond with (what he thinks is) reasoned debate
OP gets virtually run out of town on a rail
You wouldn't get this sort of behavior on a well managed niche subreddit. There's tons of great technical subreddits. None of them are remotely mainstream. The best ones are 50k subs or less.
This article is a case study of "Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes". Reddit isn't broken. OP's expectations are.
Sadly, this is just an Eternal September post again. Ultimately, you've done your work and everything so that's appreciated but I guess you can describe Eternal September to people and it won't really take until they feel it happen to them.
FWIW HN shows the signs of this deterioration in the sense of a certain respect. I like to model forums by the percentage of their posts which lead to information gain. Ideally, I'd like to formulate this as some sort of K-L divergence with some sort of temporal decay on a binary variable. In a rough handwavey sense, I find that the information gain from many HN posts is high but HN comments is low, but it would be interesting to me if we could think up something more concrete.
The worst examples are posts on Google, Facebook, or Apple. Most commenters could be replaced by /r/subredditsimulatorGPT. On the other hand, it might be that I have just fully mined HN as an information source. It's likely this is true, in which case I should find some mechanism to reduce the content here.
One idea I have had is the idea of overlay networks - essentially the underlying data of the forum is the same, but we place intentionally different filtering mechanisms on the view layer. One could be "high karma users". Another could be "actively followed users". Anyway, just thoughts.
My understanding of Eternal September is that it's basically used to argue that higher traffic inevitably leads to lower quality of discussion, correct?
Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I do feel like platforms could improve to better foster higher quality discussion, or at least better tailor users to see the type of content they enjoy, which is what I mentioned at the end of the article. It doesn't seem like there's been much innovation in that department, especially since Reddit virtually has a monopoly so there's not really much incentive for them to change anything.
I suppose, in some way, I agree but I think you can't stop people posting junk. You have to just help people extract value out of the junk.
So I don't disagree that techniques can improve quality. I just think the big bang for the buck is in the read layer.
Also, I believe that the most popular posts on Facebook are the ones like "Can you solve this math problem? 4x3-2=?" and stuff like that, so you overestimate how much quality matters to the bottom line which means that platforms are not incentivized to improve quality (not out of some evilness but out of pure economic incentives).
>platforms could improve to better foster higher quality discussion
The only way these platforms can improve is by growing the moderation teams in ways that scale with the userbase and reinforce the neutrality you're looking for. It's a bureaucracy nightmare but you almost need mods for the mods level of checks and balances to ensure that you don't end up with a Reddit-like situation of 25 people pulling the strings of discourse.
Yes the author's previous blog article "COVID-19 Restrictions are the new Sharia Law" might give you an idea of why these "random" cherry-picked example reddit comments made it into this article.
That was satirical (eg. because people wearing cloth masks despite them having been shown to be ineffective against COVID19 is similar to wearing a garment for religious reasons). If you had literally looked at either of the posts after or prior to that, you would've seen more in-depth and serious criticisms of COVID-19 restrictions:
Yes, and, I think he outlines some serious issues with discourse on Reddit. I think if you strip away some of his biases you get one singular complaint:
Reddit strips nuance from conversation.
Adding nuance introduces attack vectors, complicates your argument and requires that the group as a whole be more informed in order to create compelling arguments.
It's so much easier to throw out quips and one-liners that help your world view, and obliterate comments that present constructive criticism.
I find one-line quips as top comments confirming one's preconceived notions to be incredibly harmful, because they make one overly confident in their own certainty. "See, I was right! Everyone else feels the same way! Everyone else on the other side is wrong and stupid!".
Whenever I feel overly confident in some viewpoint, often the first thing I do is look for the contrarian view, because that's where you're more likely to actually gain knowledge and be forced to defend your viewpoint. Unfortunately, Reddit makes it too easy to end up in your bubble.
I would forgive the list of bad takes if the OP's suggestions on "how to fix Reddit" were actually useful in fixing the problems he's claiming exist. Instead, all his suggestions do is add barriers to common functions that do nothing to actually change the quality of discourse but just make it more difficult for people to interact. The other suggestions (that are basically just "HN does this so I like it") may work to limit bot usage or downvoting through alt accounts but they do nothing to fix the ultimate problem that he's describing which is that any platform where quality is distilled to a thumbs up or thumbs down will, by nature, get polarized as people choose a side. If you want nuance, you need to rely on moderation and Reddit, unfortunately, is astro-turfed by power mods who run all the big subs.
If he wants nuance again, he needs to visit more nuanced sub-reddits that aren't approaching terminal velocity. This happens every time a social media platform/news aggregator gets popular. Look at the history of Digg, /., and even HN itself to see why and how they get overtaken. If your userbase grows exponentially and your moderation doesn't, you're going to end up in the same place as teenagers and know-it-alls take over just by sheer volume.
My suggestion to improve the algorithm adds no barriers to the user. Reddit is already using an algorithm to sort comments ("Best", no idea how that works), so it's certainly feasible that they could either improve that, or offer alternative algorithms like "Insightful" or "For You" like I recommended in the article.
The modal on downvote does add a barrier, but maybe it would reduce downvote=disagree. Or maybe not. I don't know. Either way it could be worth testing, though obviously wouldn't be as impactful as changing the algorithm.
Happy to hear recommendations on subreddits on higher quality discussion, especially pertaining to things like politics and current events where it's very difficult to find high quality discussion.
>My suggestion to improve the algorithm adds no barriers to the user.
While that's true, it's also completely empty in terms of usable, actionable steps that can be taken. You mention an algorithm that rewards based on the length of comments but that also rewards any kind of copy-pasta or bot-driven blogspam comments. The other suggestion is to use an AI/ML to improve the quality but that completely ignores that AI has to be trained to be useful. If Reddit, whose goal is to generate views on ads and clicks to sponsored content, trains the model to suit them then it's no more useful to you than the current algorithms (which, for reference, sort by disparity between upvotes and downvotes - top equals most upvotes while ignoring downvotes, "best" equals highest upvotes with lowest downvotes, and controversial sorts by the smallest delta between upvotes and downvotes).
As for recommendations, I don't think you'll find what you're looking for on Reddit. Even subs like /r/neutralpolitics, by virtue of today's political climate, lean left and subs that tend to lean right are full of deleted comments, over-enthusiastic mod censorship, and memes.
Nothing you said negates ML as a possible solution to better tailor content for people. Other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. already use algorithms to try to better tailor content for users to increase engagement, absolutely no reason Reddit couldn't offer something similar (with the option to use the classic mode obviously). Also to be clear I'm talking more about comment quality than post quality (there are no ads in comments).
Of course using length of comments isn't perfect, and that should never be the sole input in any general-purpose algorithm, just one variable among many. I still believe it could be used to help improve quality. It would likely be more about punishing extremely short comments (eg. one or two sentences) which are rarely insightful, rather than simply scoring comments based on length.
This explains everything anyone needed to know about your original post. Reddit itself is an ad. Those other networks you mentioned use their algos to do one thing and one thing only and that's make money.
I mean your comment literally reads exactly like the type of Reddit comments I criticized in my article. One-liner with no substance. I'd expect this from Reddit, but disappointing that HN has devolved into this.
This comment is almost a parody of the terrible comments the author is referring to on reddit. Expecting someone to respond with, "No, your opinion is bad!"
The world is better off without Reddit and similar sources of empty dopamine. There’s a big difference between doing well and feeling good. Someday humanity will look back on the early users of the internet as lives lost to addiction while the world literally burned around them.
I agree that Reddit's deteriorating quality equates it more to empty dopamine.
High quality content and discussion that expands one's knowledge however is certainly not empty. Reddit has unfortunately failed in that regards, and seems to have no interest in fixing it.
OP is acting like Reddit is the only place to go on the internet. Yes it used to be better, yes it sucks now, but no one is forcing you to go there. Change the URL in your browser and problem is resolved.
I'd take it a step back, even... just change the subreddit. You can't be surprised that an incredibly popular (aka meme-y), left-leaning subreddit doesn't want to debate your anti-Democrat rants. This trend of "you must debate me!" is just as exhausting as anything he complained about.
There's tons of subreddits, and the author seems to be conflating the software with individual communities.
to say that the major, default subreddits are "left-leaning" is a massive understatement. the reddit homepage (sans login) is basically half memes, half direct feed of the latest Democratic Party talking points. it was not this way in the past, and noticing this change is a valid observation.
what the author of the article ignores however is that the 2008 reddit he was initially exposed to was mostly accessed by people using personal computers, instead of people using smartphones. I'm always surprised whenever anyone overlooks this basic fact and its implications when assessing "how the internet has gotten worse" since 2008 or before.
Smartphones are an interesting point and would definitely explain the shortness of comments (personally I never write Reddit comments from my phone so it's not something I thought of). But this still doesn't explain why short and empty comments rise to the top while contrarian but in-depth comments get downvote buried.
Even in this comments section, the most insightful top-level comment reply I've gotten as I write this is literally at the bottom: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30674104 , while the second-highest comment is "This is just an article by a guy with bad opinions upset others don't agree with his bad opinions."
the point is, reddit used to be a place where dorks who sat down with a PC or laptop with the intent of using the internet hung out, just like everywhere else on the internet. now reddit, like all of the internet, is something anyone can casually access from the supercomputer in their pocket. this changes the demographics and usage patterns, and therefore target audience and platform expectations, massively.
There was an /r/obama before users could make subreddits. It was certainly this way in the past, but more porn.
You admittedly didn't know that, and had to post a source you Googled in a panic, which says:
> There may have been a few more subreddits created by other employees as well but I’m not sure. Basically they would all have been things of personal interest to us.
Well, subreddits were initially a way to move content off the main page, not necessarily to indulge it. So the first subreddit was r/nsfw followed by r/programming and r/politics.
I can't find anything that says r/obama was an early Reddit-created subreddit, but if it was, then they would have done it to have less Obama content on the homepage rather than to celebrate Obama.
Sorry if I came off that way, make sure to flag me. A big draw of the site was that it was so focused on politics, science and programming; if you'd been a regular user you just wouldn't debate that, I don't know how else to put it.
It's like saying "I miss the early days when Truth Social wasn't so partisan."
You don't seem to know much about the site's history, and just called me a "jerk," I guess that passes for "engagement."
I've been on Reddit from the beginning, and absolutely nothing I said contradicts me believing it was very politics/programming heavy from the start. Like I said, Reddit at the time believed there was too much politics/programming, and that's why they created subreddits.
You're putting words in my mouth and then being condescending. That's why you got downvoted and flagged (not by me, for the record).
You can look me up on Reddit; I use the same name (which happens to be my real name) on both. I created the r/sanfrancisco subreddit (among others) and my cake day is within the first year of Reddit's launch.
Erp, sorry, you already dismissed me as "just a jerk" when I gave you a chance to reply. I'd read what you wrote, but I don't want you to regret "engaging" again.
there's a difference between "eager support/celebration of Barack Obama around the time of his election" (Digg was the exact same way! most of the internet was, at the time!) and "go to reddit.com while not logged in to see who you're supposed to hate today and what you're supposed to now believe if you're a follower of the Democratic Party line, which you had better be, if you're using this website" which is what it evokes today.
There is, and reddit has always been the former. If you just joined in the last 5 years maybe you'd be surprised to learn.
Digg was not the exact same way; reddit in contrast had a huge Ron Paul audience (pretty much everything but mainstream republicans), I was surprised he didn't have a subreddit.
I used to use reddit heavily from 2008–2016. never unsubbed from the default subreddits as I used the front page as a "what is everyone talking about today" rather than a curated list of what I wanted to see. it was not as blatantly propagandistic as it is today back then. reddit was definitely more pro-Ron Paul than Digg but it was never anti-Obama by any measure, quite the opposite. the political spirit of reddit in 2008 was "let's get this young cool black senator to be the First Black President! but also Ron Paul seems to be right about a lot of stuff, like auditing/ending the federal reserve. but it's OK that I think he's cool despite him being a Republican and me being a Democrat, because he's definitely not like other Republicans, both in rhetoric and in how he votes."
now reddit hates Rand Paul saying and doing the same things his father did, because they've bought into the Democratic Party line so hard that anything "right of" whoever the current (D) main characters are, is basically an evil Russian nazi bigot just like the rest of the Republicans (and Tulsi Gabbard, apparently, judging by the #1 story today).
the front page of reddit was never like some truly open marketplace of ideas where every political opinion was given equal treatment and consideration or anything but it was a lot more genuine and a lot less blatantly following party propaganda lines, that's for damn sure.
You're talking about the site that hosted the biggest hugbox for republicans on the internet before it got banned (the_donald). /r/conservative is 50k shy of a million users. White supremacist reddits are a problem now.
Rand Paul was one of Trump's top supporters in the senate during and after his presidency. His ideals are very different than his father's.
Part of my point is that Reddit's platform leads to intense polarization, which could be alleviated by improving their platform. The default subreddits are hyper-Democrat (eg. to the point where dissent of COVID-19 restrictions was outright banned last year in many subreddits), and the conservative subreddits are hyper polarized in the same way in the opposite direction.
I think many just discuss this as if it's some inevitable human trends or feature of the internet, but I disagree. If platforms did better to reward higher quality discussion and a variety of viewpoints, then maybe there never would've been a /r/the_donald in the extreme form there was.
And how is HN not exactly the same in that regard? Any system that distills approval or disapproval down to an upvote and a downvote (like/dislike, thumbs up/thumbs down, love/hate, etc.) is going to inherently generate polarization for any topic. The difference is that you don't come to HN for political takes but it's just as bad as reddit for people spouting incorrect technical information and techno-political opinions.
> His ideals are very different than his father's.
would you care to elaborate on this point? I don't see it and instead it seems that the sentence before this one, along with the general "if he's not a Democrat and he opposes Democrat talking points then we hate him" reddit consensus better explains the current reddit attitude toward Rand Paul than a supposed generational change in ideals between the Pauls. I don't see reddit eagerly claiming to support Ron Paul anymore, anyway.
OP goes to subreddits full of hyper-polarized edge lords
OP tries to respond with (what he thinks is) reasoned debate
OP gets virtually run out of town on a rail
You wouldn't get this sort of behavior on a well managed niche subreddit. There's tons of great technical subreddits. None of them are remotely mainstream. The best ones are 50k subs or less.
This article is a case study of "Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes". Reddit isn't broken. OP's expectations are.