Hacker News Reader

Comment by larrydag | Hacker News Reader

Here's is how I viewed this history of collaborative forum information online in the last 20 years

Slashdot - aggregating opinions from "experts". allowed comments. Lacked accountability so then came...

Digg - allowed crowd source voting. active interaction. complicated and over-engineered upvote algorithm lead to...

Reddit - community inclusion. more open voting (and down voting). subgroups.

So that's kind of where I see it. What gets improved on? Is there technology that can be improved? Is there a missing idea or improvement? Is there a next generation that could improve status quo?

View on HN

Many of the default subs on reddit are pretty terrible. It seems like as the number of users increase, the quality goes down.

Reddit also has a problem with "super mods" who are pretty fast an loose with their powers.

These seem to be normal problems with trying to appeal to large groups (lame watered down meme low effort crap) and the effects of power on individuals (bans, shadowbans, bias, agenda pushing, etc)

There are so many great subs outside of the defaults. Search around and you may find something that fits! I love /r/cfb and /r/personalfinance, to provide a couple examples. I think I've unsubscribed from just about every default.

I am from outside US. I grew up watching American TV shows and movies and had a really positive impression about US and its people. I actually used to look down on my culture and its ways most of the time. The 4 years I spend on Reddit exposed me to so much racism and hatred that I have only negative feelings left now. I am leaving US next month, a good part of my decision was based on those feelings.

How about the people and community you live in vs. random internet assholes who are a small minority of people and exist in your home country too and curated entertainment?

I would argue that your day to day interactions are more indicative of the average person's feelings of racism and hatred than reddit trolls. And if this is the only reason you are leaving the U.S. I would reconsider.

The world of online forums is much more diverse than those three. Some of the best forums I've been part of have had very little in the way of voting.

I think traditional forums are different than sites like reddit and digg where votes and participation change what is shown.

Yes, they are different, but they're still actively used, which is why leaving them out seemed odd to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com