Bye bye Reddit
Adam Scheinberg, January 21, 2008 (17 years ago)
Some time ago, I told my collegues, "Forget Digg, you need to start using Reddit." Reddit was much more fun then, even only about a year ago. Since then, I've noticed a disturbing trend - massive brainwashing groupthink overtaking rational discussion and interesting links.
Reddit really let me down. These days, it's mostly XKCD comics, snarky images, Ron Paul stories, anti-Reddiquette polls, pro-Atheism articles, a mash of comments complaining about subreddits, and most disturbingly, a real anti-Israel swing. It's not that I'm anti-Atheism (I'm definitely not) or pro-Israel (because I'm really not), but the absolute anger the redditors have for Israel and religion is not only a little scary, it's also unquestionable. If you do question it, and you will be modded down - silenced, if not mocked. This serves not only to stifle good conversation, it drives the opposing views away until everyone is just verbally masturbating each other.
There is a bandwagon that travels from story to story, and when I read comment after comment about how bad PHP is, but only about 5 comments have any substance, I realize I'm probably dealing with a mix that includes several 15 year olds in there. Recently, I was modded down for a technical comment about an injection attack. An idiot responder suggested I had used improperly with a smarmy quip, when in fact, I hadn't. Unfortunately, his fellow redditors must have enjoyed his turn, since they proceeded to deal me a heavy negative score. That's when I started realizing that Reddit has not only become boring and repetitive for me, but it's not even close to a valid news source anymore. In fact, it's barely even entertaining: the news moves at a snail's pace, it's always behind Digg, and its search facility is so busted that unless I specifically save an article, it's a hopeless reference site. So I deleted my entire account straight away.
This is not to say that Reddit is entirely bad, because it's not. Actually, there are several really insightful people on the site, but I rarely read their comments, either because they don't post much or the noise ratio is so high they get drowned out. And the actual developers - kn0thing and spez, at least - are really class act guys.
But alas, their community has soured, so I am going to sub in a new site in my bookmarks, maybe techcrunch or techmeme or another site aimed at delivering steady technical news. Although I rarely use it anymore outside of RSS, even Slashdot still has good comments. For me, the Web 2.0-esque social news is getting tired faster than I imagined.
Please note that these views are mine and mine alone and not necessarily indicative of those of OSNews, LLC or the OSNews staff
Reddit really let me down. These days, it's mostly XKCD comics, snarky images, Ron Paul stories, anti-Reddiquette polls, pro-Atheism articles, a mash of comments complaining about subreddits, and most disturbingly, a real anti-Israel swing. It's not that I'm anti-Atheism (I'm definitely not) or pro-Israel (because I'm really not), but the absolute anger the redditors have for Israel and religion is not only a little scary, it's also unquestionable. If you do question it, and you will be modded down - silenced, if not mocked. This serves not only to stifle good conversation, it drives the opposing views away until everyone is just verbally masturbating each other.
There is a bandwagon that travels from story to story, and when I read comment after comment about how bad PHP is, but only about 5 comments have any substance, I realize I'm probably dealing with a mix that includes several 15 year olds in there. Recently, I was modded down for a technical comment about an injection attack. An idiot responder suggested I had used improperly with a smarmy quip, when in fact, I hadn't. Unfortunately, his fellow redditors must have enjoyed his turn, since they proceeded to deal me a heavy negative score. That's when I started realizing that Reddit has not only become boring and repetitive for me, but it's not even close to a valid news source anymore. In fact, it's barely even entertaining: the news moves at a snail's pace, it's always behind Digg, and its search facility is so busted that unless I specifically save an article, it's a hopeless reference site. So I deleted my entire account straight away.
This is not to say that Reddit is entirely bad, because it's not. Actually, there are several really insightful people on the site, but I rarely read their comments, either because they don't post much or the noise ratio is so high they get drowned out. And the actual developers - kn0thing and spez, at least - are really class act guys.
But alas, their community has soured, so I am going to sub in a new site in my bookmarks, maybe techcrunch or techmeme or another site aimed at delivering steady technical news. Although I rarely use it anymore outside of RSS, even Slashdot still has good comments. For me, the Web 2.0-esque social news is getting tired faster than I imagined.
Please note that these views are mine and mine alone and not necessarily indicative of those of OSNews, LLC or the OSNews staff