Perhaps compared to HN. But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. While a large proportion of the up/down-voting is from petty agreement, there is still a strong enough core of "productive discussion" voting to overcome it. Especially with knee-jerk outrage stories, there's as much skepticism as I've seen in any online community (and more apparent reservation in judgment than I see in many fairly reasonable people I know personally). There's a lot of good research that gets done (when possible), and it's usually voted above the froth very quickly. Sensationalism will almost always get called out hard.
I really can't conceive of any way a forum (online or afk) with sufficient mass (with the accompanying noise, groupthink and trolling that any community of people will pick up) to accomplish the things that Reddit has/may yet could turn out any more reasonable.
> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian.
Have you been there recently? They're "contrarian" in the sense that they disagree with the non-Reddit mainstream, but they hardly respect contrarianism to their own views. I definitely would not call them "open-minded." (At least, not in the main subreddits. There are smaller, more intellectual communities within Reddit for which this is not as true.)
Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded?
I am easy to criticize reddit, popular as it is on HN, but it is a surprising community for its large population, and as you say the smaller parts of it can be very good. One can find all the flaws with a thing that one wishes to but, in the end, if none are better it's still the best.
Even HN isn't that much different imo, especially outside its core competence of technical discussion (which is quite good). Discussions about economics, government, education, etc., on reddit and HN are about equally annoying to me (though I occasionally seem to fail to abstain from them at both places), with a lot of mob-mentality, up/down-voting based on agreement/disagreement, and not very well thought out knee-jerk responses. Reddit definitely has more non-serious discussion (e.g. long pun threads), but on the threads that are more serious, I don't see it as that much worse.
The main difference seems to be a different political skew: Reddit has a lot of democratic-socialist types, while HN has a lot of libertarian types. On Reddit it's unlikely you'll be upvoted if you're right-of-center, but on HN it's unlikely you'll be upvoted if you're left-of-center. Conversely, you can get upvoted on Reddit for a generic "corporations suck" comment, and you can get upvoted on HN for a generic "unions suck" comment.
The technical discussion on HN is not better than on Reddit. There is more noise on Reddit, but the level of expertise in the top is often higher. The people on Reddit in technical discussions are often more knowledgeable and more open minded (the tone of the discussion is less serious). HN has more groupthink and hero-envy.
HN also has a much stronger focus on entrepreneurship (understandably so).
The level of technical competence on HN is very high, and there's way less noise, so if you're a technically competent person with a business side (or if you're just interested in the business side), HN has a plethora of good for you.
As you note, the level of technical competence in the subreddits and threads that pertain to technical matters is higher on Reddit. Articles and discussions about just about any facet of any field that requires long-studied domain knowledge will have at least one commenter that really knows their stuff and wants to help people understand it.
This does come with the problem that someone who is just crafty with words can create detailed troll paragraphs that laymen can't easily distinguish from legitimate information (and this does happen, and is arguable inevitable once a discussion community grows to contain some ill-defined number of members), but that is a problem endemic to language itself, and it seems like at some level you have to assume that people know how to critically analyze what is told to them and be able to make a fair guess at legitimacy, and know to defer to well-sourced data (in addition to being able to identify good sources....)
The problem with groupthink and immaturity on Reddit is something that occurs in almost every large(r) online community I can think of (/. anyone?), and has many causes, not the least of which is that it's comprised primarily of young, idealistic, nerdy people -- and we all know that it's much easier to be loud and passionate and blunt-to-a-fault when you haven't gotten past whatever developmental phase it is where you get over yourself a bit and stop being so reactionary. In addition, you have group psychology and a large percentage of users that aren't the most socially well-off folk. In addition, a bunch of other stuff.
In short, it seems to me that Reddit is more a force for "good" than not. There are "bad" things, and the community can be swayed and manipulated like any other -- but they're largely more aware of that than other groups, and seem to be more willing to actually listen to well-reasoned arguments than others.
They also have the benefit of becoming a very popular site at a point in time where the internet seems to be becoming a major player in social and political action, but that's a different can of worms.
> As you note, the level of technical competence in the subreddits and threads that pertain to technical matters is higher on Reddit. Articles and discussions about just about any facet of any field that requires long-studied domain knowledge will have at least one commenter that really knows their stuff and wants to help people understand it.
This is exactly what I mean. For example in a discussion about D, Walter Bright (the creator of D) joins in. In a discussion on Scala Martin Odersky joins in. That's pretty awesome.
> This does come with the problem that someone who is just crafty with words can create detailed troll paragraphs that laymen can't easily distinguish from legitimate information (and this does happen, and is arguable inevitable once a discussion community grows to contain some ill-defined number of members)
Yes, although surprisingly often the crowd will choose the good comments will to be upvoted. There are exceptions of course. For example jdh30 nearly always gets downvoted no matter what he says, even if his comment is helpful and correct.
> HN also has a much stronger focus on entrepreneurship (understandably so).
Yes, on entrepreneurship topics HN has better discussion. Reddit is a bit anti-entrepreneur (especially anti-bigco).
Parts of it, certainly. It definitely has a generalized semi-anti-capitalist vibe, and yes, anti-bigco. I don't think too many of those people are against entrepreneurship in the sense of individuals (or small groups thereof) making a living for themselves doing what they are passionate about; I would imagine that the crankiness would tend to arise when an individual or company started going past providing for themselves, to providing for themselves in gross excess at the expense of the livelihoods of other individuals -- possibly many other individuals.
It's not about the size of the business, it's about putting profit motive for a small amount of individuals over the lives and/or well-being of many individuals.
you cant really be for one and against the other.
This is like saying that a cup of water with a drop of red food dye in it and a cup of red food dye are equivalent because they both contain red food dye. One of them is going to be much more beneficial upon ingestion. That's a terrible analogy.
It just so happens that the majority of "big businesses" doesn't really give a fuck about how much suffering they create -- their primary motivation tends to be profit and power, where as the majority of "small businesses" are primarily concerned with providing for the livelihoods of the people in the business, because the people are passionate about whatever they're doing.
Don't mistake an argument against viewing people as dollar signs as an argument against big businesses, and don't mistake the tendency for most of the businesses criticized as sociopathic to be big businesses to be indicative of the criticism being of big business itself.
People who are anti-bigco tend to be so because of the whole "profit is the only imperative" thing, not because they are businesses that grew.
Really? I had to -frontpage proggit a few weeks ago because I was sick of the trolling, circlejerking, and general asshattery. I still read several subreddits, but overall...
The difference between Reddit and HN though is that a well-reasoned "corporations suck" comment will not get downvoted, while on Reddit a well-reasoned "unions suck" comment will get downvoted.
Reddit has bouts of reasonableness, but I've never found a subreddit that is free of the mob.
on Reddit a well-reasoned "unions suck" comment will get downvoted.
I'd imagine that would depend on what subreddit the thread was in. Frontpage? Yeah, probably. Then again, if it is well reasoned, there will also be people pointing out that the downvotes are frivolous, and agreeing with points and debating.
That was not really the best example. I was playing off the parent's post.
Reddit's biases overlap a fair amount with HN's. Pick a topic where HN and Reddit agree, and you will see the effect more clearly, since the HN crowd on Reddit otherwise serves as a bit of balance.
Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded?
No community is perfect, but I'd say that Metafilter is considerably more tolerant and open to a wide range of opinions on a subject. You can't downvote others if you disagree with them, and baseless attacks are simply deleted by moderators; it forces you to build a well-reasoned argument if you want to debate.
Sure, Reddit's problems are caused by its size, the same way that Digg's are caused by its size. But this does not make the groupthink, mob mentality etc. any less irritating.
We're having two discussions in parallel: on the objective value of Reddit given its circumstances, and on our own personal taste for using it. You're probably much better off in many ways for not visiting.
I would like to know how informed abstainers see Reddit. I feel like given some contrived option to identify themselves with the heritage of their birth culture or nationality, or by their careers, or by where they would fit into traditional subcultures, very many Redditors would identify as Redditors, by interests and attitudes in common with a sufficient critical mass, even with dissent. The Colbert/Stewart rally, more than the individual acts of kindness, has fed a zeitgeist within Reddit that they are a community awakening to their own political power. Momentum is currently building to a campaign in protest against the TSA (which will probably fizzle, with much disillusionment for all). But I think 4chan has showed online subcultures with some chaotic convergence of will can increasingly effect the world outside their own community. And I can't conceive of any way a community, online or off, could come to be sufficiently large to find political feet, and turn out any better than Reddit has.
Regarding HN:
HN still has a higher signal-noise ratio, but as HN gets more popular (with many coming from Reddit, I presume -- and going the other way, as I did), I find that the difference between HN and applicable sub-reddits is dissolving. In particular, I feel like there was some suppression of humour on HN that has weakened since I arrived, which as lame as it seems was a not insignificant differentiating factor.
I'm not sure what you mean by informed abstainers, but if you mean informed abstainers of Reddit then I can speak for myself.
I see Reddit as a self-aggrandizing media outlet. Members generally accept liberal values as status quo. Meaningful discussion imitates base prime time political discourse.
Some of my specific gripes are:
1. Racism on Reddit is an acceptable subtext, as long as the subtext is funny.
2. Sexism on Reddit is acceptable as long as your mother, wife, or daughter are not directly considered.
3. Israel is wrong on Reddit.
I know I'm painting a pretty nasty picture of a lot of people, and I apologize to those who don't deserve it, but I've seen group think plenty of times before in my life and Reddit is it.
I think it's more that making racist/sexist jokes is acceptable, as long as people aren't offended. Telling racist/sexist jokes is not the same as being racist/sexist.
There are a lot of people (myself included) that do not think that there are taboo topics of conversation, or taboo topics of jokes -- humor relies at least partially on delivery and unexpected turns / clever twists, which are largely independent of subject matter.
That said, that doesn't mean that I think it's necessarily appropriate to make racist jokes on a board like Reddit -- it's a textual medium, and depending on the context could be extremely unintentionally offensive to people.
That said, I can't say that jokes of any subject matter bother me on Reddit. There is some actual misogyny, and some interpreted-as-misogyny-when-it's-not drama (and you can replace misogyny with just about any "going to offend people" term here), and it detracts greatly from having useful discussion.
Then again, although the primary purpose of Reddit was useful discussion, it's really more like a pub filled with pretty smart drunk folk. It's a social gathering place, and great stuff can be found, organized, talked about, and done -- but there's also going to be some guy slurring something about his genitalia and women or whatever.
I agree, it depends though. I think mostly the jokes manage to not offend, and offensive jokes are downvoted. There's not really so much misogyny as bias to side with the submitter. When someone says "my girlfriend cheated on me" everyone goes "dump that bitch/X that Y", but if a woman says "my boyfriend cheated on me", people will again say "dump that SOB".
It's not that they're against women, they're against whomever is not telling them their side of the story. It's only natural, if a friend tells you that their boy/girlfriend did something bad, you'll side with them, and so will the other party's friends. Usually both parties have a share of the responsibility, but it's human nature to usually take the side of the person who tells you the story.
I personally don't tend to find those types of jokes very funny, but I think that's mostly because I've heard a lot of them.
I think that what you state here absolutely happens, but I think that there's also a good bit of actual nerdy women-are/men-are angst floating around that at least gets interpreted (or is interpretable) as misogyny/misandry. Not as bad as it used to be, and it always gets called out (at least recently as far as I've seen), but it's there.
I figure it's largely just a function of relative immaturity, and that it's not a serious thing as long as it's called out and it's obvious that the vast majority of people on Reddit don't actually think like that. I definitely don't think that Reddit is a bunch of ridiculous sexists -- it's one of the most egalitarian groups of it's size I've ever seen.
Edit: To clarify, I don't think there's a very large overlap between the people who are making "offensive" jokes, and the people actual displaying misogyny, misandry, or other forms of bigotry (whether realized or not) in the Reddit community, although some of the former certainly gets interpreted as the latter here and there. It can be hard to tell sometimes.
Honestly - I don't think that Digg's issues were necessarily size-specific as they were both architecture and community specific.
Digg had a hell of a lot of momentum in the space - but they were too focused on trying to polarize interests around the articles that were submitted - and much much less focused on the community that was providing the interest.
The beauty of reddit (much more a /. approach) was to provide as free a forum for the opinions on submissions. Digg really was submitter focused (which I believe to be too emulative of traditional media) - whereas reddit does an excellent job of the true meta discussions that would occur if you had a crowd in a public square that were presented a story on, say, a billboard and documenting the ensuing conversations.
Reddit truly emulates how people in a quorum would act. Digg tried too hard to play both the publisher and consumer side of media, with too much publisher bias and we see where that got them.
>Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded?
Exactly; HN is very myopic - to the point of exhibiting aspergers. HN actually is too 'geek centric' -- whereby the community here is too focused on looking like the in crowd of the YC/FB alumn...
For the N-hundredth time, "aspergers" is not the same as being a nerd. It's an autism-spectrum condition that carries with it a substantial sensory integration disorder (among other things), which you'll notice most nerds don't posses.
How so? Yes, I understand it is geeky to protest a semantic inaccuracy for spite of which the intended meaning of the original point comes through. But you'll see the same thing on any forum (I've seen people who fail to capitalize the beginnings of sentences loose their shit at spelling errors), and I don't see how cynicalkane's not-unreasonable correction (continuing to use "Asperger's" as a synonym for "Nerd" does get a perpetuate its use as an unhealthy crutch for the socially-awkward neurotypical) trips anything but the most wildly flailing, meat-free interpretations of your protest.
To your point itself, very few stories on the front page of HN at any given time have members of HN, or people you would accuse members of HN of playing fawning court to, as participants. Many of them have one or two comments that say "Seriously guys? This isn't Reddit." They're usually buried gray at the bottom, forgotten under a mound of productive discussion on whatever the topic is at hand.
I disagree. Sure, it's susceptible to groupthink, but one comment by someone pointing this out is enough to turn the scales. I have never seen a single "don't downvote this guy, he's making a good point" not reverse the downvotes and lead to the person being upvoted (unless he wasn't making a good argument, but I've never seen that).
Do you read with no threshold, and read through entire threads? Read sorted by worst (or lowest or whatever it is)?
I used to. I stopped when the noise got too annoying to sift through, but I would see good comments hidden to most people by downvotes more often than never.
The "don't downvote this guy" reversal happens often, and it's really a very nice thing about the Reddit community, but a solid comment or argument is not guaranteed that treatment by any means, and sometimes that reversal doesn't actually work.
Sure, but the vast majority of the time I've seen (and done) it, it does work, and that's commendable. I firmly believe that redditors are a nudge away (if that) from great discussions, and a "he's making a good point" is enough to make redditors say "wait, I downvoted him because I disagree, not because his point is bad. Let me undo that".
That's simply an overexaggeration. I wouldn't even say that reddit likes to go against the mainstream. Liberalism, pro-gay marriage, pro-pot. These things don't fit with the current law, but they certainly are not minority views in the broader public.
Even then, go read /r/trees, it's full of people who are very sensible and will contradict other "Ents" if they're being stupid about their use of cannabis. They chastise other Democrats for having extreme views.
It's cheap to sit on the sidelines and classify reddit. If you're only reading the headlines and not participating in the discussion then you're missing the point. Similarly, if you're only subscribed to the default subreddits, you're missing the truly good stuff.
It's unbelievable how much GOOD content appears in the android, ubuntu, electronic music subreddits that people never see because they dismiss it they way you are.
I really can't conceive of any way a forum (online or afk) with sufficient mass (with the accompanying noise, groupthink and trolling that any community of people will pick up) to accomplish the things that Reddit has/may yet could turn out any more reasonable.