Ask HN: There should be a Reddit Alternative (This isn’t it)
11 comments
Reddit gets bashed here from time to time, and for good reason.
But there are great subreddits. (pro tip: none of them are the default subreddits.)
If you want to go discuss controversial topics, reddit is like being in a room of screaming and raving lunatics.
If you go a subreddit about 3D printers, or a particular city, or some niche hobby, there are awesome, well-moderated subreddits where the participants are civil and constructive.
But there are great subreddits. (pro tip: none of them are the default subreddits.)
If you want to go discuss controversial topics, reddit is like being in a room of screaming and raving lunatics.
If you go a subreddit about 3D printers, or a particular city, or some niche hobby, there are awesome, well-moderated subreddits where the participants are civil and constructive.
This has long been my opinion, as well, but even the more niche subs are becoming more and more infested by the raving lunatics. At this point I can't help but feel that there's a cancer that has metastasized and will eventually reach everything. I find myself spending quite a lot less time (and getting quite a lot less value) there, and wish there were something that filled the function it used to.
Constructive hobbies sure, because those are full of productive people. Fan subs are another story. On the Elliott Smith sub, someone started bashing Ed Sheeran for being a “weak comparison”. I replied “They both have soft voices and write songs about love” to which someone responded “he writes about sex and romance, not love” and a friendly -17 votes. Very open minded people.
Maybe for some cities, but Seattle is so difficult that there are THREE separate subreddits.
> Why can’t there be a balance where users can post what they want as long as it isn’t bigoted?
Good luck defining “bigoted” and enforcing that objectively. Almost anything interesting will offend someone.
Good luck defining “bigoted” and enforcing that objectively. Almost anything interesting will offend someone.
Yeah, people don't realize how true this is until they see it themselves. A small community I was a part of, which was quite tolerant of vulgarity, wound up dying when the new generation of American moderators banned several British and Australian users for sexism over saying 'cunt', even though it has completely different connotations outside of the US.
It's my experience with these kind of rules that they often boil down to people over-enforcing their distinct cultural view of acceptable behavior, which clashes with and excludes people outside of that bubble.
It's my experience with these kind of rules that they often boil down to people over-enforcing their distinct cultural view of acceptable behavior, which clashes with and excludes people outside of that bubble.
Blatantly bigoted like racial slurs, homophobia. I don't want to establish some pc police, just something that would keep the site from turning into 4chan.
“No racial slurs or homophobia?! What kind of fascist PC hellhole are you running here?!” - a user on day one of a online forum
Even milder things can be tricky, like "I'm fine with gay people but they shouldn't be allowed to marry or adopt". Is that homophobia?
You will end up having to either force your particular views on everyone, or just disallowing discussion of controversial topics altogether.
You will end up having to either force your particular views on everyone, or just disallowing discussion of controversial topics altogether.
> my idea is basically 4chan minus the bigotry
The idea that you can replicate the lasting success of 4chan minus the bigotry is misunderstanding the specific formula that makes 4chan work.
Part of the reason for the bigotry is as a defensive measure to keep out masses of thin-skinned people (some observers call them normies or NPCs) that ruin forums wherever they go. The types of people who can't mentally handle seeing pointless slurs are precisely the people who must be kept out to keep 4chan successful. And 4chan has mostly thrived for quite a while whereas many once interesting sites have become a bland, corporate morass.
And part of the reason for the bigotry is that reality in many cases is perceived as bigoted. You can't have a forum devoted to distilling ideas down to the truth without seeing bigotry. HackerNews is very successful in talking about technology and many ideas in many respects, but we all know that there's certain topics you can't fully discuss or you have to verbally dance around or risk getting blocked or banned. The pursuit of truth, as successful as it is for discussing many technology ideas, will forever be incomplete on HN.
> plus user profiles and NO KARMA SYSTEM
Another part of the reason that 4chan works is the lack of a user profile system. Unlike most forum systems, there's no way to save posts in any fashion. So the practice that has emerged is that really fantastic posts are saved as images and repeatedly posted. Essentially, the karma system that 4chan has is focused solely on the content.
The idea that you can replicate the lasting success of 4chan minus the bigotry is misunderstanding the specific formula that makes 4chan work.
Part of the reason for the bigotry is as a defensive measure to keep out masses of thin-skinned people (some observers call them normies or NPCs) that ruin forums wherever they go. The types of people who can't mentally handle seeing pointless slurs are precisely the people who must be kept out to keep 4chan successful. And 4chan has mostly thrived for quite a while whereas many once interesting sites have become a bland, corporate morass.
And part of the reason for the bigotry is that reality in many cases is perceived as bigoted. You can't have a forum devoted to distilling ideas down to the truth without seeing bigotry. HackerNews is very successful in talking about technology and many ideas in many respects, but we all know that there's certain topics you can't fully discuss or you have to verbally dance around or risk getting blocked or banned. The pursuit of truth, as successful as it is for discussing many technology ideas, will forever be incomplete on HN.
> plus user profiles and NO KARMA SYSTEM
Another part of the reason that 4chan works is the lack of a user profile system. Unlike most forum systems, there's no way to save posts in any fashion. So the practice that has emerged is that really fantastic posts are saved as images and repeatedly posted. Essentially, the karma system that 4chan has is focused solely on the content.
How do you prevent it from being toxic if you won't mute or ban anyone?
I get where you're coming from. The idea of "uncensored" is appealing, but the ideal is ruined by a tiny minority who won't behave in anything even near a civil manner.
I get where you're coming from. The idea of "uncensored" is appealing, but the ideal is ruined by a tiny minority who won't behave in anything even near a civil manner.
Flagging and mods. Believe it or not, 4chan allows you to report doxxing and other types of harassment.
Someone could fork the Reddit code out there and do it.
It is important to realize Reddit was originally self-sustaining. It generated the revenue it needed largely from the users who used it.
The real struggle, and how Reddit is moderated is a struggle, became an issue when it was sold for future value paid today. This meant Reddit must not only sustain itself, but deliver returns on those investments.
AD Revenue became a big deal, and with that comes the speech struggle we see today.
Or, have Uncle Sam run one. For the people, by the people, and run it to the letter of the law.
I would love to see the latter frankly. Would be a very interesting experiment.
It is important to realize Reddit was originally self-sustaining. It generated the revenue it needed largely from the users who used it.
The real struggle, and how Reddit is moderated is a struggle, became an issue when it was sold for future value paid today. This meant Reddit must not only sustain itself, but deliver returns on those investments.
AD Revenue became a big deal, and with that comes the speech struggle we see today.
Or, have Uncle Sam run one. For the people, by the people, and run it to the letter of the law.
I would love to see the latter frankly. Would be a very interesting experiment.
Government regulated Reddit, haha that would be funny. But I don't think it would catch on very well, given how people feel about censorship in general.
Considering the pressure Reddit puts on it's users to download it's buggy app when browsing it's mobile site, it wouldn't surprise me the pressure they receive from investors in general.
4chan I'm pretty sure lives off donations and it shows, badly. HN is carefree being owned by a startup accelerator.
So I get what you're saying where these sites aren't very self sustaining, and ad revenue isn't very viable in todays age.
Considering the pressure Reddit puts on it's users to download it's buggy app when browsing it's mobile site, it wouldn't surprise me the pressure they receive from investors in general.
4chan I'm pretty sure lives off donations and it shows, badly. HN is carefree being owned by a startup accelerator.
So I get what you're saying where these sites aren't very self sustaining, and ad revenue isn't very viable in todays age.
It would either be funny, or kind of awesome, depending on how it's made and who runs it.
A Reddit ran with the seriousness of the Post Office, immune from Congress in most regards, bolstered with the First Amendment, could be quite a thing. An essential public utility, broadly trusted.
One ran the way most things are today? Yeah, laughable.
Anyhoo, yeah. The AD model has major issues.
A Reddit ran with the seriousness of the Post Office, immune from Congress in most regards, bolstered with the First Amendment, could be quite a thing. An essential public utility, broadly trusted.
One ran the way most things are today? Yeah, laughable.
Anyhoo, yeah. The AD model has major issues.
> "I cannot stress enough how toxic the karma system is. I believe online bullying is real, flag systems, and moderators are necessary. But Karma systems are often abused by punishing users for expressing opposing views."
Without karma/points you are relying on the platform and their definition of quality. Voting with points, is the easiest way to allow the community to decide what is important...
Without karma/points you are relying on the platform and their definition of quality. Voting with points, is the easiest way to allow the community to decide what is important...
That assumes karma alone decides how comments and stories sort, as if it were a direct democracy, but that's never the case.
Also, without karma, you have to actually engage with content and decide for yourself what is and isn't worth replying to, which is better than just assuming high karma = high quality. There are plenty of reasons, such as simply being the first comment in a thread, why a relatively low quality comment might also have more points than better comments down the line.
Also, without karma, you have to actually engage with content and decide for yourself what is and isn't worth replying to, which is better than just assuming high karma = high quality. There are plenty of reasons, such as simply being the first comment in a thread, why a relatively low quality comment might also have more points than better comments down the line.
> That assumes karma alone decides how comments and stories sort
Karma is one of the easiest things to implement that signals that something is important, I didn't mean that it's the only thing used.
Comment sorting is most often a combination of recency, votes and user reputation...
Karma is one of the easiest things to implement that signals that something is important, I didn't mean that it's the only thing used.
Comment sorting is most often a combination of recency, votes and user reputation...
But are they always deciding what's important, or what they don't agree with.
The issues you say reddit has are issues all forums have. 4chan, SA, reddit, even HN has its issues sometimes. Human nature.
IMO the correct answer is to reduce posting and browsing forums. Unless you have a specific question, it is largely a waste of time designed to make you upset (see your comment about the Elliott Smith sub).
IMO the correct answer is to reduce posting and browsing forums. Unless you have a specific question, it is largely a waste of time designed to make you upset (see your comment about the Elliott Smith sub).
> I cannot stress enough how toxic the karma system is. I believe online bullying is real, flag systems, and moderators are necessary. But Karma systems are often abused by punishing users for expressing opposing views. I believe this is part of what sculpts ecosystems into echo chambers. When someone gets downvoted, no matter the reason, they receive posting restrictions, bans, etc.
4chan has a joke that browsing Reddit is only bearable so long as you sort everything by controversial. I don't think that works too well when ranking content, but for comments it's far more interesting and probably my preferred way to rank comments on Reddit.
I kind of like the idea of a Reddit-like site which hides karma, but ranks comments by "controversy". Reddit really suffers from echo-chambers and in recent years I've mostly stopped reading and participating in discussions on Reddit because comment sections on Reddit are full of people uncritically agreeing with each other. I'm fine with receiving hate online and being downvoted, but what I don't like is spending time to write out a comment presenting a different opinion only be downvoted into oblivion and receive no constructive feedback. I always try to bring an opposing perspective to discussions (even when I don't hold the opinion I'm advocating for) because I think that's generally the only way to really explore problems and break out of local-optimas in our thought process on any given topic, but this is actively discouraged on Reddit because of the karma and comment ranking system.
I also think Reddit suffers from its popularity, and to some extent, its corporate interests. If a Reddit competitor emerges it should ideally be community funded, but more importantly it should try to be selective with it's user base and avoid the common growth at all costs approach to building social networks. Generally the quality of conversation on smaller, niche subreddits is far higher because there is a less casual audience. For example, in the past political subreddits were mostly comprised of users who were really interested in politics and they were there to have high-quality conversations about the details of policies and other political topics. Today, the average user on a political subreddit is someone with a casual interest in what's happening in the world politically and therefore the comments tend to be full of low-effort, reactionary opinions. For whatever reason HN has done a really good job at remaining a reasonably niche community and has no significant corporate bias. I think that's primarily why the quality of conversation here is that much higher than on Reddit.
Just some thoughts, because I agree with you a Reddit alternative would be great.
4chan has a joke that browsing Reddit is only bearable so long as you sort everything by controversial. I don't think that works too well when ranking content, but for comments it's far more interesting and probably my preferred way to rank comments on Reddit.
I kind of like the idea of a Reddit-like site which hides karma, but ranks comments by "controversy". Reddit really suffers from echo-chambers and in recent years I've mostly stopped reading and participating in discussions on Reddit because comment sections on Reddit are full of people uncritically agreeing with each other. I'm fine with receiving hate online and being downvoted, but what I don't like is spending time to write out a comment presenting a different opinion only be downvoted into oblivion and receive no constructive feedback. I always try to bring an opposing perspective to discussions (even when I don't hold the opinion I'm advocating for) because I think that's generally the only way to really explore problems and break out of local-optimas in our thought process on any given topic, but this is actively discouraged on Reddit because of the karma and comment ranking system.
I also think Reddit suffers from its popularity, and to some extent, its corporate interests. If a Reddit competitor emerges it should ideally be community funded, but more importantly it should try to be selective with it's user base and avoid the common growth at all costs approach to building social networks. Generally the quality of conversation on smaller, niche subreddits is far higher because there is a less casual audience. For example, in the past political subreddits were mostly comprised of users who were really interested in politics and they were there to have high-quality conversations about the details of policies and other political topics. Today, the average user on a political subreddit is someone with a casual interest in what's happening in the world politically and therefore the comments tend to be full of low-effort, reactionary opinions. For whatever reason HN has done a really good job at remaining a reasonably niche community and has no significant corporate bias. I think that's primarily why the quality of conversation here is that much higher than on Reddit.
Just some thoughts, because I agree with you a Reddit alternative would be great.
Unfortunately interesting comments on Reddit aren't controversial: they're downvoted into low negative numbers.
Every year fewer and fewer Redditors are willing to upvote a thought they don't already think.
Every year fewer and fewer Redditors are willing to upvote a thought they don't already think.
What are some examples of low negative voted thoughts that you think should be brought more front and center?
Anything that is truly an "unpopular opinion".
For example discussing the drawbacks of a popular tv show on a tv sub, discussing risk profiles on a covid sub, discussing billionaires, NFTs, life extension, etc.
Any topic that generates truly controversial (i.e. can be argued successfully in one direction or the other) opinions.
For example discussing the drawbacks of a popular tv show on a tv sub, discussing risk profiles on a covid sub, discussing billionaires, NFTs, life extension, etc.
Any topic that generates truly controversial (i.e. can be argued successfully in one direction or the other) opinions.
Have you heard of Usenet?
Yeah, it’s more of a protocol. It’s pretty much dead, and certainly not active amongst younger generations.
NNTP is the protocol. There is still some activity there, in some niche technical groups, though it is low.
The only reason I bring it up is because usenet was the "decentralized Reddit" of the 90's.
The only reason I bring it up is because usenet was the "decentralized Reddit" of the 90's.
Seems like a cleanup pass could make it work again.
I loved USENET. Would definitely give it a second try.
There are discussions still going on USENET. SPAM is low, quality high.
I loved USENET. Would definitely give it a second try.
There are discussions still going on USENET. SPAM is low, quality high.
I'm not really sure this is necessary (and IMHO I believe HN should be more strictly moderated), but you are definitely welcome to build one and we can try it out.
I guess necessity is pretty melodramatic. It’s just when I’m here, I feel the site suffers the same effect where posts get downvoted to oblivion. Many of which are just simple rebuttals. The only different is here, no one knows comments have been downvoted until they get greyed out and disappear.
I’d like to setup something. I’m a software developer, but have very little experience in websites other than personal blogs.
I’d like to setup something. I’m a software developer, but have very little experience in websites other than personal blogs.
I partially agree with you as I actively monitor new posts but sometimes found legit new posts (not duplicated, technical related topics) appeared to be "Dead".
What you've described is pretty much what Reddit was back in 2006-7 before the first big re-design and introduction of subreddits.
I cannot stress enough how toxic the karma system is. I believe online bullying is real, flag systems, and moderators are necessary. But Karma systems are often abused by punishing users for expressing opposing views. I believe this is part of what sculpts ecosystems into echo chambers. When someone gets downvoted, no matter the reason, they receive posting restrictions, bans, etc.
Why can’t there be a balance where users can post what they want as long as it isn’t bigoted?
Instead of a thousand sub Reddits, why not just 10 to 20 general boards. The user picks which of those boards they wish to subscribe to. No user generated boards so people can worship Elliott Smith and attack people who like Ed Sheeran.
Yes, my idea is basically 4chan minus the bigotry, plus user profiles. But also still focused on users posting links to articles as well as Ask posts like this one.