I realized I interacted / posted / commented less and less on reddit these last couple of years. Couldn't even tell you why exactly. Now I've been here for a week and, I don't know, I just like interacting again... Hope it stays like this for a while :)
Reddit is too popular and has too much group think, too many of the same types of comments that will get a lot karma, and too many comments that will just be ignored.
NEW is a garbage dump or a pile of duplicates. So why comment on a new post? It will never go anywhere. HOT is already full of comments, so your comment will just be lost.
It was pretty clear to me, that's why I stopped going.
It was getting toxic a long while back, but I was ok with that -- I just deleted my account every few months so I wouldn't get doxxed. But then I started to realize 2 things: First, many subreddits wouldn't even let you post without a minimum amount of karma. Second, many subreddits would downvote you into oblivion for any sort of wrongthink.
Don't get me wrong, I know I'm a wierdo and I have some bad takes sometimes, but you put bad takes out there to put them in the fire and then you get to see they're bad or you hammer them until they're good. But in the echo chamber, there was only one answer: Obey.
I would typically only engage with new posts, but in two places. One was some smaller subs where there was going to be more opportunity for discussion between everyone, and two in the larger subs would be breaking issues where new was by default and it was more group observation of the events going on in real time.
Like literally these people are all like "FrEe SpEeCh" like dude if you wanna be a Nazi go be a Nazi I'm not gonna stop you but I'm definitely not gonna support you in it. You will get a hearty kick to the nuts if you approach me with it but like you do you
To be fair some instances (like Beehaw) defederate for not being big enough to maintain a huge influx of users. It isn't always about Nazis although for sure Nazis suck I agree with that!
Sure, but anyone complaining about defederation in the context of "group think" probably isn't thinking about how much it sucks that small spaces can't moderate well enough.
I’m constantly seeing posts about how much nicer kbin is, but I’ve also seen a “KYS” comment and personal insults towards people. I also recognize it’s possible that there are fewer nasty comments, that the ones I see are just outliers but I’m more likely to notice them here instead of just downvoting and forgetting because the posts about how nice kbin is are making the counterexamples stand out that much more.
thats crazy. im very active on here as my profile can tell and other than a run in with an alt right person on one thread, i havent seen anything bad. of course, as it gets more popular, this will increase, but for now its pretty nice
Communities are going to have to start actively moderating and removing blatant abuse like that. I haven't seen very much, but ultimately, we cannot rely solely on votes or people simply being nice forever. It's always a touchy question, but every community ultimately has some standards of acceptable behavior, and it'll take time for us to figure out what ours is.
The karma system also gamifies trying to find a variation on the same thing as always. You're not trying to be clever or unique, or bring new perspectives to the conversation, you're trying to be the first person to say the thing you think everyone else is going to think of