Reddit is still in turmoil - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/21/reddit-is-still-in-turmoil/ <comment><USER3> I think much of Reddit's problems with its userbase boil down to an early failure to manage expectations.

It's pretty clear that the Reddit corporation doesn't want Reddit to be an anything-goes, absolute free speech zone with no moderation or anti-harassment policies -- but that's what the site actually was for many years. Now, when the company cracks down, users think their freedoms are being curtailed. The mistake was ever allowing that kind of freedom in the first place, because people developed an expectation that it would persist.

Compounding that problem, the fact that the site was unregulated for so long caused it to attract the kind of people who need to be regulated the most. In other words, it's no surprise that the most tolerant communities attract people who are difficult to tolerate.

I suspect Twitter is having similar issues dealing with harassment, after letting it happen for so long. If there is a lesson in this, it is that online communities which plan to implement anti-harassment policies ought to do so from the beginning, and develop the expectation among the users that such policies exist, and will continue to exist. Don't just tack them on after several years, and don't enforce them inconsistently and arbitrarily as Reddit has done.

It will be difficult for Condé Nast to get its money's worth out of Reddit now. I doubt it will ever shake its negative reputation.

<comment><USER4> Twitter's problem isn't quite the same as Reddit's. It's because the site is incredibly inconsistent with its moderation.

If you run a community, you need consistency. Members need to know where the boundaries are in regards to how you can act and what is/isn't acceptable.

Twitter doesn't really do this well. If you agree with the staff political stances, you can basically get away with anything. If you're popular enough (or a large company), you can often get away with things that would get a less popular user banned.

For example, contrast what happens when a left wing user breaks the rules and attacks people and what happens when a right wing one does it. It seems like the former will get punished a lot less harshly for the same offence.

Twitter needs to stop this, and enforce the rules for everyone in every situation.

<comment><USER5> If you ask us to compare between two examples, you are required to provide two actual examples instead of having us just imagine a scenario that fits your claim.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps I can assist: Shaun King calls Jason Whitlock a "coon". He keeps his verified check and account. If that isn't personal, racial abuse and harassment, I'm not sure what is.

EDIT: Not being tremendously familiar with this spat, it took me a while to figure out what Milo got banned for. Best I can figure out, it was for calling a Ghostbusters actress "barely literate". Since that's a bit of a weak-tea insult, I imagine the real offense was not stopping (how?) his army of followers from tweeting other vile things at the woman. Is that our standard? Should we hold peaceful BLM leaders responsible for tweets from their followers promoting cop-killing?

<comment><USER7> What happened with Milo is less about him attacking Leslie Jones, and more about his _followers_ attacking Leslie Jones. Milo knows full well that if he identifies someone for his heckling, he'll have thousands of trolls and their sockpuppets do the heavy lifting for him.

<comment><USER8> I personally don't think people should be accountable for their followers behavior, but let's suppose it is so.

Then, should we ban people such as Shanley, Randi Harper and their likes when they "unleash" their followers on some guy?

And this is actually different. While Milo did not explicitly call for the attacks, Shanley and Randi routinely do call for a target to be abused, for their companies to be harassed until the target is terminated, etc.

I don't support any side, I'm just trying to show that the first comment regarding _consistency_ is indeed accurate, Twitter has none.

<comment><USER7> >I don't support any side, I'm just trying to show that the first comment regarding consistency is indeed accurate, Twitter has none.

No argument here. Twitter's inconsistent, if not outright apathetic about abuse no matter where it comes from. It's been pointed out there's no shortage of harassment and abuse from people on the left on Twitter. Maybe not at the rate and volume of the "alt-right" types, but it doesn't matter. Twitter needs to clean house.

<comment><USER8> The thing is they're not really apathetic. They seem to pick a target once in a while and go overboard with the retaliation. And it seems to be just out of the blue for no specific reason other than the mood of the day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is a good time to repost a paragraph about why one should not trust Reddit, by Reddit's then CEO, Yishan Wong:

> I am continually astounded that people sort of trust corporations like they > trust people. We can talk all day about how the current team is trustworthy > and we're not in the business of screwing you, but I also have to say that > you can never predict what happens. reddit could be subject to some kind of > hostile takeover, or we go bankrupt (Please buy reddit gold) and our assets > are sold to some creditor. The owners of corporations can change - look what > happened to MySQL, who sold to Sun Microsystems, who they trusted to support > its open source ethos - and then Sun failed and now it's all owned by > Oracle. Or LiveJournal, which was very user-loyal but then sold itself to > SixApart (still kinda loyal) which failed and then was bought by some > Russian company. I am working hard to make sure that reddit is successful on > its own and can protect its values and do right by its users but please, you > should protect yourselves by being prudent. The terms of our User Agreement > are written to be broad enough to give us flexibility because we don't know > what mediums reddit may evolve on to, and they are sufficiently standard in > the legal world in that way so that we can leverage legal precedents to > protect our rights, but much of what happens in practice depends on the > intentions of the parties involved.

> The User Agreement is intended to protect us by outlining what rights we > claim. But it cannot protect you - you must protect yourself, by acting > wisely.

<comment><USER10> isn't that more "don't trust any company"? what he says applies to way more than reddit

<comment><USER9> Well, yes. His main point is to not trust reddit because it is a company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reddit is a crossroads: It's an intersection between the cultures of 4chan (which is in itself an intersection of japanese and american sensibilities), and the culture of usenet, and internet forums, and a dozen other cultures besides.

None of these cultures handle censorship well. They all originated in an environment where, to some extent, you could say whatever the hell you like.

Many of Reddit's early users came from these cultures, and they were responsible for the early culture of the site.

And now, Reddit is desparately trying to adapt itself, and attract people from Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, whose cultures are radically different, and perhaps even to some degree less toxic than the pre-September usenet, whilst also being more toxic. I don't know how.

The point is, a culture that previously only dealt with unacceptability in relative terms - this is unacceptable in this context - is now dealing with absolute unacceptability - this is not acceptable, ever. This isn't a change that people will likely adapt to well. This is prompting a migration to sites like Voat, and others.

The problem is, Reddit is introducing censorship which is incredibly inconsistant to a site where the concept of censorship is anathema - Bans, yes, people get punished for breaking the rules. But having your posts quietly vanish without warning?

No wonder the userbase is pissed.

Unless I got it completely wrong, which is possible.

<comment><USER12> > Bans, yes, people get punished for breaking the rules. But having your posts > quietly vanish without warning?

This comment particularly stuck out to me.

Very few other communication platforms of Reddit's ilk will go through the process of _shadowbanning_ users - that is - the user still has full functionality of the site, however their comments are not visible to other users; only themselves. To an unknowing user, it appears no action has been taken on their account.

It is a shockingly effective means of silencing dissenters or those who disagree with the majority; and this punishment has extended far beyond those who speak abusively/offensively. The nefarious part is wasting the user's time as well.

<comment><USER13> If only game makers would build this kind of system into their Anti-cheats, make the cheater think for as long as possible they are ruining other people's day only to find out that the last hour has been against AI with canned outrage responses from the AI.

<comment><USER14> I think most game makers just put cheaters into a cheater-only pool of players.

<comment><USER15> I like this idea; let's see who has the best and biggest cheats. A comedian once suggested we have the Olympics and we do today, and a no-holds-barred Cheaters Olympics where those competing can take any substance they like, to really see how far the human body can be pushed.

I wonder how long until we have to have a regular and an augmented Olympics.

<comment><USER11> That sounds like Quake. It isn't quite, but Quake is the closest thing.

Quake's metagame has evolved around extreme dexterity, complicated scripting, and an obsessive desire to use every trick in the book to push youself beyond the game's intended limits. This is why things like the bunnyhop, the rocketjump, and wallrunning are not only accepted, but expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reddit's content curation has come at a time when social media writ large (Facebook, Twitter) has become linked into State Department and DoD programs. Counter-intelligence objectives are fought on the 'private property' of social media servers that host the content of individuals. Fighting the 'War of Ideas' in the 'cognitive domain of warfare', the effort to starve unwanted ideas for a place to roost and feed others to maturity is certainly useful, but it comes at a cost.

There is some value in ungoverned spaces, where advertisements, political astroturfing, politicized content curation ("no 'RT' allowed, but we'll allow VoA and Sky") play a secondary role to the contributions of individuals.

The internet was supposed to be an ungoverned space - a 'piazza' or 'forum' \- but when it wasn't and when the 'Web' wasn't social media was supposed to fill this gap. Behind the cry of those protesting the take down of 'revenge porn' and 'fat hate' postings, I hear the more sober voice that adknowledges that there's one less place that's a safe and free place for expression - <USER2> unpopular as some of it may be.

<comment><USER17> I too long for the days of the ARPAnet, when the Internet was not associated with DoD programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why does Reddit have to become a media empire?

The formula for doing that is pretty well-known by this point:

We'll see a ban on throwaway accounts and a push for real names, then a ban on third party URL shorteners, then interruption ads, and finally some sort of paywall.

Reddit is a useful piece of internet infrastructure, and I'd be pleased if it would stay that way. It doesn't need to become its own media empire with its own Rupert Murdoch, etc.

Some things that could be improved:

\- opt-in home pages that are tailored at specific audiences. The standard one is pretty low quality.

\- more detection/policing of voting rings and vote fraud in general.

<comment><USER19> > Why does Reddit have to become a media empire?

Because investors have poured a ton of money into it expecting it to be a media empire.

<comment><USER20> This is what I detect in Reddit's new ideas: the fear that the existing site is _good enough_ for most people and its population has therefore stabilised... which would be pretty bad for certain kinds of investor looking for a big one-off return instead of a consistent dividend.

<comment><USER21> Oh god. There are no "investors". Reddit is owned by Conde Nast's parent company. The only other shareholders are employees.

<comment><USER22> Wrong.

Reddit has recently received substantial outside investments: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/01/reddit- se...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/01/reddit- secures-50m-fundraising-investors-snoop-dogg)

<comment><USER21> I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Reddit, from a business perspective, baffles me. During the Yishan Wong/Ellen Pao era, we had Reddit-Made and Reddit TV, both of which bombed especially. Under Alexis Ohanian, we had Upvoted and Formative which as the article notes were killed silently.

Reddit released a native app and an image host _years_ too late. (I just checked the data and it is not killing Imgur: Reddit image usage was 18% in the top image subreddits at beginning of June, today it is 25%).

The biggest fundamental change Reddit has made in the time since is...making self-posts count for karma. And tracking outbound links.

It really shouldn't be that impossible to have a successful business with hundreds of millions of users. Especially with the wealth of data available to Reddit.

<comment><USER23> It's not. Reddit could easily sell targeted ads based on subreddits (e.g. inking a deal with Uniqlo to advertise on /r/malefashionadvice or /r/femalefashionadvice).

It chooses to pursue other monetization means to preserve the Reddit experience.

We'll see if it's able to stumble onto another sustainable business model.

<comment><USER24> The problem is most high quality advertisers don't want to have their brand promoted along side user generated content. So while Reddit has a ton of traffic, much of that traffic is worthless to the most desirable advertisers.

<comment><USER25> Isn't that exactly Facebook's business model?

<comment><USER26> Sort of. Facebook also pours money into making its platform family-friendly through moderation teams, auto-detection of obscene/inappropriate content, etc. Not to mention all the analytics and targeting capabilities of their advertising programs. Being a household name, they're also so huge that it's impossible to ignore - grandma's not on Reddit but there's a pretty good chance she's on Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I like reddit. I don't really care so much about the frontpage. I like other subreddits where discussion is central (bestof, subredditdrama, changemyview, self, ask<insert-subject>), or content subreddit (games, wallpapers, military, photos). The default subreddits feel like google news.

What's important is the users and how there is room for them to exchange both ways, unlike standard medias.

There also are many people watching for bias, would it come from moderation, brigade, corporate, etc. You will often reads posts about actual professional in a field explaining you something, and it often is enlightening (granted that I would not trust reddit for a decision that implies my own existence).

Generally, reddit works because the users can see and feel that people are exchanging, talking, sharing, reacting. It's "alive". Even facebook cannot really pretend being that lively place, that "bazaar".

What must be really tough is how you manage that many teams of moderators. That must be a nightmare, but to me it seems that it's vital. Fortunately it seems that they will always find people for that, because their subreddit revolves around something they like, and they will often do a good job (it seems) because they want to promote that hobby, not that it will directly benefit them financially (example, moderator of askhistorians).

<comment><USER28> _Fortunately it seems that they will always find people for that, because their subreddit revolves around something they like, and they will often do a good job (it seems) because they want to promote that hobby, not that it will directly benefit them financially (example, moderator of askhistorians)._

Yup. I'm one of the mods for /r/AskEngineers. I want to promote engineering in general: designing things, fixing things, learning how things work. I'm glad to do this, and to encourage good and useful discussions.

I especially like when we've got questions from engineers who are working outside their own discipline, and just need a little nudge in the right direction. Getting just a paragraph from an expert can save days or weeks of effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The human race is comprised of horrible people, any website that accepts user contributions will attract contributions from horrible people. As a service owner you have a decision; either you say that everyone's opinion is valid, horrible and all, or you say no; these are the rules around what you can post and anything outside those boundaries is subject to removal.

What you absolutely should _not_ do is build a brand around being in the first category and then transition to the second. Especially if all your content is user contributed.

Of course, no one thinks of themselves or their in-group as horrible. You could substitute horrible for flawed if it makes you feel better.

<comment><USER29> >Of course, no one thinks of themselves or their in-group as horrible. You could substitute horrible for flawed if it makes you feel better.

If everyone is flawed, then whats the point of having an arbitrarily selected group of flawed people censor all the other flawed people? That logic seems flawed, unless it is purely from a monetary interest.

Moreover, deeming people "horrible" is completely subjective. All of the great pioneers of human rights were considered "horrible people" by the majority.

>Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

-Dr. King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail

<comment><USER30> > If everyone is flawed, then whats the point of having an arbitrarily > selected group of flawed people censor all the other flawed people? That > logic seems flawed, unless it is purely from a monetary interest.

It seems reasonable that the people who put the time and effort into creating and maintaining a discussion site are perfectly valid to pick and choose what type of content they see fit no matter how arbitrary their rules.

If their rules are too harsh or unliked people will just go elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I didn't realize drinking on the job was a thing. I've had the odd company party with beer in the late afternoon, but that's perhaps twice a year.

I'm not a teetotaler by any stretch of the imagination, but drinking at work seems counterproductive.

<comment><USER32> We have beer in the fridge and a keg at work. Sometimes it's nice to have a beer at the end of the day, but after a working all day I usually just want to go home.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, i can see that. Finish a big project and have a beer with your team. I have a hard time seeing that as a daily or even weekly thing.

<comment><USER33> I'd like to give a counter-perspective, since those who drink at work are often grouped as "brogrammers" when I don't feel like the term encapsulates the environment I'm seeking at all; I have a group of mixed engineer/PM peers accumulated from multiple past jobs who perhaps once a month after work on a friday go to a bar for happy hour and just shoot the shit about work. We have non-drinkers there (we'd glady have more but by no planning of my own many of my coworkers happen to drink) and I've never heard any murmur of pressure to participate beyond being a grumpy engineer :)

Sometimes, as the parent said, this happens out of the work fridge, as going to the bar isn't feasible, and it's nice to take 30m or so out of a long afternoon to be slightly less heads down, as said above, the fact that beer is involved is more just that it's a common source of enjoyment than any intrinsic ties to the hanging out. Coffee, video games, etc are all other ways of doing this, and I think if the culture is natural and very laid back you can avoid the peer pressure that naysayers like to bring up.

To your earlier point of being counterproductive, by 4 on a friday, I am so far from my peak of engineering productivity that a casual chat that spawns some interesting conversations is probably far more work-beneficial than my banging my head further on the same thing I've been doing for the prior 79 hours of the week, if I'm being honest with my workflow.

Just my thoughts. The stated lack of pressure comes from a recognition that these are just that, MY thoughts; I absolutely believe that this pattern doesn't work for anyone, but after so long of seeing the anti-drinking sentiment grow I wanted to chime in a bit with a positive spin; in as mentally intensive a field as we often have a chance to unwind is so valuable to me.

<comment><USER31> > [we...] go to a bar for happy hour and just shoot the shit about work.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, i do that myself. Absolutely agree with the 4 on Friday point as well. I like drinking.

It's just the _at work_ part that makes me nervous. I see the utility in not having to move to a different location, and how that is more inclusive to everyone. I think it takes a very light touch. Because it's at work people might feel more obligated to participate - even if they don't claim any feelings of obligation. Because people are drinking, they might be a little less tactful than normal. These two can compound in ways that aren't great for everyone.

You and your team sound like smart responsible adults. And i'm sure organizations that approach it with your level of delicacy will do great.

<comment><USER32> It is definitely much easier in a small company. We hire mature adults and treat people as mature adults. Drink/don't drink, play a chess game or not, work at home or not, stay and play some games after work or go pick up your kids, we do not care as long as the work gets done.

All people are different and value different things. If you hire responsible adults, you can give a lot of leeway with how the work gets done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's bizarre that a company seems to be struggling to administer diversity of staff, without being certain of its own medium-term success.

There's no point in having your quota of "people of colour", as the article puts it, if the business model is unsustainable and leads to people being fired anyway.

Why not focus on creating a successful company first, and then worry about things that carry an administrative and management overhead.

<comment><USER35> It goes to what kind of company and site you want to have. If all you have is 20-something tech bros then that's the kind of company and site you will have.

If you want to appeal beyond that, you may want to broaden your culture.

Sometimes the founding cultural DNA is too strong, or attempts to change the culture fall short for a variety of reasons.

<comment><USER36> I don't think hiring women or blacks is going to do much to the community.

<comment><USER37> No, but if your monoculture of tech-bros has not had to deal with half the internet shit that women and people of color do (Or have, for various reasons, not been deeply impacted by it,) then what you're going to get is a community where women and people of color are driven away.

I've never been stalked on the internet. I've never received threatening phone calls. I've never been personally harassed, or physically threatened. If by some happenstance, one or two people did any of the above, I'd probably laugh it off.

A company full of people like me is unlikely to consider those use cases as seriously as they should.

<comment><USER34> Luckily a company full of people like you will also need to have experienced marketing and legal staff, who will know that it would be unwise to laugh off such user issues. Your marketing team doesn't need to be diverse to know this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why the hell is Reddit trying to make their own content when the entire point of the site is for the users to create the content?

Don't make a Reddit podcast, make Reddit a podcast hosting network.

Don't make a Reddit video show, make Reddit a video hosting site.

Don't make a Reddit magazine, make Reddit a source for anybody to publish their own magazines.

Why does Reddit have writers and editors and creative directors? It's like a rock band having a position for a flower arranger.

Is this the point where Reddit has official jumped the shark? Where to next for my cat picture memes?

 _edit_

Want to increase quality and revenue? Give a cut of advertising revenue to the mods of successful, high quality subs.

Incentivize for the behavior you want.

Provide the platform and get the users to provide, mod and benefit from the content.

<comment><USER39> I see why they want to create their own curated content. A friend of mine has created and run several user-generated content sites and he said: "user generated content is worthless; largely racism and porn." It's driven by the lowest common denominator.

As long as content is hosted on company-controlled servers where ad revenue is the model for survival, you're going to see slow declines and eventual busts like Digg. Users hate being advertised to and censored.

The future is probably something where people pay a small amount to access a forum that's somehow distributed on their machines (phones, PCs, etc) and not controlled by any organization. Data transfer (even mobile) and storage are getting cheaper. It'll be like bitcoin, but for discussions.

<comment><USER40> >"The future is probably something where people pay a small amount to access a forum that's somehow distributed on their machines (phones, PCs, etc) and not controlled by any organization. Data transfer (even mobile) and storage are getting cheaper. It'll be like bitcoin, but for discussions."

No. The future is the next Digg, the next Reddit, etc. Just like a torrent site, when one goes down (for whatever reason), the next in line pops up to take its place (and users). The internet does not want to pay money to access a forum. The internet also does not want to be advertised to. So the cycle will continue.

<comment><USER41> Here's the problem (IMO): Reddit has too many features and too big a userbase to replicate as Reddit itself did a decade ago. voat.co has been in development for years and still lacks crucial systems for things like content moderation, monetization, scaling, etc.

Essentially for a coup of Reddit to occur you have to take a large chunk of Reddit at once. That is very hard to do.

<comment><USER42> voat.co was developed because someone wanted to develop something with ASP.net.

Reddit, the software platform is open source: [https://github.com/reddit](https://github.com/reddit)

<comment><USER43> Voat is run on ASP.NET but it's open source as well:

[https://github.com/voat](https://github.com/voat)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Since Alexis and Huffman returned I've seen more happen with the brand than in the several years preceding. I don't know who made their mobile app but it is damn good. I resisted at first but am now using it as my primary means for consuming content on Reddit.

<comment><USER45> The team has really done a remarkable job -- shipping more in the last quarter alone than over years before.

<comment><USER46> Totally agree as a long time user. Keep it up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I am surprised that the core Reddit functionality is not run mostly on autopilot.

I only subscribe to a few subreddits (lisp, Ruby, Haskell, AGI, and a few others) and the user supplied content is plenty good enough for me to visit the site once a day.

</comment><comment><USER48> "Ooh, lots of people like this thing. It's popular."

"Great! Let's take advantage of that popularity to make a ton of cash!"

"Hm. We'll have to dramatically change pretty much everything about how it operates."

"What could go wrong?"

</comment><comment><USER36> Big chunk of the article gone explaining how the diversity policies have failed, but I don't see any explanation on how they would have helped the site or the community.

What if the company is failing because instead of focusing on hiring competent people (of which they have a severe lack, at least in the engineering side) they focused on having a diverse team?

</comment><comment><USER49> I would like to see some reporting on the 10% of reddit's recent $50 million raise that will be distributed to the users.

Recent changes (eg. stealth adding link tracking) and comments (eg. Huffman's, _we know everything about you_ ) have been user hostile and making the distribution would garner some good will.

<comment><AUTHOR> That 10% pledge died when "Reddit Coin" died. (And it likely violated SEC rules anyways)

<comment><USER49> Do you know where I can find the announcement of the death of the pledge and analysis of how it likely violated SEC rules?

I believe Y Combinator was the force behind the pledge, why would they push for and publicly announce something that they couldn't do?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no announcement of the death, but the project was under Wong and the blockchain engineer with him, so issue is moot.

You are correct Y Combinator is behind the pledge ([http://www.recode.net/2014/9/30/11631424/reddit- raises-50m-p...](http://www.recode.net/2014/9/30/11631424/reddit- raises-50m-plans-to-share-stock-with-community-members)), but it was only a plan. Plans fail.

<comment><USER49> The project was under Sam Altman [0], lead investor of the raise: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2hwr02/i_am_sam_altma...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2hwr02/i_am_sam_altman_lead_investor_in_reddits_new/)

[0] [http://www.redditblog.com/2014/09/fundraising-for- reddit.htm...](http://www.redditblog.com/2014/09/fundraising-for-reddit.html)

<comment><USER49> Oops, that should have been an _is_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> If this is related to the problems at Reddit it is only so tangentially, but my feelings on that site have been very mixed since I deleted my account there. I think that the subreddit structure and making it "a community of communities" showcases both the best and the worst of audience bubbles. At their best, like-minded people share interesting things with each other, build communities, and even form friendships. At their worst, they become echo chambers that are almost as liable to turn on themselves as they are on outsiders.

I've heard people make the case that audience bubbles are bad for society at large, because they narrow down what kinds of conversations people have. But ever since leaving Reddit, I've noticed my own outlook on life improving. I think that audience bubbles cause an individual harm, similar in kind to that reported by people who de-convert from extremist religious or political ideologies.

I wonder how much better off people would be if social networks implemented some kind of "group hug" algorithm that made posts less likely to spread if they were too in-groupy, and made people more likely to receive posts from wider and wider venn diagarams of adjascent audience bubbles the more insular their own posts seemed to be. You wouldn't even have to force people to confront antagonistic views, just make them more likely to see more moderate ones.

<comment><USER51> I find it strange that people refer to Reddit as a social network because I've never looked at it that way. To me it's always been a link aggregator with a social commentary aspect. I've never felt the desire to follow or even remember people there. Unlike other social networks, Reddit has never struck me as a platform for self promotion or attention seeking. Sure there are unsavory subreddits I have no desire to explore, but I generally follow those that center around hobbies or topics that interest me. I removed many of the topic subreddits like news and politics from my feed early on because they tended to be mostly useless posting.

I think in general the way everyone uses social networks is confusing. The focus always seems to be on who is talking and not on what's being said.

<comment><USER50> As soon as you go from clicking the links to regularly submitting or moderating them, the social aspects of the platform assert themselves. And there are a fair number of commenters who engage in that dimension of it willingly.

To me, Facebook isn't a social network as much as it is a chat application. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent use cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> No mention of the battle with The_Donald

[https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4oenqn/uspez_ad...](https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4oenqn/uspez_admits_rall_change_was_to_get_rid_of_rthe/)

Reddit shit its pants when the Trump Train came to town and disturbed the echoes in the chamber.

I have a "Freedom From The Press" Reddit t-shirt. I am embarrased to wear it.

</comment><comment><USER53> My use of reddit is way own. I'm tired of going to the front page and seeing so many submissions about things I don't care about like multiple video games, dumb inside jokes like r/circlejerk or all those repetitive links about Trump or Sanders.

I know I can buy gold and customize the front page, but I am a little hesitant to pay money to make the front page not suck. I have ads turned on in my adblocker so they do get ad revenue from me, I'm not totally freeloading Also, there is a limitation to the number of subreddits you can exclude. That is the nail in the coffin right there for me buying gold.

Finally, I'm not impressed with some of the censorship and social policies they have and don't really want to support a business who seems to have either questionable or widely varying policies on things.

The result, I check it maybe once a day, down from several times a day.

<comment><USER54> > My use of reddit is way own. I'm tired of going to the front page and seeing > so many submissions about things I don't care about

Why on Earth would you go to the Reddit frontpage? I stopped doing that like four years ago. Why not just create a Reddit account and avoid seeing the default subs on your frontpage? Reddit Gold has just about nothing to do with that.

<comment><USER55> It's still called the frontpage even if you're logged in.

But yes, when you're logged in you only see the subreddits that you're subscribed to.

<comment><USER54> Right, I thought it was clear from context that I was referring to the defaults frontpage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> >"Reddit's Upvoted podcast, which Ohanian launched in January 2015, also appears to be abandoned. Aside from a single episode published in June, the podcast hasn't been updated since October 2015. The "Formative" video series produced in partnership with Google, which aired new episodes roughly once a month since its launch, has been dark for four months."

Hopefully any employees hired specifically for these ideas were able to find other groups at the company or future employment.

</comment><comment><USER56> It seems like the tribe that built the site and the tribe that is trying to run it now are not the same thing. The culture of reddit is not civilized, equal, or any of the other HR type directives they are going to try and make.

If the people in charge now tried to start reddit back then, with all the focus on fairness, equality, correctness, and inclusiveness reddit would never exist.

It would be something else. I'm not sure it would be bigger, smaller, better, or worse, but I know it wouldn't be reddit.

You can't have a bunch of "bros" build a popular site and then pretend that they didn't. You can't bring in a bunch of nerds into a community and then kick them out and take it away from them once it's popular and successful.

Actually you can try and do those things, but it won't work because the tribe will reject you and go somewhere else. It happened to slashdot, it happened to digg, it will happen to reddit and Hacker News too.

If you don't understand the tribe, you can't hope to lead them. You don't lead the tribe by pretending it's not what it is.

Reddit's owners and operators seem to be ashamed by their tribe. That is going to be their downfall.

<comment><USER57> The current CEO of Reddit (Steve Huffman) is one of the co-founders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> There's a lot of sloppy censorship on Reddit.

Mods are mods aren't paid, so they use a lot of very broad auto-moderator bots -- many of which are very poorly written. You can get a permanent ban from a Subreddit for having a user name the bot finds offensive, for example. You can have a post removed because you didn't end your question in the syntax the bot was expecting... and even if you fix it, and appeal to the mods, and they reverse the decision, your post gets restored as older and without any votes so nobody will ever see it. It's more that the moderation is an example of bad automation -- I think this is what reasonable users get up in arms about.

</comment><comment><USER59> Let reddit die, lets all go back to USENET.

<comment><USER60> A reddit to usenet bridge has been on my TODO list for ages now--I'd be totally fine if we just went back...

<comment><USER59> Lets do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Well seeing failures in Reddit, are almost the same failures I saw in other dotcom startups, not having a business plan that works.

When Reddit was formed, it supported free speech of everyone. They didn't have a plan to earn a profit, they just wanted a better discussion board than Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Digg, Stumbleupon and others. Digg eventually had to make changes to their site that went into the paid accounts and paying for promotion/advertising of links/info.

I first studied computer science and data processing aka information systems it was later called. Then I went back to college to earn a business management degree to learn how to make working business plans.

At South Park they had a skit about Underpants Gnomes, that parodied the startups out there:

Step 1 Steal Underpants!

Step 2 ?

Step 3 Profit!

This is basically a joke, but some companies have an incomplete plan like that.

Ellen Pao was a patsy for the board of directors to blame when the changes they wanted to implement would prove to be unpopular but attract better advertisers that had liberal points of view to support Reddit.

I cite Kuro5hin, because it once was a very good site, and it didn't have a good working plan or a very good editors or management and eventually spirals down into a forum controlled by the trolls that chased everyone else away. Then it was mismanaged and then it went down and went to a new server and was never recovered from backup. Kuro5hin never had a good working business plan, it was like an Underpants Gnome business plan. The users created the content, it got voted up or down, section or front page, and if a story didn't make it you could always post it as a diary in the 'Ghetto' section as the users called it.

Reddit is suffering what Kuro5hin did, the trolls start to take over certain subreddits, and drive people away. They post racist, offensive, and mean things and all band together to vote it up to the front page. Subreddits like /r/Ferguson that was about the Ferguson riots and Mike Brown got taken over by trolls posting racist stuff and so Reddit quarantined that subreddit and gave warnings to people subscribed to it.

Ellen Pao was a scapegoat who carrier out an agenda by the board of directors. She was given the job of CEO knowing that she would fail, and make the changes the board of directors wanted that would make her unpopular to users, but popular with advertisers.

At that point Reddit was no longer about free speech, but censorship, Reddit didn't trust the users to create content so they hired editors to create their own content and blog. Sort of like what Digg did. If they follow Digg they will take paid promotions of links and try to shut down accounts they don't agree with and delete and censor them.

I have to say looking at it from a business angle they can't monetize content if they keep banning and censoring users and try to take control of what appears on the front page. Either they are for free speech or not, either they want controlled speech that meets Liberal guidelines and a Social Justice Agenda, to attract more people like that to provide a safe place on the Internet, or they let the users decide and vote on it democratically even if they don't agree with the politics, or speech, and then the trolls get control of the front page like they did with Kuro5hin.

Actually I like bane's suggestions that Reddit make podcast hosting networks, video networks, get into e-publishing and other stuff that they can sell advertising on or use to pay for a membership to remove the advertising.

There has to be some sort of sane way to earn an income, by advertising, or paying for memberships to avoid seeing the advertising, and making a paywall to verify accounts for $1 or $5 to keep the spammers and trolls out that want to use free accounts and bots to control what is on the front page.

They need a Baysian filter to detect the spam and junk, the same way email programs do it. I've seen a lot of spam and junk posts in /learnprogramming and other subreddits and I always flag it, but it takes a long time for someone to look into it.

After the Ellen Pao scandal many alternatives to Reddit got founded. They have to treat their employees as human beings with equal rights, which is what they are supposed to believe in via liberal values, but instead they fire employees and don't work with them to settle differences. Reddit seems to be hostile towards diverse hires, even using some like Ellen Pao as scapegoats and patsies.

They need to take responsibility for their mistakes, change their business plan so it works, and find a way to hire more diversely and treat employees and contractors better so they don't leave or get fired.

<comment><USER62> >either they want controlled speech that meets Liberal guidelines and a Social Justice Agenda, to attract more people like that to provide a safe place on the Internet

There's a lot of well made points to you post, so I feel bad focusing only on this one thing, but I really don't believe in creating a "safe place". It's simply not possible to provide a safe place online, while providing a platform for any meaningful debate.

Even if Reddit, or others, had the resources to provide a "safe space", the result would be a place no one goes to. People are offended by everything, and eliminating content until everyone feels "safe" would leave you in a situation where most content is never seen.

Reddit is already a mostly left-wing echo-camber. Opinions that diverge from the norm is pushed to smaller subreddit. Making Reddit "safer" would mean closing down the subreddits that you disagree with, but you're shrinking the user base every time you do that.

I understand that it's a terrible thing to tell people, but if you want to be in a safe space, stay of the Internet.

<comment><USER63> > but I really don't believe in creating a "safe place". It's simply not > possible to provide a safe place online, while providing a platform for any > meaningful debate.

Rape threats and other threats of violence are not part of meaningful debate.

Unsolicited images of genitalia are not part of meaningful debate.

Anti semitism like this [1] isn't part of meaningful debate.

You can safely ban all of these without harm to the robust debate in the community.

[1] [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChH5Va7WkAAktXV.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChH5Va7WkAAktXV.jpg)

<comment><USER62> >You can safely ban all of these without harm to the robust debate in the community.

Of cause you can, my point is that banning these things, all of which is illegal anyway, won't even get you half-way to creating a safe space.

<comment><USER61> Which is what Kiro5hin tried to do. Banned a lot of people and then key users left the site. The diaties and story articles slowed down as more users stopped using it. Until nothing was left but a few trolls that controlled the story que and then FNH and other stories got published.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> My uncle used to say to me nothing ruins a business faster than changing it. He gave an example of a diner that did well for decades then decided to expand and very soon after went out of business; bankrupt.

To me reddit has done well because it has stayed the same for years digg is the diner that expanded.

</comment><comment><USER65> Reddit isn't Internet infrastructure. It is a startup. The plan from day one was to make a kinder, gentler imageboard, get acquired, and make the founders rich.

<comment><USER66> You can't make inflammatory assertions about people without evidence here.

Also, please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts on HN. This forum is a community. Anonymity is fine, but users should have some consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be an entirely different forum.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12140780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12140780) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER67> I don't agree that the post in question is "inflammatory"in any way. If hn is going to be so strictly/randomly moderated that you have to think twice before presenting your reasonable views, it can't be good for the website.

<comment><USER66> That's not a "reasonable view", it's a fantasy that purports to read other people's minds from 10 years ago in order to demean their work.

I'm pretty comfortable saying comments like that don't belong on HN and that we would all do better to think more and inhibit ourselves before posting them. If people want to slag others on the internet, there are plenty of places to do it; here we try for a higher standard.

<comment><USER67> >Reddit isn't Internet infrastructure. It is a startup. The plan from day one was to make a kinder, gentler imageboard, get acquired, and make the founders rich.

Can you point out the specific words that "demean" the work of others? All I see is the assertion that reddit is a startup (which is factual) and the founders wanted to get rich (which is true for every founder I know, and is not demeaning in any way).

<comment><USER66> "The plan from day one was to make a kinder, gentler imageboard [and] get acquired".

This superciliously presumes to know what the founders were thinking, makes it sound like they didn't actually care about Reddit since "from day one" they supposedly had something more trivial in mind, and implies that they were merely in it for a quick flip.

In reality they were almost certainly more genuine about it than that; they sold Reddit early, but they also both went back to it years later, which is extraordinary. So the above is uncharitable and trivializing, and seems intended to diminish a.k.a. demean them and their work. Such a low level of discourse is not welcome on HN, whether it's the Reddit founders being demeaned or anybody else.

It's also easily disproven by what's publicly known about the origins of Reddit (pg suggested they make a social news site, not an image board), so the comment is guilty of intellectual laziness too. It's not surprising that these poor qualities show up together.

<comment><USER67> >makes it sound like they didn't actually care about Reddit

So the inference made by the commenter conflicts with the inference made by you. So what? Maybe they (reddit founders) really didn't care, maybe they did. Cases can be made for both, with varying degrees of conviction.

The whole thing is highly subjective. I don't agree with the conclusion either, but it's not a mindless personal attack. To me it's an opinion, and even the language used to express the opinion was structured in a civil manner.

I am defending the comment because I can see myself making a similar comment in another context without any intent in my mind to offend anybody or poison the discussion.

Honestly, I feel censoring these sort of comments is extremely childish. I am not the moderator, you are. So the final decision rests with you. I hope I have made my case and you will consider my comments in future.

<comment><USER68> HN is something of a safe space for the Silicon Valley startup industry in the "forbids discussion" sense - a place protected from ideas that might make them uncomfortable, that question whether they're actually improving the world or actually understand the people they claim to be helping.

<comment><USER66> That's massively untrue and a good example of the kind of thing people imagine and then project onto HN.

In fact a plurality of this community is critical and skeptical of Silicon Valley (which is fine when the criticism is substantive and not when it isn't, as with anything else). And certainly the vast majority of HN users resides far away from SV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Wow. What a hit piece. I bet their anonymous source happens to be the ex VP of Product that was fired by Pao, and is now building a 'safer' Reddit. Conflict much? In their sources quote, it's evident the source knows a lot of the inner workings of the leadership, is a man, and doesn't work there anymore. Well, that leaves only the ex VP, seeing as though Pao was a woman.

So they took all of Dan's words as truth? The guy with the competing Reddit? Come on Techcrunch. That's pretty bad.

Now, for the facts:

1\. None of these people left voluntarily. They were let go. So they need to stop with the 'people are leaving in droves' nonsense. Reddit has has almost multiplied in employee count in the last year, and has moved to a new office, much larger office building.

2\. All of these people, except for Nicole were part of an experimental product that was cancelled. If this was Google or Facebook, you wouldn't even know. It happens every day. But because you got a juicy tip from an ex- employee building a shitty competitor, you run with it. Because, hell, it's Reddit, and you just might hit the frontpage!

3\. Shit like this, "The plans to overhaul Reddit's reputation as a hotbed for harassment and to remake the company as a multi-media publisher have yet to prove successful — at it seems that the departures of senior employees are impacting Reddit's product and performance." \-- WTF does that mean? They tried Upvoted, it didn't work, and they're folding it back into Reddit.com and letting go of people that they don't need for the next iteration. That's business. It has nothing to do with color of skin or your genitals.

4\. Numbers always dip in the summers. Especially for Reddit. The kids are off for the summer. It would make sense that they peaked right before summer. According to Alexa, Reddit is the 9th largest site in the US, and up 9 spots this month on the Global list to #27. So it seems they are definitely growing.

<comment><USER66> Going from "I bet" (i.e., you imagine) something about somebody to making factual-sounding claims ("Dan's words") using that person's name is a big breach of civility and you can't do it here.

You went even further than that and hounded this guy elsewhere in the thread. That's unacceptable on HN, so we've banned this account.

<comment><USER70> It's a shame u238ed chose to make unsubstantiated allegations against Dan, but he/she does have some valid points. A lot of the article itself is unsubstantiated, and doesn't really give much detail about the actual problems at reddit. It seems to be talking mostly about problems with trolls on subreddits, but that doesn't really have anything to do with toxic workplace. The only somewhat concrete allegation is the sexual harassment at the work parties, but I'm not quite sure how that translates into people of colour leaving.

It sounds like u238ed worked or works at reddit, so presumably he/she has some insight into the culture there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> You should also disclose that you're the source for the TC article. It's pretty obvious.

<comment><USER66> We've banned this account ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141496)). You can't concoct unfounded charges about what you imagine somebody has done, let alone pursue them even after they deny it. That crosses into harassment, and nobody gets to treat anybody else like that here.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12140907](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12140907) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> tirefire keeps on burning

</comment><comment><USER72> Reddit is a content management system for spam and stupidity.

<comment><USER62> Just like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. When sites with user generated content grows to big, they seem to degrade to "monkeys with typewriters". The good content is mostly still there, it just drowns in the bad stuff.

<comment><USER72> That's a lazy meme. If you spend significant time with a site you can see through the superficial qualities and learn what makes it unique.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> _But re-blogging content from AMAs seems at odds with Upvoted's mission to produce original journalism, and many of the writers hired in October 2015 were let go just three months later_

What a joke, a bunch of kids playing startup one more time in their favourite playground. Utter disgrace.

</comment><comment><USER41> Reddit is, was, and will for the foreseeable future be, a giant pile of porn. Denial of that fact shows a fundamental lack of knowledge of not only Reddit but the internet as a whole..

I can understand that this idea would be extremely unpleasant to a lot of people. And a slow migration to curated content may seem more wholesome. But it doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER74> On what metrics are you making that assumption? Most people who use Reddit are going to be hitting the "default" communities, which are about as bland and inoffensive (read: has lowest common denominator appeal) as internet content can possibly get.

<comment><USER51> I believe he's referring to the definition of porn that most people don't often think of.

"television programs, magazine, books, etc. that are regarded as emphasizing the sensuous or sensational aspects of a nonsexual subject and stimulating a compulsive interest in their audience."

There are plenty of subreddits like r/earthporn that fit this definition. In fact many of the default communities do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Still a garbage dump full of racists, misogynists, and low-class trolls, too. Reddit should be nuked from orbit.

</comment><comment><USER76> The main problem with Reddit is the users dishonesty to themselves.

Ask a reddit user why they like reddit they'll probably mumble something about AMAs.

Then visit /r/all and a completely different picture will be painted for you as the sites most popular content is a mixture of pornography, racist jokes passed off as being subversive and political ranting.

<comment><USER10> [http://archive.is/uOTnv](http://archive.is/uOTnv) (grabbed latest thing from archive is, so like, 7 hours ago)

There is... like, less than 10% matches what you describe

and a AmA is in 10th position with near 5000 points

<comment><USER77> It is always amazing how consistently people will lie about what reddit is "full of" when anyone can just look at the site and see they are lying. Reddit is overflowing with BLM and islamic terrorist apologists, and we're supposed to believe reddit is all nazi KKK grand wizards.

<comment><USER78> Black Lives Matter is not a terrorist organization, please take your racist opinion back to reddit

<comment><USER79> When did he say that it was a terrorist organization?

<comment><USER78> He implied it by placing it next to "islamic terrorist apologists" in his sentence and gave both equal emphasis. Context is key, language is powerful.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sir Hiram Maxim's Pipe of Peace - <AUTHOR> http://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/181285631684/historicalfirearms-sir-hiram-maxims-pipe-of <comment><USER2> Great find. As a glassblower who has made a fair bit of pipes and vape accessories, I definitely appreciate this… Other than that he used it for cocaine. That does make him even more of a pioneer. Given the position of cannabis in the pre–prohibition pharmacopoeia, I'd be surprised if these devices were not employed for hemp and marijuana inhalation as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> I REALLY really recommend that you read "A Genius In The Family" by Hiram Percy Maxim, his son. It's absolutely bonkers hilarious and a nice window into the inventor himself, who apparently loved to cause a ruckus and a good laugh.

Gutenberg link: [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900131.txt](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900131.txt)

</comment><comment><USER4> Random fact: Sir Hiram's son Hiram P. Maxim went on to co-found the American Radio Relay League, the national organization of Amateur Radio.

</comment><comment><USER5> This Hiram Maxim ('Hiram Stevens'), i just learned, is _not_ to be confused with 'Hiram Percy', co-founder of the American Radio League and inventor of the 'Maxim silencer' for firearms.

(Phew had me going there for a second.)

<comment><USER6> The silencer (and car muffler) inventor was the son of the machine gun inventor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _Pipe of Peace_

For some reason, at first I thought this must be about the Maxim machine gun. It is considered by some the first true "weapon of mass destruction." The gun was used extensively in the "war to end all wars."

<comment><USER8> Same here, like the Colt Peacemaker or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My ancestor!

<comment><USER10> Tell us more!

<comment><USER9> The Maxims were Huguenots (French protestants) who fled the persecution of Catholic King Louis XIV. Hiram's great-grandfather Samuel Maxim emigrated to Massachusetts sometime around 1710. The spellings of the surname bounced around a bit, some preferring Maxam, others Muxham, Moxom, and Maxham. I think roughly half of the modern descendants live in Vermont.

Hiram, his brother Hudson, and son Hiram Percy were prolific inventors, mostly in the field of armaments (sadly). Hiram was born in Maine but moved to England and was later knighted.

I am not a direct descendant but am in the (fairly sparse) family tree under Samuel.

More details here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Maxim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Maxim)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Prolific inventor indeed!

</comment><comment><USER12> a "maxim" inhaler? I'd rather an axiom inhaler. _in with the axioms, out with the proofs_</comment>


America Is Opening. It Should Never Have Closed – AIER - <AUTHOR> https://www.aier.org/article/america-is-opening-it-never-should-have-shut-down/ <comment><USER2> This article is absolute garbage. It doens't gives a single reason as to WHY it should never have closed (we can think of several reasons why flattening the curve was necessary and how lockdown helped to achieve that and disclose the flaws in the management of this country by its leaders). The article says there were protests by "average" americans in every town (don't confuse readers with your hyperbole and comments without any sources to back it up). The article is written purely out of emotion and lacks even the modest rationality what so ever.</comment>