everybody on ilx complains about reddit

All the front page shit is space shuttles, self-congratulatory begs for upvotes, pictures of animals, or pictures with words on them

you're also comparing a site that is based on user-rated user content with the comments on a site with paid writers and an editorial direction

"not worse than Gawker" is a low bar to set

I can usually count at some point for some 20 something physicist from Punjab will pop up in the thread to give us a rundown of the history of 20th century collaborative rocket science on the Indian subcontintent.

wow, how thrilling

^ironic appropriation of redditesque response

wow, how thrilling

wow, what a dick.

sorry i zinged an impassioned defense of reddit!

"neckbeard" is such a reddit term!

you know what ILX needs is nested comment threads

also upvotes

found a cite for "neckbeard" from 2000 on LexisNexis

just literally referring to a neck beard tho

i mean it's pretty nice to have a discussion about something and have someone turn out to be expert on the subject matter. i don't get what's worth zinging about that unless its some general "oh, knowledge, whatever, idgaf" sort of blow-off.

"how thrilling" isn't really a zing either tbh, it's more just drive-by assholeishness.

does reddit have any good discussions about Tusk?

expert on the subject matter surely you can't be serious, i guess if you want an interactive wikipedia it's nice enough

iunno if you know who writes the super-technical articles on wikipedia, but i guarantee you that a fair number are written by people about as expert as you can get (depending on the field, etc). (at least w/r/t math -- i imagine physics has more issues with crackpots, et.)

point taken--a 20-something posting on reddit and claiming knowledge in a given field is significantly worse than wikipedia.

i mean expert is also a relative term (i'm not talking about reddit here, even.) like typically if something isn't your field, someone halfway through a phd program will know enough to give you a really good answer, and if something is your field, its not a matter of needing to talk to one of the most brilliant or well known minds or whatever, but just lucking into the person who happens to either do work right up the alley of your incredibly specific question, or who happens to have read a/the relevant article in recent memory just by chance.

So not "expert" as in they deserved a nova special, but "expert" as in qualified to serve as an "expert witness" so to speak.

ffs i don't know what 20-somethings you know, but lots of 20-somethings i know have tons of knowledge in various fields.

what is the latin term that's like ad hominem but refers to websites instead of people

xp yes i am being a dick abt this but my point is that the particular interaction described is not so remarkable or valuable or unique to reddit that it should serve as a defense of a site that has hosted and legitimized some completely vile and toxic shit

capt save-a-reddit

i'm gonna doxx "all kinds of heinous things"

What kind of doxing does that require? A list of particularly terrible sub-reddits?

max's blog covered that already i thought

So now Gawker is "Max's Blog"? I mean, I agree its just... LOL

Gawker is an arbitary and admittedly bizarre comparison point I will admit. It popped up first in my mind because I read the site a lot and they are known for taking shots at reddit, with a recent dig & subsequent high-fiving being featured in this thread just recently.

how thrilling...yes i am being a dick abt this but my point is that the particular interaction described is not so remarkable or valuable or unique to reddit that it should serve as a defense of a site that has hosted and legitimized some completely vile and toxic shit

You went from a drive-by pot-shot, to arguing about the reality & desirability of 20 something know it alls and walking wikipedias to finally settling on 'reddit isn't unique in this regard and it doesn't excuse it's other shitty aspects.' The goal-post shifting is dizzying and I wish you had started with the argument you were stuck with at the end if you really felt that strongly about it. As for the rest, different strokes. I'm not a master of the internet but I've been around, and these qualities were refreshing to me, even if as you say they aren't unique to reddit.

Other things about reddit I like, the AMA's & Askreddits. With the AMA's, it's not just the various celebrities & politicians who have stopped by and answered vapid questions which is cool but not something I'm interested in. There have been AMA's with people who have been wrongfully convicted & imprisoned, people who were kidnapped overseas and held hostage for a number of years, survivors of wars and natural disasters, victims of torture, and just plain people from all over the globe who don't have albums or television shows but who are from interesting places & walks of life, have all kinds of jobs and fascinating stories to tell.

My long-windedness is self defeating, but on the Askreddit front, this is where the sheer size of the site is it's strength. I spent a good portion of yeserday reading this http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/w5x9w/gay_men_who_were_adults_in_the_early_80s_what_did/

"Gay men who were adults in the early 80s: what did you think was going on when a disease (later identified as HIV) ravaged the community?"

and this,

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/spwhw/muslims_of_reddit_how_much_did_your_life_change/

"Muslims of Reddit, how much did your life change after 9/11?"

I don't think there was anything in those discussions that I couldn't have discovered elsewhere on the internet, but reading the first hand accounts & experiences was legitimately enlightening (and enraging sometimes) and I learned a ton.

Nerds, misogyny, hivemind, evangelical atheism, 'look at my cat LOL' I know there are some ugly aspects of the site but it has it's redeeming qualities.

otoh, i mean i just read a really interesting piece of investigative reporting on huffpo but i don't feel the need to "defend" it when people point out how awful it generally is, and basically i think of it as part of the cancer that is killing journalism, bu that's true of basically every publication these days so..

"Blind people of Reddit, is it true that your hearing becomes better?"

"Women of reddit, what's it like having a geener"

more like show us your geeners amirite

a friend of some friends was deaf for the first 23 years of his life, and a few months ago he had an operation that gave him the gift of hearing.

so he posted an AMA on reddit and they spammed him with links to Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Queen (aka "the greatest music ever made")

that thread kind of epitomizes the way reddit/"the internet" takes a modern days marvel and makes it banal.

"spammed"

"it's time the tale was told, of how reddit took a child and made him old"

did we ever mak an ilx subreddit

yo that was a good post heinous things

reddit is dumb and the dark corners are offensive, but the Internet is dumb and often offensive
ILX's take seems to be as much a snobby "my community is better" take on things, when it's just as nerdy and in-jokey and instead of upvoting we have EXCELSIOR threads but it's small enough that it's still cliquey

xxp:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ilx/

who needs experts on nuclear science when we have experts on steely dan?

lol "the argument i was stuck with" is something i'm v. secure in and yes to your point reddit is capable of some interesting social anthropology and i truly wish those types of discussions could happen on a website i was comfortable spending time on.

Nerds, misogyny, hivemind, evangelical atheism, 'look at my cat LOL' I know there are some ugly aspects of the site but it has it's redeeming qualities.

every site has its redeeming qualities tho? I mean you are being a strawman fighting a strawman about a strawman here - the fact that reddit is full of useful stuff and people sharing experiences and knowledge is a well known fact, in fact in many circles the primary fact about it. You really think Obama's team would have thought "let's get ourselves involved with a website that is primarily known for internet misogyny?".

for some people on ilx, however, the way in which reddit has developed a vocal subculture of internet misogynists is extremely offputting - when they think of 'reddit' its value as a source of experiences and information is outweighed for them by its association with MRA bullshit let alone /creepshots etc. Maybe they even feel the metafilter-y aspect is completely devalued by the 4chan/b/ aspect (/b/ had its redeeming qualities, too).

what are /b/'s redeeming qualities?

lulz

yeah a secret shame of mine is that I lol a lot at encyclopedia draematica whenever I happen to come across it ... which is every 5 seconds!! *refreshes, clicks random article link*

ps i apologise for terrible punctuation on that first para of mine

one thing about reddit is that by nature a plurality voting system gets things on the front page, so reddit's plurality demographic and its taste in things probably seems disproportionately 'what the site is'
it would be nice if you could adjust things like you could just switch the settings so everything voted up by a nerdy white guy didn't appear on your front page.

what are chimpout.com's redeeming qualities

You could just as easily subscribe to the good subreddits and unsubscribe from the trashy ones and we'd have nothing left to talk about here?

• I'm an average amateur photographer (not very good at hiking either), but I feel like I got some lucky shots on my hike this weekend.
• went to walmart and noted the disgusting beta fish containers. then i cleaned them without anyone noticing. OCD and animal rights.
• I don't consider myself artistic, but I am proud of this painting I made
• I don't have custody of my kids anymore, but I do make them a great breakfast on the weekends.