everybody on ilx complains about reddit

omg there are some shiny glass bottles in this heap of internet garbage!!

― administrator galina (Matt P)

speaking only for myself, but there is nothing redeeming about reddit's discussion format; threaded conversations are the WORST & the voting system rigorously discourages dissenting opinions. so the insistence that "some of the subreddits aren't so bad" doesn't really matter to me because the structure is deeply flawed.

like, there structural reasons for how ILX became what it is ~as a community~ just like reddit's structure lends itself to the tyranny of its (straight, white, male, technocratic, atheist, sexist, libertarian) majority

For what its worth on the structure point the smaller subreddits don't have a lot of up and downvoting and the threads are small enough that the dissenting opinions don't get as dramatically buried.

which subreddits do you like evan

I like a lot of the ones in the same vein as what cardamon cited- the ask_________ subs are fun/interesting.

How often do you see a man and think "I'd fuck him" or "I want to fuck him"? (self.AskWomen)

What are some corny/cliched romantic gestures that make you go "awww" every time? (self.AskWomen)

What's the worst thing a male stranger has said to you? (self.AskWomen)

Women, what do you feel when a guy orgasms inside you? (self.AskWomen)

How to make a shy girl feel comfortable? (self.AskWomen)

What subtle gestures do woman give off that the person they are chatting to is either creepy or they don't want to speak any more? (self.AskWomen)

Do vaginas really have teeth? (self.AskWomen)

Does female skin feel like silk? (self.AskWomen)

So reddit is the Internet distilled, basically? Pockets of good, overwhelmingly terrible, full of people who think women are the Other?

no reddit is worse

the actual internet has more than like 10% women total

Well wait a second, what is the male/female ratio of regular posters on ILX?

historically afaict 10% female/90% dom

like, there structural reasons for how ILX became what it is ~as a community~ just like reddit's structure lends itself to the tyranny of its (straight, white, male, technocratic, atheist, sexist, libertarian) majority

― fueled by satanism, violence, and sodomy (elmo argonaut), Thursday, February 21, 2013 9:27 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The structural reason I think has waaay less to do with discussion format and waaaay more to do with social origins. Reddit was a tech startup whose base skewed techie/startup-worshipping/student/early adopter/etc.

Ilm was a few tight-knit cores of people interested in taking pop music seriously.

As far as actual discussion format, as irritating as reddit is, outside of the minimalist ilx flat-thread model (which like nobody but ilx has), reddit is sort of the next sanest thing out there I've seen. Text heavy(ish), no phpbb nonsense with avatars and the like, etc. Individual posts are pretty lightweight. It lends itself to zings and brief responses, but also handles large walls of text.

On the other hand, the nesting can foster small stupid spin-off arguments that go on and on, while if those were disrupting a single main thread, other posters would probably tell the participants to can it. So arguably posts can be too cheap and lightweight. But again, I don't think the subthread format is really the worst thing about reddit. And over a certain number of people (where "community" is necessarily just out the window), you really do need upvotes and downvotes and etc. otherwise there's no hope of managing the size of threads.

As for reddit culture, in a weird way, I'm quite glad to have gone through the process of ending up on srs/circlejerk and finding out finally why all this 'friendzone' etc talk is wrong. Not that I ever used the term (or any of that PUA shtick) but there was a time when I wouldn't have picked up on it when someone else used it.

What's the worst thing a male stranger has said to you? (self.AskWomen)

I read this even though I knew it would bum me out and now I'm bummed out. Surprise!

Had the brief idea it should be mandatory for reddit dudez to read that one and sit and think for a moment about how it might wear women down to be treated like a piece of meat for everyone's public appraisal and pawing as a matter of course, and how ridiculous it is that according to reddit we are the oppressors in this day-to-day relationship - but then I realised they'd just read it for hot new zings and come-ons and then sit and wank for a moment about how awesome it would be to put some females in their place

(there is a token guy in there who pretends sweetly not to understand why telling a stranger she looks tired and follow it up with "LOL you look like you were in bed all day" is not cool, and then when someone takes the bait and explains why he embarks on a tirade about how nowadays you can't show any concern for anyone bcz feminazis or something)

hope this makes sense: reddit is weirdly fascinating from a communication theory point of view because it basically quantifies communicational connections. that is, for every communication (post) you can see a NUMBER for "acceptance" or "rejection" responses to that communication. this then makes that quantity available for communication! and that's sorta the maddening aspect of reddit to me.

ILX has standardized "otm" and things like that but we are often much more in the dark about the actual quantifiable success or failure of our communications.

true only in the post-SB era ; )

maybe we should petition Keith to add a button per post you can click which, when enough people have clicked it, turns said post bright flashing red

ryan, it's that aspect plus what gets the highest number of "acceptances" that makes reddit even more maddening. you'll see lame puns, video game jokes, and "women are slutz and arabs are dirty I"M JUST SAYIN!" posts get 1,000 upvotes. it's shit like that that makes me back away from that site. a place like ILX takes a while to get a feel for, but reddit's community stance is visible up front and center. so i guess that's interesting.

Starting to think that instead of an "Ask a Female" page, they should have an "Ask a Human Being" page.

What is your reaction when you receive few quantities of acceptance as you go about your day? (Ask.self.HumanBeing)

hope this makes sense: reddit is weirdly fascinating from a communication theory point of view because it basically quantifies communicational connections. that is, for every communication (post) you can see a NUMBER for "acceptance" or "rejection" responses to that communication. this then makes that quantity available for communication! and that's sorta the maddening aspect of reddit to me.

ILX has standardized "otm" and things like that but we are often much more in the dark about the actual quantifiable success or failure of our communications.

― ryan, Thursday, February 21, 2013 3:31 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha, twitter kind of does this too, its one of the things that makes it so addicting

haha, it's funny too cuz the upvote system implies a kind of ideal perfect post that gets all upvotes and no downvotes--i can imagine the pressure to compose a "perfect" post in that way must be pretty intense if you buy into the system. this perhaps explains the preponderance of puppies and "i love my kids" drivel. it's a lower hurdle to clear.

that's true max! im terrible at twitter though. i can't seem to figure out how to make a good "tweet." you, incidentally, are awesome at it.

twitter successes are so ephemeral though, unless you are a paying FavStar (tm) member

Twitter is more annoying than Reddit.

twitter is the best

The blend of Web 2.0 marketing and LiveJournaling is terrible.

twitter is perhaps slightly more complex because, unlike reddit, it merely encourages *any* kind of connection (a retweet or mention is not always positive) which is sorta the basic problem in our era of mass media. reddit is almost more "traditional" in that way.

though i guess it's possible some redditors have a fetish for downvotes.

The blend of Web 2.0 marketing and LiveJournaling is terrible

hahaha yes, twitter is horrible about being a blend of things that nobody talks about anymore

twitter is also different from reddit (for now) insofar as its a nearly completely user-controlled environment. if youre having a bad time on twitter its b/c youre following the wrong people!

xpost yeah but honestly milo, i'm not sure what corners of twitter you've experienced but my experience of twitter involves a cadre of idiots making piss jokes and a maybe a dude with severe boundary issues who pretends to be a pyramid? so... it works for me? i know there are some bad and dire commercial live-tweet promoted hashtag bullshit parts of it but it's pretty easy to avoid them imho

Thing about reddit is that, yeah it is more traditional because of the rewards system. Which starts to get into the multiple layers of hypocrisy, everyone worried about their karma and upvotes while at the same time celebrating an 'anonymous' platform where you are free to say whatever dumb shit you want.

twitter is also different from reddit (for now) insofar as its a nearly completely user-controlled environment. if youre having a bad time on twitter its b/c youre following the wrong people!

― max, Thursday, February 21, 2013 4:23 PM (6 minutes ago)

You can subscribe to whatever subs you'd like on reddit, too.

And unsubscribe r/wtf or r/pics or whatever generates the worst garbage

yeah but not to whatever commenters or contributors

and w/in each subreddit youre still subject to the erm tyranny of the majority

True. Stick to the smaller subreddits anyway. The masses are at fault for the drek that we're complaining about normally.

yeah twitter is definitely more radical in terms of the customizable signal to noise filters it allows (oddly, this is perhaps because it is more democratic in some ways) though of course that sorta thing is built into any usable forum. but twitter's is nice because you basically set up the filter and the information comes to you pre-sorted.

i mean, every twitter feed is basically a world unto itself. i find myself thinking about that alot! how "my" experience of twitter sorta feels so highly specific but i can't even imagine what it's like for people who follow 1000s of diverse users.

twitter took me 2+ years to get into but now I think it's better than ILX for wasting time

retweeting is the most radical feature of twitter imo, the injection of completely unrequested chatter into yer feed

I heard one person perfectly sum up twitter as such: "It's like reading 100 different novels at once, but the characters all know each other"

One person on twitter that is

retweeting is the most radical feature of twitter imo, the injection of completely unrequested chatter into yer feed

I had a local pub unfollow me even though I read their updates all the time. I thought, you know, I don't want to follow them anymore either. But when i went to their profile page, I realized that I had never followed them in first place -- it was just one guy I know retweeting practically every tweet by the pub.

Can you hide accounts you don't follow like realDonaldTrump? Good grief.

I really like how twitter has taught me to reconstruct stories backwards. like when I'm catching up on my feed and somebody's tweeted a 10 tweet long story or treatise and I have to read it backwards. that's great

pplains, you can turn off retweets for individual users

I held out forever but I created a twitter account just to follow the bloggers I read cause I was missing out on all of their arguments w/ each other

I only read it on the subway. it's like junk food reading.

a dude with severe boundary issues who pretends to be a pyramid?

lol i just unfollowed this guy yesterday