Why would I want to put effort into a shitty website?

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/13/2013 5:22:41 PM

not a shitty website

6/13/2013 5:47:40 PM

Quote :

"it's only hidden from lazy users"

All users are lazy.

6/13/2013 6:21:50 PM

yeah yeah

6/14/2013 1:23:01 PM

I have a feeling that the people most against are the ones that would be getting downvoted into oblivion in most threads.

6/17/2013 8:41:23 AM

Which is why you should be most against it.

6/17/2013 12:14:09 PM

I honestly don't give a fuck about being downvoted - its the whole idea that I could be missing something because other people don't like it.

I don't understand why that is so hard to understand

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/17/2013 2:04:21 PM

it's really not that hard to see all the comments or threads via sorting differently(or just, um, scrolling) as long as it's not one of the mammoth 3000-comments-on-top-posts subreddits like /r/funny which is a cesspool of unfunny garbage anyway.

ex:
http://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/1giw2t/how_do_guys_feel_about_squirting/

The lowest rated comment in that thread has 15 downvotes and people are still discussing it.

also, comments below the "downvote threshold" and therefore hidden are probably seen just as much as highly upvoted comments, because people want to see why it's hidden and what people are talking about, so they click the un-hide button.

also lately a lot of subreddits are hiding comment scores for a while after they're posted.

[Edited on June 17, 2013 at 8:00 PM. Reason : .]

6/17/2013 7:46:16 PM

The subs i subscribe to and am most active in do not have the issues people here are mentioning most. And I'm pretty sure the "small" subs I'm talking about are almost all bigger than tww.

The front page and auto-subscribe subs are not a good/fair representation of how reddit can be used by a small community. Those big subs are skewed by the massive number of people who see/use them.

6/17/2013 10:34:28 PM

I want reddit to leave

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/18/2013 1:21:51 PM

Quote :

"I have a feeling that the people most against are the ones that would be getting downvoted into oblivion in most threads."

i feel like you're the kind of person who would be unconcerned with having a popular opinion. so your comment makes no sense.

6/18/2013 5:07:37 PM

It's interesting how this cuts pretty cleanly along post count lines.

Those who actually post here want it to remain as it is. Those who don't want it to be Reddit.

6/19/2013 1:58:40 AM

Quote :

"i feel like you're the kind of person who would be unconcerned with having a popular opinion. so your comment makes no sense."

I'd be right there with them getting down voted. I see TWW as more of a local 4chan than Reddit.

6/19/2013 8:57:55 AM

This website is really not like 4chan in any way. The only similarity I could see is that both are relatively unmoderated.

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/19/2013 2:14:57 PM

That's the main similarity I was thinking of.

6/19/2013 4:35:26 PM

i've been banned from a few subs

/tuff

[Edited on June 19, 2013 at 6:09 PM. Reason : .]

6/19/2013 6:09:11 PM

Quote :

"It's interesting how this cuts pretty cleanly along post count lines. Those who actually post here want it to remain as it is. Those who don't want it to be Reddit."

That's one way to look at it, albeit a bit of an oversimplification imo.

Maybe it would be prudent to ask why those people post less than the others or just compared to how often they posted a few years ago.

Personally:

There aren't many new users on tww. And some people stop posting over time. Membership is shrinking from what I've observed over the past few years. I use to check tww several times a day, now it's a couple of times of week unless there's a topic that's moving that really interests me. That's because there's just not as many users posting as much as before.

Do you, or does anyone, disagree with that? Perhaps there should be a different thread inquiring about current usage (new threads and comments/day) and new user rates compared to the past just to see if tww is stable or of it's definitely shrinking.

[Edited on June 19, 2013 at 6:25 PM. Reason : is]

6/19/2013 6:23:12 PM

why is growing the userbase necessary?

Quote :

"That's because there's just not as many users posting as much as before."

or maybe it's because you've become accustomed the massive stream of information on reddit.

6/19/2013 10:43:35 PM

There was a time that tww had a lot of new information every day. Take Study Hall for ex. threads from 2010 span 6 pages. Threads from 2013, 2012, and 2011 combined span 5 pages. 2008 spans about 13 pages.

Tech Talk:
2013 spans less than 5.
2012 spans 8 pages
2011 spans approx. 15 pages.
2009 spans 30 pages


Now, that's based on last posts in the threads.. not new threads posted. But I think it's fairly indicative of a drop off in user contribution or users altogether. And study hall makes it pretty clear that the tww userbase which was originally intended to have a NCSU student focus (to my knowledge) has outgrown the need/use of Study Hall.

If the numbers have consistently dropped over the years (and it certainly seems they have), then it's reasonable to think they're going to continue to drop. Adding new users would be helpful in just off-setting people leaving (new topics, more discussion, new drama and fun, etc). Adding new users would be absolutely necessary to make it remotely what it once was.

It's not necessary to grow the userbase if people just want to let it slowly fade away. And that's fine if so. But if you don't like that idea, I don't see how you can deny the importance of adding users.

The fact is that despite great efforts of people in keeping tww as we know it up and running technically, it needs a jolt or it's going to be a glorified listserv in the next few years at this pace. Maybe a platform change is not the best solution. But ignoring the obvious isn't going to do anything.

[Edited on June 20, 2013 at 12:56 AM. Reason : .]

6/20/2013 12:44:10 AM

Quote :

"Reddit is a Digg-clone for pseudo-intellectuals, Leftard Computer Science majors, Liberal pussies, fanboy pissheads and hipsters who feel that having a superior "Karma Score" increases your chances of getting laid. It was founded by two hippie douche bags that were high on cum vapour and wanted to "stick it" to Kevin Rose. In October 2006, the owners sold out to some big company. This means that they are now a bunch of poser faggots."

Quote :

"Reddit.com is a sweltering hole of pig shit and unfunny memes. Its user base consists of Liberal God-less faggots and cynical neck-bearded BETA males who have spent their entire lives being rejected by members of the opposite sex, and a few Republican libertaritards rejected by members of the same sex. All of this had led to the formation of an online cesspool full of bitter nerds and socially retarded manboys. The Liberal Butthurt Syndrome exhibited by Redditors is so well-defined that some of them have even tried to edit this article in order cut out all of the nasty bits about Liberals... only to find out that their butthurt edits are easily reverted by the undo button. Discussion on reddit usually consists of one party expressing a leftist viewpoint, the next person agreeing with that viewpoint and a third person making a pun out of the original post. After this point, we hit tldr where it dissolves into a massive circlejerk and an orgy of confirmation bias and self-reaffirmation. To receive karma on Reddit, one must have the political views of an angst-riddled pseudo-socialist college teenager who regularly visits Infowars.com and discusses the perils of corporatism over coffee at Starbucks. Or, if politics isn't your thing and you have a vagina, you can simply post tits. Its politics section serves as an echo chamber for dejected Liberal Arts majors who think that socialism is a trendy alternative to capitalism. Its gaming section is littered with nostalgic posts about popular games from the 90s and complaints about Call of Duty being too accepted by the unwashed masses. Its worldnews section is a place where self-loathing Americans, Islamophiles and Jew-hating conspiracy theorists can get together and express their unwavering support for Iran and Hamas. Its atheism section acts as a platform for smug 19-year-olds who want to sit on their high-horses and post Facebook screenshots of themselves arguing with family members that have had the nerve to openly express their Christian beliefs."

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

6/28/2013 1:11:55 PM

Yeah, a lot of the default subs are pretty much that. At least I don't have to look at them.

6/29/2013 3:27:31 PM

Yeah, I instantly unsubscribed to /r/atheism and several others. I wonder if people here realize you can "unsubscribe" so that you never see those posts at all. Unless you specifically want to.

And too bad some people don't realize that there are a shit ton of subs, and that not all of the are like the subs krallum keeps talking about. The reason those subs get like that are because there are millions of users who view and interact in those subs.

Most subs are not that big. And most subs are not like that. But hey, broad generalizations are easy.

[Edited on June 29, 2013 at 8:07 PM. Reason : .]

6/29/2013 8:07:16 PM

^^^Sounds like 4chan nonsense.

"if we call them faggot hipster beta males a couple of times we win"

if you browse /politics, /atheism, /funny, /gaming, etc. you're pretty much doing it wrong.


[Edited on June 29, 2013 at 10:08 PM. Reason : .]

6/29/2013 10:02:43 PM

I'm subscribed to:

announcements
blog
CatTeamBrotherhood
cpp
gifs
HistoryPorn
ihateragecomics
NCSU
nfl
offbeat
panthers
pics
ProgrammerHumor
programming
raleigh
russellwilson
science
startrek

6/30/2013 3:49:30 PM

Quote :

"Reddit is the most dangerous pit of feedback loop and mob rule confirmation bias ever created."

6/30/2013 10:12:27 PM

soooooooooo dangerous

7/1/2013 12:42:43 AM

Yes. Dangerous. Discussion is power.

7/1/2013 12:54:30 AM

http://www.reddit.com/r/aww DANGER

http://www.reddit.com/r/twoxchromosomes/ DANGER

http://www.reddit.com/r/photography DANGER

http://www.reddit.com/r/russellwilson DANGER

http://www.reddit.com/r/infp DANGER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=phoUVH05kEg DANGER

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/04/22/boston-police-reddit-pizza/ DANGER

Quote :

"Yes, you can sort by old. Yes, you can upvote or downvote based on relevance. But the reality is no one does. They seek out the reply that fits their existing views and upvote it because it makes them feel happy."

See, the thing about this is it's completely untrue and also kind of irrelevant. But mostly untrue.



the 'hivemind' mentality of some users/subreddits is more annoying than omg"dangerous"

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 1:50 AM. Reason : .]

7/1/2013 1:40:02 AM

sure, post a bunch of innocuous subreddits and make that argument.

r/politics, r/worldnews, r/atheism, r/askreddit, etc. are cesspools of ignorance and all have millions of subscribers

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 8:29 AM. Reason : .]

7/1/2013 8:28:10 AM

You guys are basically saying "TWW is so useful for college. Just use to study hall and don't go into the other sections :^)"

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

7/1/2013 9:30:11 AM

^^'Dangerous' is still hyperbole. Not really sure how people sharing stories on /r/askreddit or basically being a lunch table full of annoying teens on /r/atheism is dangerous.

^Study Hall is incredibly inactive and irrelevant to most users here and I'm not suggesting subscribing to incredibly inactive and irrelevant subreddits.

7/1/2013 12:11:19 PM

If only there was a website like Reddit that TWW users could go to when they didn't want to use TWW and wanted to use Reddit instead.


If only.

7/1/2013 2:16:28 PM

i'm not arguing to move tww to reddit. that would probably destroy tww.

just responding to silliness

7/1/2013 2:28:18 PM

Quote :

"Not really sure how people sharing stories on /r/askreddit or basically being a lunch table full of annoying teens on /r/atheism is dangerous."

the same as every other subreddit. collectively, humans are stupid. when you have people collectively upvoting, you bring a bunch of garbage to the surface and "validate" it.

think about it and you'll understand why this is bad, even in small subreddits

also, the threat of being downvoted discourages people from contributing controversial opinions. controversial opinions are what drive thought forward.

i shouldn't need to explain the relevance of this to every subreddit, but i can if you'd like.

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 2:34 PM. Reason : .]

7/1/2013 2:32:46 PM

Quote :

"the same as every other subreddit. collectively, humans are stupid. when you have people collectively upvoting, you bring a bunch of garbage to the surface and "validate" it. . . i shouldn't need to explain the relevance of this to every subreddit, but i can if you'd like."

Explain whatever you want, but the truth is an /r/atheism operates entirely differently from an /r/intj. To lump all 200,000 subreddits together is ignorant.

Many subs encourage users to vote according to how the voting system is supposed to work: upvoting comments that further discussion and downvoting stuff that borders on spam. And again, in many subs you will see discussion on basically all comments regardless of voting activity, and some don't even have voting activity.

I frequently sort by new rather than "top" or "hot" and I highly doubt I'm the only user that does this.

And your patronizing tone isn't really winning me over babe.

"Reddit is the most dangerous pit of feedback loop and mob rule confirmation bias ever created" is the most overreactive and alarmist sentiment ever written.

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 3:10 PM. Reason : .]

7/1/2013 3:10:01 PM

Quote :

"Explain whatever you want, but the truth is an /r/atheism operates entirely differently from an /r/intj. To lump all 200,000 subreddits together is ignorant."

you're ignoring the premise of the argument, which is that:

a) people give upvoted comments more weight, consciously and subconsciously

b) the threat of being downvoted discourages people from contributing controversial opinions

only in very small (ie. comments get a couple of upvotes each) or heavily moderated subreddits is this not an issue

upvotes attract positive attention, downvotes attract negative attention

Quote :

""Reddit is the most dangerous pit of feedback loop and mob rule confirmation bias ever created" is the most overreactive and alarmist sentiment ever written."

i still agree with it. reddit popularized the up/downvote system, which has infiltrated much of the internet.

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 3:52 PM. Reason : .]

7/1/2013 3:48:42 PM

Quote :

"b) the threat of being downvoted discourages people from contributing controversial opinions"

fucking this

I don't understand how this is so hard for you people to get

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 3:52 PM. Reason : gonna downboat this thread so the mods don't do it :^)]

7/1/2013 3:52:27 PM

Quote :

"a) people give upvoted comments more weight, consciously and subconsciously"

For users that have thoughts and are aware of things this is not entirely true.

For me and many others seeing a silly/undeservedly highly upvoted comment just results in an eye-roll.

Quote :

"b) the threat of being downvoted discourages people from contributing controversial opinions"

disagree. controversial opinions are contributed and discussed very often.

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 4:09 PM. Reason : .]

7/1/2013 4:07:19 PM

Quote :

"Discussion on reddit usually consists of one party expressing a leftist viewpoint, the next person agreeing with that viewpoint and a third person making a pun out of the original post."

Pretty much every reddit entry i've ever seen is like this

And from the wikipedia page:

Quote :

"Reddit /'r?d?t/,[3] stylized as reddit, is a social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text ("self") post. Other users then vote the submission "up" or "down", which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site's pages and front page."

You can pretend to be all high and mighty and be all "The way I use it, every post is treated equally" but that goes fundamentally against the whole design of the website and is not the way the majority of users use it.

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

7/1/2013 4:12:25 PM

if pretty much every reddit entry you've seen results in an expression of a leftist political viewpoint and a pun then i don't know wtf subs you're looking at.

the design doesn't call for users to vote according to what they like, it calls for users to vote according to what is relevant to discussion, iirc.

i'm not pretending to be all high and mighty. what you all are lamenting just isn't an issue for me in the subreddits i frequent combined with how i use the site. i'm not alone in this or claiming to be special.

7/1/2013 4:20:34 PM

The NSA are bad people and Edward Snowden is a Hero!

+4564 These programs are bad and we need to focus on the injustice not Snowden! Whistleblowers are awesome! something something broken arms something cat photo!

-1230429 This is the millionth article about this same topic on the front page, guys. With literally the exact same comments about the exact same "observations" and beliefs.

[Edited on July 1, 2013 at 4:47 PM. Reason : THIS COMMENT HIDDEN DUE TO DOWNVOTES]

7/1/2013 4:45:11 PM

k

7/1/2013 4:49:29 PM

^^ I agree with the point you're making, but that must have been in /r/lolidontknowhowtoreddit...

7/1/2013 10:35:16 PM

Probably gonna get downvoted to hell! I've posted this before and got no love: My new dog (I got him after going through rehab for 6 years) recovering from a terrible injury after saving a cancer patient on my parent's 50th wedding anniversary

+1048252345 What a great story! Dogs are almost better than people sometimes aren't they?!

-498134938 This probably isn't true and you just want attention and karma

[Edited on July 2, 2013 at 1:03 PM. Reason : WASH. RINSE. REPEAT.]

7/2/2013 1:02:49 PM

actually sob stories are against the rules of /r/aww

oh, i guess that could be in /r/pics, I don't subscribe to that i dunno.

also i'd bet comments with -1230429 karma would have tons of discussion attached to them.

7/2/2013 1:12:00 PM

I wouldn't know. Those comments will appear at the bottom and/or be hidden so I'll scroll right past them because Reddit conditions users into only caring about what the rest of the userbase cares about.

but you can change the settings! you retort.

By the nature of its design, Reddit is an environment only conducive to those who adhere to its climate.

You can go to a gay bar just to have drinks if you are straight. That is literally a thing you can do; however, it won't change the reasons that everyone else is at that bar, or the way they interact with one another and/or you.

7/2/2013 3:26:17 PM

Quote :

"Those comments will appear at the bottom and/or be hidden so I'll scroll right past them because Reddit conditions users into only caring about what the rest of the userbase cares about."

that sounds like a grayfox33 problem.

again, if you're not in shitty subreddits with 3000 comments per thread, "hidden" threads are readily visible and often discussed. People that downvote often throw in a comment in response to the downvoted comment, thus a discussion begins. If "You wouldn't know," then you are the problem you describe.

Quote :

"You can go to a gay bar just to have drinks if you are straight. That is literally a thing you can do; however, it won't change the reasons that everyone else is at that bar, or the way they interact with one another and/or you."

More fun analogies!

If reddit is a 'gay bar' then there seem to be enough 'straight people' still checking it out and interacting in a different manner from 'everyone else' for it to be a good experience.

It's easy to avoid the drawbacks you people incessantly preach, and it's easy to find many entire subreddit user bases that do not suffer from them. If you think otherwise you're pretty much being lazy or don't care enough to, which is fine, but reddit is not a 'gay bar'.


[Edited on July 2, 2013 at 3:47 PM. Reason : .]

7/2/2013 3:32:34 PM

the vast, vast majority of people do not browse like you do. that seriously affects the overall nature of the website.

again:

Quote :

"you're ignoring the premise of the argument, which is that: a) people give upvoted comments more weight, consciously and subconsciously b) the threat of being downvoted discourages people from contributing controversial opinions only in very small (ie. comments get a couple of upvotes each) or heavily moderated subreddits is this not an issue upvotes attract positive attention, downvotes attract negative attention"

7/2/2013 3:49:50 PM

^

Quote :

"consciously and subconsciously"

Quote :

"It's easy to... it's easy to..."

- Bweez, The Art of Subjective Arguments: A How-To on Ethnocentrism and Burying Your Head in the Sand

7/2/2013 3:54:02 PM

how am i ignoring points that i've literally directly addressed

again, the browsing habits of a 4million strong user base in /r/funny largely does not carry over into /r/analog or /r/twoxchromosomes. if a cancerous advice animal or rage comic is posted in one of those subs it will be downvoted to oblivion. if a dissenting but well put opinion is posted in one of those subs it will be discussed at length. this applies to many other subs. there are fundamental differences in the rules of certain subreddits meant to deter "the vast, vast majority of people" who make the site's front page suck.

Burying my head in the sand? Fine. I mostly bury my head in the sand to avoid the cesspool that is the soap box on tww. Many users use only sports talk and bury their heads in the sand to avoid chit chat, which can be pretty shitty by design. You don't see me or them decrying the whole of the wolf web. You see me and them using the sections of the website that are largely untainted by what we deem shit. Neither reddit nor the wolf web is entirely tainted by the shit. If you want to think reddit is designed and exclusively used for shit then fine, believe what you want. there are large communities on reddit that don't operate according to your view of the reddit userbase philosophy, and that's that.

7/2/2013 4:10:48 PM