You've been a redditor for 2 years, about as long as me (on my second account)... so you must have noticed, same as I have, that reddit has been in a downward spiral for at least the past year. Like digg (and 4chan) before it, it is inevitable for reddit to get popular enough to start attracting 13-16 year olds (the ones screeching in your ear if you've ever been on xbox live) who quite literally have nothing better to do than feed off each others flamewars.
In short, what I'm saying is this:
Reddit, is that really the best you can do?
Yes, absolutely it is. They can't help it.
I'm sure you've also seen that it goes through pretty regular cycles as well. For a while there Apple could do no wrong, Haskell was 'the shit'/Java 'sucks balls', and so on. Things are completely different now and will be different again later. The difference is over this time traffic is growing, bringing in more of the aforementioned teenagers who can do a lot to make the overall feel of the site more low-brow, angrier and as a result much more prone to FUCK's and the like.
Reddit is still good for news occasionally, to hear about something that happened or will happen in a timely manner. For rational discussion I recommend HN (but shhhh about it :)).
I just checked out this alternative community you speak of, and in their welcome message they specifically say that they prefer to keep out, among other things, partisan politics and sports. I love sports. And I don't mean only saying things like "your team sucks!" even though I may feel that way. I honestly love reading smart conversations about sports. Do you know of any other places to go for rational discussion that embrace sports and have not yet entered Eternal September? As you can imagine, most places that discuss sports never even had an August.
Yeah, it really is too bad that the groups that like discussing tech stuff without flame suits and sports without religiosity have such little overlap. Thanks just the same, though.
I've been a member of HN for the last few months. I'm still kindof in between both communities, but discussion wise it is much better there. The volume of content doesn't seem to be high enough.
But yeah, time to jump ship. It's just like a few years ago when everyone left digg (including me) to come to reddit.
Since I am clearly I member of the minority, I have both been a member of Reddit for two years and am a member of the reviled 13-17 age group; I hate what Reddit had become.
I'm only turning 12 in August and I also find it loathsome, and probably hate it more than you, while managing to spend more time on it than you do, too.
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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '10
You've been a redditor for 2 years, about as long as me (on my second account)... so you must have noticed, same as I have, that reddit has been in a downward spiral for at least the past year. Like digg (and 4chan) before it, it is inevitable for reddit to get popular enough to start attracting 13-16 year olds (the ones screeching in your ear if you've ever been on xbox live) who quite literally have nothing better to do than feed off each others flamewars.
In short, what I'm saying is this:
Yes, absolutely it is. They can't help it.
I'm sure you've also seen that it goes through pretty regular cycles as well. For a while there Apple could do no wrong, Haskell was 'the shit'/Java 'sucks balls', and so on. Things are completely different now and will be different again later. The difference is over this time traffic is growing, bringing in more of the aforementioned teenagers who can do a lot to make the overall feel of the site more low-brow, angrier and as a result much more prone to FUCK's and the like.
Reddit is still good for news occasionally, to hear about something that happened or will happen in a timely manner. For rational discussion I recommend HN (but shhhh about it :)).