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Comment by dkhenry | Hacker News Reader

I dunno, with the recent changes reddit has been rolling out it is no longer a nice place to visit. There is so much hate and anger on the front page and so little good content. I could make an account, but it seems like they shadow ban everyone except for bots ( and not just for content, the last two times I was shadow banned it was because I logged in from my office IP address which they deemed was "gaming" votes )

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> There is so much hate and anger on the front page and so little good content.

Absurd hyperbole. I mean, all someone has to do is just look at the front-page to see that this is false.

> it seems like they shadow ban everyone except for bots

Also absurd hyperbole.

You claim to have been banned because an admin or an algorithm incorrectly identified you as vote spamming, but I honestly don't believe it based on the rest of the content in your post.

If I had a dollar for every time I saw something either overtly racist or inappropriate, or just plain braindead on the new front page that wouldn’t have shown up before I’d have several. It went from the “front page of (what’s popular on) the internet” to “front page of Reddit”. The only problem is below the surface Reddit has a lot of racist and inappropriate content. That’s why I rarely go anywhere but a few isolated development subreddits

After you made this comment, a whole discussion[0] ensued regarding this topic. Looking at the front page of Reddit is like refusing to use kill files on usenet or /ignore on IRC "because I want to see what 'they' are saying."

The short of it, like many similar platforms from the past, is that Reddit is highly customizable if the user chooses that route (not to mention Reddit Enhancement Suite).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14351010

Except before they changed the front page it wasn't like that at all.

The fact is "raw" Reddit is nothing to write home about and the previous front page worked around that with default subs.

I have no idea how it makes sense from a user conversion perspective, since new visitors essentially see the crappiest sides of Reddit before they even make an account to then go and learn how to filter it. I know personally if the first time I visited Reddit I saw what I usually see on the front page these days I probably would stay accountless

Really? I've been on reddit for a few years now and there's plenty of enjoyable content on the frontpage and now /r/popular. Sure, there's always something about politics, but I think that's always been the case.

As for shadowbanning, reddit is taking steps to get rid of that altogether [0], or at least they recognize that it's a bad system for actual users.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3sbrro/accou...

I also like being able to filter out subreddits on /r/all. Every political cycle, I get bombarded w/ political news on /r/all. I filtered out all of the political content, including for candidates I like, and now I'm much happier! When I want political content, I seek it out, and it's kind of hard to avoid anyway.

Reddit has already made large strides there. I see far fewer shadowbans today than I saw 1-2 years ago (based on sbanned posts caught in the modqueue).

Being shadow banned has no impact on what content you see so if you just want a better front page experience, try creating an account and joining smaller subreddits that are more aligned to your interests. I don't think I have a single default sub on my front page anymore.

Right and then try to participate in the conversation, and you can't, but since its a shadow ban you don't even know that you can't participate. In general your giving traffic and ad dollars to people who seem more interested in pressing a narrative then providing content.

What is the supposed narrative that shadowbans intend to foster?

Making people outraged and then trying to convince them to switch to voat. Or now, I suppose, voten.

You seem to be insinuating about a conspiracy among Reddit the company, admins (low-level employees), and [mostly] independent subreddit moderators. I think your premise is flawed.

I'd say the changes aren't responsible for the "hate and anger", but the growth and natural drift of users.

Undermoderated websites gradually radicalize as the heat and rage drives away moderates. 4chan is the extreme example of this, but Reddit's culture slowly lumbers in the same direction.

That would apply if Reddit were any kind of unmoderated. Most of the communities showing up on the front page have a litany of exacting requirements for content, and sometimes, stuff winds up deleted anyways.

For the posts? Yes. But for the commentary? Only a handful of subs moderate the commentary to any real level - usually ones created in reaction to the ugly nature of their minimally-moderated counterparts. /r/science and /r/canadapolitics are examples of heavily-moderated subs that specifically try to avoid the terrible level of discourse that Reddit is famous for.

I have been hearing "reddit sucks now" for 8 years and my reddit account is 9 years old. And I pretty much agree. But I keep going there!

Do you mean /r/all? Because you can just filter out bad subreddits and filter out bad subreddits...

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