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Comment by jvagner | Hacker News Reader

I want reddit, but on given topics, but without newbies. Age might be a nice filter, but being able to chat about {fitness, running,travel,entrepreuneurialism} away from the crowds that barrel in with "Does anyone else ever..." or "Where/how do I..." 1st year stuff.

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I thought about a social media concept called "scene" where people are initially randomly matched based on common interests, but then the group is closed to new contributors at a certain population count. The idea would be to simulate groups that form based on geographic proximity (local scenes and clubs) without the same distance constraint, because for me those local groups have always been more meaningful than online forums, with a few exceptions mostly tied to local groups. The group population cap would limit the number of noobs in healthy scenes.

There are a number of private subreddits somewhat similar to this. They randomly add users once a week, and every week they kick any users who haven't posted or commented in the subreddit during the past week. It creates a fairly tight-knit but always changing group.

Ugh, yes! I'm really into, running, for example. I go to Reddit running subreddit, and it's all just "I completed a 5k and lost 50lbs" or "I'm just getting started, here's a picture of me I'm so proud." Great, but not anyone who regularly runs it's a drag and annoying. Would love some more advanced topics with people like me who run 60+ miles a week, and are objectively a bit fast.

Have you checked out advancedrunning or artc subreddits? Might be what you're looking for.

Have you tried just starting threads on what interests you? Just start talking, the people you are interested in might pop up, and a group might eventually self-select.

I've actually never been on reddit, but that's how it has worked in pretty much every online community - including the rKids group from this article.

It's especially annoying for tech related topics, since apparently the average subscriber to a programming subreddit is a 16 year old gamer who has never coded before and spends his free time installing linux distros

reddit has /r/AdvancedFitness/ and various other subreddits exist as offshoots of more newb-friendly ones

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