Someone claimed this on Reddit a week ago but nobody took them seriously and the remark was deleted by the mods.
(Yeah, I know, the r/SF subreddit is rough... it's always hard to run a subreddit where the only thing that people have in common is proximity. SF is my favorite place in the world, but it has many real problems. The mods consistently try to find a balance where it's not just an anti-SF crime-ridden sub, but also not censored or hiding real problems.)
I don't mod any city/country subreddit, but I frequent several, and they are basically all awful. I keep visiting them for the rare gems of useful information, but 99% of the posts are complaints about crime or the cost of living, photos of the same five tourist attractions, or meta posts complaining about the aforementioned.
…kidding, that place is a cesspool that is basically exactly how you describe it. Overt cynicism and ranting about things every town has (traffic, off leash dogs) combined with power user trying to control the narrative constantly and gain some sort of quasi-celebrity status. Occasionally you get some good content, but it’s pretty rare.
FWIW, I don’t think it’s gotten measurably worse since I started going there periodically circa 2016. I think it’s simply the nature of Reddit and its inner workings producing this dynamic when it comes to local subs. Some are worse than others (likely having to do with the proportion of disenfranchised white dudes in the city), but otherwise it’s mostly going to be the story with almost any local sub.
If I could handle snow, I would love to live in Colorado.
https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/7pmjwx/all_melbo...
IMO the engagement optimization problem in social media is driving the increasing share of crime discussions online. Yes crime is getting worse in some areas, but I think crime just heavily drives engagement (which news media has known for a long time). With more conservatives going online, we’re seeing a bifurcation of traditional (cancel or callout culture, some kind of injustice) outrage porn - more common in the past when the internet leaned younger and more educated/urban - and now crime-related outrage porn that appeals to the right wing.
???
Come on, man.
The good ol' see no evil hear no evil approach to dealing with problems. I don't expect a subreddit to solve the larger problems of the city, but crafting the narrative to downplay it isn't really helping either.
You're spot on, the only thing that binds the users is proximity. They all pretty much universally want a place to bitch about current issues, not to maintain a positive image for tourists.
When looking at regional subreddits, I want to see the places to eat, events that are coming up, when major road work is planned, what new amenities just opened up, etc.
It's totally fine and not nefarious to apply that kind of filter. To suggest the reason for it is image-massaging "for tourists" is unfair.
This is a somewhat curious and surprisingly uncharitable thing for a relatively heavy and long standing HN user to write on, well HN. Right at the top of the submission guidelines, and relatively well followed, is
>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
That's not because none of that is important, it's because there are endless other places to learn about it and discuss it. Indeed, coverage and discussion of such things are more the rule than the exception in classic major media, which still has the most enormous reach. You don't have to do absolutely everything in one single place. It's the World Wide Web. Other fora are a click away. I think it's hard to argue that "everything forums" are generally better and focused ones generally worse. It's not wrong to want to have places to find the positive and wonderful stuff that isn't on the front page every single day.
>They all pretty much universally want a place to bitch about current issues
Who is "they"? You're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy here: if that is allowed to completely dominate, it'll drive away anyone who doesn't want that 24/7/365, and then all that are left are those who do. If HN suddenly just became a copy of major news front pages and comment sections, I suspect most of us would immediately move on.
>not to maintain a positive image for tourists
And this just seems like a pretty unpleasant dig. Any town let alone big city has all sorts of great stuff happening, interesting nooks and crannies, fun hobby groups looking for others to join, tips and tricks people have discovered to make living there more enjoyable, and on and on. Much of which can be hard to discover, even for those who have lived there a long time. Contrary to your assertion, it's not wrong even for locals to desire a place to find some of that even if it means keeping off a percentage of the generic endless political hot potatoes getting thrown back and forth. Why should a reddit (or any random web forum) suddenly be charged solely with "dealing with problems"?
In this particular case the SF subreddit moderators want it to reflect an aspirational view of how they want SF as a city to be, and the users tend to want to discuss the city as it is.