The transformation of Reddit | Hacker News Reader

The transformation of Reddit

19 pointsRaphael19 comments

I've noticed a shift on Reddit in the last week or two. It's had a sense of camaraderie for many months due to the growing catalog of native memes, but lately it's become literally a lovefest. There are now several personals sections, and the snowstorms have temporarily increased posting volume. Also, the end of the year is a slow time for news, so it gives way to chatter.

And the amazing thing is the level of interaction seen. A traditional dating site has you set up a profile and browse others', which is inefficient compared to reading coherent banter until your interest is piqued and you jump into the conversation. It all takes advantage of the dynamic sorting based on voting. The less witty or sensical a comment, the further down it sinks into obscurity.

Reddit may have truly found its calling. Whereas HN is (I assume) mainly dudes interested in programming and web apps, some older and in stable relationships, Reddit brims with eager singles ready to hook up.

I know kn0thing reads here, and my suggestion to you would be to spend a week or two trying to make this into a real feature. Have a checkbox for "single", have a form for basic demographics (sex, age, location, orientation), and structure the site so even more people can hook up. I'm not sure how keen the folks at Conde Nast, a news organization, would be, but you don't get many opportunities like this. Otherwise, some clever hacker is going to jump in and use the Reddit user base to his own advantage.

This then, if true is the nth transformation of Reddit in under a year. It went from serious news and discussion, to a few fluff stories, to the rather tremendously epic and pronounced title wars in which there was constant bitching and moaning about 4chan/lolcats flooding the front page and the tenacity for persons to exaggerate stories in order to get more up votes, and now it's a dating site?

Reddit is truly the shining beacon of internet evolution. Or maybe it's just a bunch of people who don't know what the fuck they want out of one website.

Good observation mate.

Reddit brims with eager singles ready to hook up

What makes you think those singles, much like here, aren't predominantly male?

I disagree with the idea of adapting the reddit system to fit that particular use. Seems like an obvious case of over-optimisation if they did do that.

Simple systems (like reddit) encourage complex behaviour (like what you've observed). Complex systems encourage simple behaviour. Don't make the system more complex than it needs to be.

In Boston, I've seen a few women wearing reddit t-shirts. I have yet to see the same of Boston men.

Are two lines in a profile (male/female and single?) really "over-optimization"? It seems like a really good way to get to know someone - by reading their submissions and comments.

For men, Reddit t-shirts would probably mean adverse selection.

I'm not sure about adverse selection, but a reddit t-shirt on a guy would not stand out much at all. If I were a single guy, it would definitely peak my curiosity.

You have a point with over-optimization.

But there are plenty of people at least claiming to be women on there. Probably still well under 50%, but not a complete sausage fest.

Funny you mention dating.reddit -- I distinctly remember PG bringing it up during one of our chats. At the time, it seemed rather laughable, particularly because we were still so small.

I've been pushing for a basic bio for a long time now (it's somewhere on the features todo list) but something like <200 characters and some basic markdown for linking to blogs/projects. Force users to be creative and avoid the laundry list of "movies I like" most proper social networking sites suffer from.

To that point, we've always consciously avoided reproducing elements found on social networking sites because we weren't building a social networking site.

However, helping a few redditors meet up, fall in love, and make babies (or adopt them) would bring more geeks into the world, which wouldn't be a terrible thing...

Reddit is indeed a strange beast.

I was surprised when I recently found out it is not anymore one big community but instead it got fragmented into many smaller ones.

People from one subreddit can be completely oblivious about what's going on in other ones. For the same URL you can have multiple discussions going on in parallel, one group not aware of the existence of others.

"I was surprised when I recently found out it is not anymore one big community but instead it got fragmented into many smaller ones."

That happened to Usenet over the years, so I am less surprised by that. I think it happens to any online forum with sufficient volume of posts that no one reader can read all of them.

Yes, I should probably set up an account and subscribe to everything if I want to get a better sense of things.

Easier than that - http://www.reddit.com/r/all

That's how I usually view.

You've got a keen insight, whoever you work with is going to be lucky.

I'm not a regular reddit user, but you actually proposed interesting thoughts for dating websites....

The best one I've heard is displaying ratios and frequencies of interaction. Maybe "Sandy has been contacted by 7 in the last month and has responded 29% of the time." If someone has a low response rate, then fewer will waste their time.

there's no reason to change the way the app works just because an anomalous thing is happening. i'd only consider it if it were to continue to consistently happen over a long period.

My point is that it's a cry for help, analogous to prison inmates talking to visitors through a pane of glass. A few changes in the app would be akin to adding conjugal visits.

One good reason might be that a dating site has very obvious and proven monetization opportunities.

yeah, it would be if the behavior were consistent. i would definitely not potentially ruin such a good site as reddit just because there's a weird week.

All sorts of chat mediums generally see a lot more traffic (esp. off-topic general chatter) in the last 2-3 weeks of December.

I don't really think I can agree with your estimation.

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