Hacker News Reader

Comment by FigBug | Hacker News Reader

Looks good. I'm always looking for better ways to read reddit. I don't like their UI.

I've been experimenting with the best way to read reddit. My first idea was a specialized browser that has 5 tabs open. When you close one tab, another automatically opens with the next unread story from the current subreddit. That way, as fast as you could smack Ctrl+W, you'd get the the next unread story, already loaded. It worked ok, but wasn't great.

https://github.com/FigBug/Allochthon https://github.com/downloads/FigBug/Allochthon/allochthon-se...

My next idea was the command line. Now I just type 'r subreddit_name' and it opens up to 30 unread links. Seems the fastest way to read reddit.

https://github.com/FigBug/r

View on HN

The biggest problems with reddit aren't so much how to read it, but rather what can be read there.

Most of the major subreddits are no longer worth following, unless you're interested in hipsterism or curious about the meme-of-the-hour.

The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community.

Censorship has become an issue within some subreddits, too. It's not about getting rid of blatant spammers any more. Far too often we've seen contributing, albeit unorthodox, members of these communities banned for expressing views that may be controversial, but still worth expressing.

Software won't fix these major problems. They're issues with the community itself.

Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community.

Are there some worthy mailing lists for discussion out there? I´ve heard this opinion before, but I´ve never seen specific lists mentioned.

I would also like to know this. The mailing lists I'm on consist of calls for papers, low paying job postings, and out-of-office messages.

Which ones are giving you calls for papers? I'd be interested in knowing.

Here's what I subscribe to:

http://heybryan.org/mailing_lists.html

I really like:

http://www.neuroinf.org/mailman/listinfo/comp-neuro

http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/grg

http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/tt

https://groups.google.com/group/diybio

>Software won't fix these major problems. They're issues with the community itself.

Each sub is its own community. If you're having troubles like you mentioned above, you haven't found the right ones yet.

That's not a legitimate way of thinking about the problem, though. Some of the communities in question are very large and powerful places; making a popular comment there can have a large impact on a huge number of people's lives. And many of the subreddits are run by totalitarian dictators, so you end up with large and powerful subreddits that are curated by crazy moderators.

It's not about finding the "right community" for you, it's about hosting a real and legitimate platform for discussion.

What do you mean by legitimate? I think you're just frustrated that thoughtful moderation is labor-intensive, and civility doesn't scale too well.

But at any rate, haven't you undermined your own argument? You've found the community of HN is right enough for you.

Anyway, I find your argument interesting nonetheless, especially if we substitute the word "country" for "subreddit" and so on. A country can be ruled illegitimately by dictator(s), and yet, if you can choose to switch, switching arguably may be a legitimate strategy or solution.

>That's not a legitimate way of thinking about the problem, though. Some of the communities in question are very large and powerful places; making a popular comment there can have a large impact on a huge number of people's lives.

Perspective, please. I believe you seriously overstate the impact of having a popular post on an internet discussion board.

In any case, that doesn't really change my point.

>And many of the subreddits are run by totalitarian dictators, so you end up with large and powerful subreddits that are curated by crazy moderators.

Step 1 to enjoying Reddit is to unsubscribe every single one of the default subs. They all have this problem (the reasons which and how seriously are up for debate, but that's another discussion.. for now, let's take it as given).

Step 2 is to find a smaller sub for your interests. The readership of this site would probably enjoy r/sysadmin, netsec, programming, definitely more. It is a different kind of community, granted, but it's not near as negative or not "legitimate" as you claim.

> Perspective, please. I believe you seriously overstate the impact of having a popular post on an internet discussion board.

Really? Well, first, tens of thousands of people clicked on Obama's link and filled out the voting information on Election day. Sure, that's an extreme and rare example, but a popular link can influence democracy.

More realistically, though: my life has been dramatically altered and formed by comments I've read on reddit. I learned python and lisp because of reddit, studied algorithms more intently, learned enormous amounts about politics and world news. There have been countless comments that have fundamentally altered the way I think about math and science, about morals and life.

I can't imagine how much I would have missed in life without a place like the reddit comments. Sure I would have picked up some of that stuff elsewhere, but it happened for me on reddit.

I think you are underestimating the impact of reddit comments.

> Step 1....Step 2....

I enjoy reddit by doing quite the opposite of your suggestions, so that's really a personal preference. I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal, while I'm off participating in a thread about pythonisms.

That's just it, you're conflating the discussion software or the domain name with the communities using it.

>I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal

There are hundreds or thousands of communities out there where people are crapping on science, yet here you are on Hacker News.

About the only thing two unrelated subreddits share is the first part of their domain name. They have different moderators, different users, a different focus. They are effectively completely different communities - the fact that you treat them as related in any way but tangentially is an illusion, nothing more.

> I cannot enjoy using a site where hundreds of thousands of people will read 'climate change is fake!!! scientists are liars!!' with no rebuttal, while I'm off participating in a thread about pythonisms.

You could say the exact same thing about the internet. All the stupid things people are saying out on the internet doesn't seem to stop you from using it.

> And many of the subreddits are run by totalitarian dictators, so you end up with large and powerful subreddits that are curated by crazy moderators.

You might want to consider posting to /r/drama or /r/subredditdrama .

> The smaller subreddits generally have limited traffic, resulting in very slow discussion. Email mailing lists are far superior for discussions with this size of a community.

Not true. There are several smaller subreddits with excellent communities and excellent moderation. The major issue is discovery - it took me years before I (accidentally) stumbled across these subreddits.

I think this is a radical idea, but hear me out: I fully believe the community could be better curated if they took the down-vote button away. (Or, at least, reserved it for the highest echelon of users)

Looking from the island of HackerNews, back to the continent of Reddit where I wasted so many years of productivity, I've seen amazing wonders in the way HN uses its down-vote systems. In essence, it's there to "nudge" the discussion back into the right direction, and overall a great tool for curating a community from those that have been decided by their peers to curate.

To me, a down-vote button puts an undue weight on the negativity of a discussion. There's three states: "I liked this", in which you up-vote, "I didn't like this", in which you ignore it, and "I didn't like this", in which you down-vote. Even reddiquette dictates that it should only be used for anything that doesn't contribute. It's very clear that's not how it's used, and in my opinion that can only be fixed by changing the official meaning of the button or restricting its use altogether. I think the latter has amazing effects on community discussion, as I've seen here on HN.

Stuff I know I didn't discuss above: The effect of a non-focused forum discussion, abuse in voting systems, impacts of large communities.

Why have voting at all? I think that this kind of pre-filtering content only encourages group think and isn't a good system at all.

It order for reddit to be successful as a business it needs users. To gain and to keep users they incorporate addiction mechanisms such as voting.

100% agree, the downvote button is really harming reddit outside of small niche subreddits.

This is a good thing. Individual subreddits can and do have particular rules. For example, r/lgbt, r/transgender etc. all have rules banning homophobic or transphobic comments. In a world where trans people are killed for living as themselves (or driven to the edge of society and commit suicide), it's good to have a place where they don't have to continually verbally fight to support their human rights.

> This is a good thing.

No, it's not.

The moderators of r/conservative think that climate change is a hoax. If you write an on-topic, polite comment that even suggests that climate change is real, you will be banned. This is a terrible, terrible way to run a community. The conservatives on reddit live in a bubble where all science is banned. It's not a positive state of affairs.

(Edit: I'm not conservative, but I frequent that subreddit to educate about science, climate, etc, and have been banned many times for these comments.)

That's their right, though.

The same process that allows a teen to invade a subreddit and fill it with memes is the same thing that allows anyone to invade a subreddit and fill it with their opinions.

No matter how valid that opinion is, it's still disruptive to a community. If subreddits are to be self-policing, they can't be obligated to not live in a bubble, however unfortunate that bubble may be, if that is what they have agreed upon.

If you want to see an example of a heavily moderated forum done right, head to SomethingAwful. It has some lightly-moderated pressure valves, but the more topical forums keep a leash on discussions without chilling the conversation.

>It has some lightly-moderated pressure valves, but the more topical forums keep a leash on discussions without chilling the conversation.

I really hope this is a joke. The moderators at something awful hand out bans and "probations" (arbitrary length bans from posting only) like candy and take personal offense when questioned why.

Here's a fun game. Click on a random username to look at their "rap sheet" and see how many times they've been hit with various punishments. You can click on the incident to go to where and when it happened. Then try to figure out which of the site or board rules they broke to get those black marks.

The wrong opinion in the wrong place will be punished just as harshly as on some of the more echo-chamberey subreddits, except worse since you can be globally banned and be out real cash for your trouble.

All punishments apply sitewide. At least on Reddit if a moderator who feels personally insulted at your posting bans you, it's only from that sub.

Something Awful is not my favorite website.

It's their right to make their own site and run it as they please, but that doesn't mean it's a good way to design a site like Reddit.

SA moderation works because of the cost of admission

Counter-example: The mods of r/lgbt think there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. If you write an on-topic, polite comment that even suggests that there is something wrong with homosexuality, you will be banned.

The mods of r/transgender think think there is nothing wrong with trans gender identities. If you write an on-topic, polite comment that even suggests that trans women are "men in skirts", you will be banned.

I am fine with this. You can't have it all.

I don't think you should be fine with it. It's wrong for groups like those you've mentioned to decry intolerance when they're the victims, only to turn around and deliver intolerance to some other group of people. It's hypocritical, and it's counterproductive.

Instead of banning the detractors, they should try welcoming them into the community, and maybe even try to understand them and their viewpoints better. They may not change the attitudes of those with differing opinions, but at least they won't have made the situation worse by introducing more intolerance.

I believe (and hope) your critique is well-intentioned, but just think about it a little more. If you are a trans person, a very significant amount of the population probably treats you like you are weird or a freak. You could be verbally harassed, denied employment or in extreme cases, even be a target of violence, just for something that's part of your identity.

If you were in that situation, wouldn't you want to have a safe space to talk to people who understand? To not have to deal with justifying your identity to people? Is it really "intolerance" just to want a place you can feel safe?

Now as a cis person I have never had to deal with the issues described, but I can empathize. What you are saying makes abstract sense and would be fine in a world where everything was fair and everyone was truly treated equally. However, that's not the world we live in. I urge you to reflect a bit more on this.

I understand that certain groups of people will face animosity from others. This affects all sorts of groups of people, in many different situations. Yes, this is just reality.

Blatant hypocrisy will never help improve the situation, however. One group of people who complain about being ostracized when they're in the minority should not turn around and ostracize others when they're in the majority.

Banning people they disagree with from a rather public forum like a subreddit, for example, only hurts their cause and their reputation. It creates more animosity. Denying the basic ability of one to express himself or herself is just not justifiable.

will face animosity from others

There is a difference between "animosity from others" and outright hatred, violence and oppression. There is a difference between "animoisity" and being denied many of your rights and being locked up in a mental institution ( 11 yr old trans girl institutionalised: http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/01/31/german-trans-girl-to-be... ).

Banning people they disagree with from a rather public forum like a subreddit, for example, only hurts their cause and their reputation.

I disagree. I think there is empirical evidence that the LGBT or Trans rights groups have benefited from having safe spaces. Trans rights and LGB rights & politics have increased over the last two decades, in part I think due to more trans & LGB people coming out because they have safe spaces to explore themselves.

to decry intolerance when they're the victims, only to turn around and deliver intolerance to some other group of people. It's hypocritical, and it's counterproductive.

These groups do not "decry intolerance in all forms", but instead decry intolerance against people of different gender & sexual identities. Many (all?) of these groups have no problem not tolerating people who don't tolerate gender & sexual minorities. There is nothing hypocritical here.

Instead of banning the detractors, they should try welcoming them into the community, and maybe even try to understand them and their viewpoints better.

"detractors"? Are we talking about the same thing? This isn't some technical mailing list where the discussion is whether the programme should have lots of defaults or have lots of options for power users. The "detractors" want to kill LGB people. The "detractors" think that trans people can be assaulted and killed if (for example) a straight cis man finds a trans woman attractive.

These "detractors" do not come into the community to learn more. They aren't "detractors", they are haters. They come in with hatred, hostility with the goal to destroy the community.

And you think things would be better if these haters were allowed to say whatever they want in these communities?!

You do know that your attempt to educate people are a futile waste of time, right? And that they're probably counter-productive, just driving people further into their weird belief systems?

Climate change is real, and it's important that people have the facts, but there's no point trying to give the truth to people who have their hands over their ears and who have their eyes closed.

I disagree. There's no doubt, however, that a static reddit experience (e.g. one where you don't change your usage patterns over the years) will leave you bummed, as you've been.

If you continue to find the interesting subreddits -- and they're out there -- and cut the crap, you'll be fine! There as subreddits of essentially the same quality as HackerNews, for example, for many other subjects.

Perhaps some subject areas are more lacking than others. On a non-subject basis, but simply for in-depth interesting reading, like reddit was back in the day, I recommend these subreddits: - r/truereddit - r/truetruereddit - r/foodforthought

There's no doubt people are trying hard to keep things from getting worse (hence creating truetrue above on top of true). But if you remain part of the community I think you'll be surprised what an amazing ecosystems of subreddits have been created.

>Censorship has become an issue within some subreddits, too. It's not about getting rid of blatant spammers any more. Far too often we've seen contributing, albeit unorthodox, members of these communities banned for expressing views that may be controversial, but still worth expressing.

Reddit's problem has never been spam. In fact, you alluded to it earlier in your post: it's quality.

"Censorship", aka moderation, is necessary to promote quality content. Wikipedia, /., and SO are all heavily moderated. So, too, is HN. Without moderation (censorship, in your words), content regresses to the LCD. This is bad, and worth preventing. Moderation achieves that.

Moderation on the basis of ideological purity does not produce "quality content," just an artificial ideological uniformity.

I think you're on to something here. I'm going to ponder this for a while.

I've been a redditor for something like 4 years. I've read thousands of complaints about Nazi mods banning people they disagree with. Upon closer inspection, I've found the vast majority of those who were banned deserved it. In only a handful of cases have I seen mods who legitimately were trying to censor opinions they disagreed with.

People have a tendency to hide behind the principle of free speech as if it were all-encompassing and omnibenevolent. It isn't. Just because you have the right to speak your mind doesn't mean you have the right to be heard. Low-quality contributions can and must be suppressed if the level of discussion in a community is to remain high.

Its not so much the moderators, its the downvotes. Reddit, imho, has a very particular and narrow opinion on many subjects - disagree with this opinion, even in legitimate good faith of open discussion, and your comment will be buried within minutes. The masses in the community have really lost their way.

Hivemind happens everywhere, even on HN and SO. There will always be a status quo.

But what if the goal is ideological uniformity? r/lgbt or r/transgender is about LGBT or trans issues. They want to make a Safe Space where people don't have to justify trans 101?

Set up your own subreddit. Announce the rules early. Get cooperative mods with you.

The other problem is you can't really trust the bigger subreddits because of astroturfing and too many groups with something to gain. You can't know for sure who's up voting what you see who's down voting what you don't see. Often redditors will accept what they read as the rational voice of the people when it could be a corporate attempt to sway public opinion for example.

Honestly there isn't anything reddit can do. Its a side effect of a popular website run by users.

Have you checked out www.scrolldit.com?

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