Ask HN: How do you use Reddit daily? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you use Reddit daily?

46 pointsanildigital62 comments

Some of my friends are Reddit addicts. As a Software Developer, how do you use Reddit? What subreddits do you check? Any other useful tips?

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I had to ban myself from Reddit due to the addiction and timewasting. I'm pretty sure I'm happier and more productive for doing so. I still allow myself HN and Slashdot; they're lower volume so you can only waste so much time on them per day. I also recently cut out Facebook and Twitter - I used to go on them perhaps 4-5 times a day. It wasn't much time wasted, but cutting out the distraction has definitely given me a stronger sense of mindfulness and connection to my daily life.

Edit: I edited my /etc/hosts so that reddit.com resolves to localhost. You can still go on it if you want to, but it just gives you a few seconds to think "is this a good way to spend my time?".

Edit: Also worth noting you can often get good info on niche subjects from Reddit. Recently wanted tips on buying a GPU - straight to /r/BuildAPC. Wanted to learn to play a strategy game - /r/CrusaderKings sorted me out. I even once wanted to find a song I made years ago and lost; there was a fan subreddit for the band I was in and they had a repository of old unreleased tracks, including my own lost song!

While Reddit does have some very smart people on it, you have to spend absurd amounts of time sifting through the mediocre to find their content.

Therefore I use Reddit for cats and memes once a day. Anything else and you really should start considering finding another tool.

It's good to end the day on a positive note. I occasionally spend ten minutes on Reddit right as I get in bed. It doesn't take long to find something in the comments to give me a solid laugh.

A year into college, I realized that there was nothing positive I was getting from Reddit. So, I blocked it using one of those productivity apps (which probably only just changed my hostfile) and told my friends that if they caught me on reddit, I had to give them $10.

I haven't browsed Reddit in a few years now, and I don't miss anything. I'm not saying that there isn't good content on Reddit, but I am saying that it's not worth the time I put into it.

Reddit is Usenet 2.0. Usenet never had a "just browse all the most popular groups" though, mercifully. Same rules apply; the more narrow the group and the more connected to something real, the more likely it is to be useful. Reddit should be viewed as raw material from which to construct a personalized experience of value, and all of its default affordances (/r/all, default subreddits, etc) should be shunned if you're worried about this sort of thing, because they're all terrible, compared to what you can find if you try.

I've got the language communities for all the computer languages I'm currently interested in, a couple of things I'm sorta hobbiest-level interested in (SpaceX, for instance) and want more in-depth news, a couple of weird off-the-wall subs that have a low post rate (/r/scp, /r/cellular_automata) for a more, ah, "refined" sort of entertainment (and perhaps more importantly, simply less entertainment), and a couple of subreddits being used as "more intelligent comments & discussion" for some internet shows hosted on YouTube. The upshot is a stream of news that isn't dropping 100 links an hour on me, is generally interesting, and mostly full of real people having real conversations about things I find interesting and not merely 50-level deep pun competitions.

Reddit's what you make of it.

I built a site that aggregates content from HN, I added reddit as a source and track it via there.

The current criteria are: /r/programming top 10, /r/dataisbeautiful top 5, /r/Technology top story, /r/science/' top story 1

The site's http://www.serializer.io if you want to check it out.

EDIT: code is here: https://github.com/charlieegan3/serializer

This is beautiful and really functional (UI & UX).

This is now my homepage, so you've got your first contributor, at least. :)

I'm really glad you chose to serialise articles rather than attempt to cleverly aggregate them (it feels like there's less noise).

The many indicators (time to read, link to autosummary, articles/hour, tweet count, filetype indicator, ...) are crammed in without crowding anything out. :)

At this point I'm just listing off your site's features so hopefully more people will notice your link amongst the comments. ;)

Wow thanks! Great to get some good feedback! Really glad you like it.

I just checked out your site, I don't see reddit as a source. Which icon is it?

Take a look at: http://www.serializer.io/custom

Reddit isn't a source on the homepage, it's one of the custom ones.

EDIT: my bad, reddit IS a source on the homepage. oops.

When I visited your site the first time I was taken to a /welcome page where it listed Y, Reddit, and P as the "default" or what I assumed was the default

And without clicking anything on /welcome and just visiting the home page again reddit looks like a default!

Sorry, my mistake. It is a default source on the homepage. Bear in mind that all reddit items count as one source, even though they're curated from a number of subreddits.

Sorry for the confusion.

I love this setup, especially how you used #tweets as a unified ranking system and can sync read pages across devices.

Is there a way to add custom sources? For example: http://www.datatau.com/, https://soylentnews.org/ or any number of other aggregation sites

Also, sometimes Ars and HN will cover the same story or HN will link Ars; have you considered a duplicate detection system?

Currently I have to write some code for every new source, partly for the extraction of articles but also to add it to the list of customizable ones etc. Unless they were limited to a standard format then it's hard to add new sources without getting stuck your hands wet. I am trying to add new sources, I added Computerphile this morning, I'll note down those two.

As far as duplication is concerned - yes, I've even had a go at implementing it. I was using the jaccard index to compare stories within the last 2 days. In the end I found it was hard to be confident enough about the match. I don't want to miss stories and so personally just put up with the noise.

1. Browse "front" to read some tech news, world news and intelligent subreddits like askhistorians I am subscribed to.

2. Browse "all" and have a laugh.

3. Repeat 1 and 2 compulsively every 30m to 1h.

Edit: Who am I kidding. Step 3 is every 30 seconds.

Edit 2: That being said, I NEVER browse Reddit at work. Well, except on my own data on the loo.

8 years on the site and this is still my daily routine.

I block it using my hosts file and unblock it (and HN) about once a week. Then I look at the top content from that period of time and look at it all at once, then bookmark them (in a folder) and usually never click the bookmark again.

Facebook I'll check about once a month (also blocked in hosts).

I got into the habit of instinctively typing in "news." or "redd" into my browser as soon as I sat down, the lost productivity was too much and the hosts solution seems to work for me.

For PC games, I have to uninstall them. I'm actually glad games are 60 GB these days because it means I have at least 1 day to consider playing a game. If at any time I decide I don't want to waste 50 - 100 hours playing I can cancel the download and delete the files. Yes, I'm getting Google Fiber next year and this method will not be available because it will download in about 10 - 20 minutes. I'm looking into a time-delayed safe or the cheap plastic tubs with a timer for storing an SSD for those games.

so which sites do you browse instead?

Netflix and YouTube, but I'm strongly considering adding them to the block list.

My address bar knows me too well: "r" and "n" are enough for autocompletes. Reddit's blocked in hosts and HN is getting really close to going back.

Reddit pretty much ended the period of my life where I read books because that's where my reddit time came from. Since we're talking about years of my life that's a pretty big regret.

The quality of the community on Reddit seems to have drastically declined in recent years. There is a dearth of bad information and the comments section seems to be headed towards Youtube levels of hostility... This isn't just in mainstream reddits, it's also prevalent in the niche technical topics. After seeing enough information that was blatantly wrong and wasting time sifting through comments debating the validity of said wrong information I unfavorited reddit and haven't looked back.

Maybe use it as a time waster but avoid it as a resource for useful information.

Here's what I'm subscribed to (don't read too much into some of these choices, i.e. /r/conspiracy):

/r/artificial, /r/cambodia, /r/cellular_automata, /r/ClassicMetal, /r/compling, /r/compsci, /r/conspiracy, /r/crypto, /r/dailyprogrammer, /r/devops, /r/django, /r/EndlessWar, /r/Entrepreneur, /r/futurebeats, /r/iamverysmart, /r/LanguageTechnology, /r/linguistics, /r/MachineLearning, /r/mathrock, /r/musictheory, /r/noip, /r/noiserock, /r/opensource, /r/programming, /r/programminghorror, /r/Python, /r/redditdev, /r/startup, /r/Vaporwave, /r/web_design, /r/webdev, /r/whatstheword, /r/wikipedia

Mostly music and technology. I also periodically block reddit in my hosts file.

Reddit can be a huge time waster if you let it be.

I am subscribed to a bunch of niche subreddits specific to my interests, and I cruise it a couple times a day. The benefit to less popular subreddits is that you don't need to check them a hundred times a day to see if they've changed. I don't read the big popular subreddits.

Once a day, usually in the evening for 10-15 mins, I'll cruise the top images on Imgur. That keeps me up to date on the memes so I can know what the kids are talking about.

I subscribe to a variety of non-default reddits: /r/programming, /r/python, /r/android, /r/programmerhumor, /r/gaming, /r/truegaming.

I'm also a mod of /r/science and /r/askscience.

I enjoy a few extra ones, such as /r/askhistory, /r/cleveland, and /r/daystrominstitute (star trek discussion), but usually browse them once every week or so. Other than that, my interaction with reddit has decreased over the years. I could say the same about Twitter and Facebook too.

I actually spend more time on reddit than on HN. HN is great as a tech news source and the comments are usually top notch and offer even greater insight than the original article posted.

That said, reddit, once you ignore all the immense levels of hatred, bigotry, and memes, has quite a few great groups of people. I've had an account on reddit for going on 5 or 6 years now, and I've filtered my feed down to the very specific subreddits that fit my needs. I've met a great community of other players of some rather low population games, which has led to countless weekends of fun.

Getting to your question, as a developer, the only thing relevant for me is /r/ProgrammerHumor. Reddit really is (for me, at least) only a source of entertainment, not education or serious discussion.

I don't. Stopped browsing reddit years ago, when it septembered, was a user from very early days, having jumped from digg when that septembered.

I dunno. There's too much noise, not enough signal, and I don't have the time or will to get pissed off while trawling through stuff.

It's funny (actually funny, not being mean funny) that you consider the digg exodus period as 'the good old days' of reddit, because those of us who had been there a few years were really pissed off and nostalgic for how it had been before.

I'm sure I was somebody's september as well.

Oh, I was on reddit from very early on, concurrently with digg, and dropped digg as it got increasingly toxic and facile - definitely noticed a shift as the mass exodus picked up, and about 18 months later moved on from reddit.

I mostly visit niche subreddits. I like to get all my software development news from here instead. So I use reddit for whatever other interests I might have at the time. Basically whenever I have a new interest/hobby, I would spend a few days into that specific subreddit and absorb as much of the collected information as possible. These vary a lot so I might subscribe to some subreddits only for a few months and then go on to others.

I use reddit, HN, and lobste.rs to give myself mental breaks throughout the coding day.

I'm subscribed to a lot of niche subreddits, but even so, the quality of reddit has dropped pretty noticeably in the last few years.

I'm sure its partly from the expanded userbase, but the site itself has actually degraded.

* You can no longer see upvotes vs downvotes.

* Comment replies are no longer automatic. Instead, the little red envelope updates its status once every ~45 minutes.

Which wouldn't be so bad, except:

* Now when messages are deleted, there's no guaranteed [deleted] message, and the message will disappear from your inbox.

* In really popular threads, some messages beneath a certain vote count appear to get automatically deleted?

* The inbox status notification is broken. I have about ~100 comment replies I've kept marked as unread in my inbox, for long term saving. Reddit used to just notify you when you received a new message, but now every once in a while, it will realize I have unread messages, and give me a "new messages" notification, despite nothing having changed.

Not to mention just how bad all the astroturfing has gotten, particularly on the default subreddits.

And that's just off the top of my head, its a shame really.

While the frontpage and default subs are drastically down in quality the smaller more specialized subs are still valuable to me.

/r/writing /r/math /r/boardgames /r/Debate<topic> and programming subs are still valuable.

Honestly, I think Reddit is ripe for disruption. There are some good ideas there but I think it is struggling under some initial assumptions that worked when there were fewer people with fewer interests and agendas that just don't work but would be hard to change at this stage. And while there is a bit of a network effect in value, unlike something like facebook where there is a lot of value in the 'archive' aspects of it, Reddit is a very 'here and now' phenomena that could be replaced without too much pain assuming people decide they like some other system better. And it might be a Craigslist kind of thing where specialized sites that better cater to the different areas can chip away audience from Reddit.

Reddit is mostly entertainment for me.

I read /r/cfb for a good overview of what is going on in college football. I glance through /r/nfl to get an idea of nfl and when I want extra entertainment I read the frontpage.

There's a few work related ones I read occasionally to keep up to date on issues with our products, but outside that it is mostly entertainment tbh.

I've got an account where I've subscribed to various hobby- and interest-related subreddits and unsubscribed from the vast majority of the defaults.

It really can be informative and entertaining if only by virtue of the huge user base. By the same token, it follows any large group with similar demographics: lots of fluff, no small amount of (what I consider) crap, and pockets of great content.

None of that surprises me though. If I consider all of the people in my city, a similarly small percentage would be considered friends or welcomed as colleagues and collaborators on projects while the majority would share few interests or have compatible personalities.

For all the complete BS on that site, I've gotten some of the best advice, answers to questions, and found more informative and entertaining articles than many other forums or websites. It just takes a bit of effort to curate your subscription list.

I mostly just use it for really specific topics (sports I follow, TV shows I watch, etc) where Reddit provides perhaps the largest discussion board for that topic. I've generally found that HN covers tech news better, and that most subreddits with less targeted focus just fill up with junk.

I found consuming Reddit is a lot easier when you treat it like Usenet. So I have RSS subscriptions for the subreddits that interest me in my RSS reader.

That also means I can easily organize them myself by topic. In the dev related area are things like /r/rust, /r/perl, /r/rust_gamedev. And even /r/programming, which many people dislike, but I appreciate for the purpose of having people from different communities interact. I found some interesting links in discussions in there in the past that I wouldn't have run into otherwise, because it's not directly related to anything I currently do.

There's a bit of change over time in what subreddits I read. If I find myself not going back to a specific one (entries always maxed out), I just remove it.

I subscribe to various programming language subreddits, a couple that hit my current interests (at the moment r/running, r/fitness), and some where people post neat photos (such as r/abandonedporn).

I browse it probably every day, usually while sitting somewhere waiting for other people to join me, or for an appointment or something. But not for too long. Probably 30 minutes on average, with some nights where I get bored and don't want to read a book leading to a several hour binge.

I do avoid all the particularly addictive subreddits, similar to my avoidance of the youtube trap. If I'm going to get lost online for hours in endless tabs it'll be a Wikipedia binge. At least that way I come away more informed than when I started.

I use Reddit for all the other subjects than programming and startups that I'm interested in.

For example, I'm interested in energy production, energy policy and climate change, and there are several interesting energy related subreddits providing different view points and opinions (e.g. /r/energy, /r/climate, /r/nuclear, /r/hardenergy)

Also, I'm currently recreationally training running, swimming and weight lifting and Reddit gives a good view to all of these through /r/running, /r/swimming, /r/fitness and more specific subreddits ...

The largest, I think, community for the niche software that I create is located on reddit. So I use it to see what's going on in the community, help people, show my products and so on.

Otherwise I only use reddit as a time waster.

Removed most of my subs and subscribed only to subs related to current learning. Reddit usage has gone down noticeably and when I procrastinate, I'm browsing subjects I need to learn about.

I don't. Facebook also gone. Got work to do. Maybe when I retire.

It's like biting my nails. Without thinking, there I am, looking at something on reddit. Always just use the website. Follow my favorite sports team, pics, and gamedev mostly.

But, I'm going to be phasing it out of my life. As I get older, I feel like it's not good for me. I've done the same with Facebook and Twitter, it's time for Reddit to stop, and I'm a little worried about Pinterest - but I basically use that as my Google for ideas like Camping Hacks or Gluten Free recipes.

As a Software Developer, I don't.

Honestly, I've been addicted to reddit for something like 5 years now. I browse all day. I browse at work. I think "Right, better get off reddit" go sit on the couch and lo-and-behold, I'm already redditing on my smartphone. When I go to a browser absentmindedly my hands automatically type "red" before I even realise what's going on.

I've tried giving up a few times with limited success. If anyone can share any advice I would be grateful.

Interesting; you seem to like reddit a lot. So why exactly do you want to give it up?

Be careful not to confuse "liking" something with compulsively using it to distract yourself from the bleak pointlessness of existence.

/r/all, until it gets to the weird subreddits (like MLP) or when I've had enough / it's time to go to bed. It's mostly stupid entertainment.

I have a couple of Zapier zaps set up to alert me of hot posts in a couple of niche subreddits. I use these alert mostly to inform my thinking and content for a blog I'm working on. It helps me decide what content will add value as I can see the type of questions people are asking, and it allows me to promote my blog as I can reference it in comments / answers.

Most of my interaction with Reddit is driven by these alerts.

I have 2 accounts, one is personal that I check out stupid things on during my own time a few times a day, other is one that is only programming related subs which inevitably are just reposts of things here with less moderation. It'd be nice if there was a persona type system to combine those built into reddit but it certainly doesn't seem like there's a lot of active development going on there.

Reddit is fine if you avoid the big default subreddits. I left reddit for HN some time ago. Now I find myself migrating back. /r/hackernews gives me the best of HN content on reddit. The comments on HN keep me here.

A few subreddit recommendations: /r/rust /r/rational /r/TheFutureIsNow /r/gamedesign /r/MorbidReality

I check reddit a few times per day mostly because I'am a mod over there and want the subs to be clean but other than that I read /r/netsec a lot, very nice community with focus on quality.

Almost never share any content there but the few times I do I get really good feedback so next time I want to share something reddit will absolutely be the first place.

I follow certain specific subject matter with it. My particular interests include (but are not limited to r/formula1, r/cars, r/guns, r/karting, and any game subreddit I may be interested in...

Everything else is short-term, quick-look entertainment (r/gifs, r/funny, r/pics, r/mildlyinteresting, etc).

/r/programming, /r/python and /r/linux I read daily.

There are a handful of niche subreddits I follow as well (/r/futuresynth etc).

I stick an entry in the hosts file while I'm working as the temptation to just hit reddit to see what's happening is a little too high for comfort on boring days.

I really at this point only check /r/haskell as that is the "best" spot for learning about new things for that language.

Otherwise most of my reason to go there has dropped off. Even the above can be mitigated by following the right twitter accounts (and I hate twitter but it has its uses).

RSS of the monthly top 10 for niche subreddits: https://www.reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards/top/.rss?sort=t...

I switched to voat.co because of all the shill accounts, vote brigading, shadowbans, and corrupt mods on reddit.

Oh, not to mention the absolute insanity of the discussion that takes place in those threads.

I actually mostly browse HN now, a couple old forums, and RSS feeds via Feedly.

To sate the need to express a narcissism of minor differences that drives enthusiasts apart.

I really enjoyed Reddit. I can't say I was ever addicted. It was mostly a tool for procrastination. But then suddenly it didn't interest me anymore and I just stopped visiting. Perhaps I grew out of it?

Anyone have advice for blocking reddit on an android (not rooted) phone? I found the site too addicting and time-wasting so the site is listed on my host file for my PC, but now I exclusively browse on my phone.

I read mostly r/programming aka proggit and r/netsec. Both are active and have sometimes good content. Lots of noise though.

I can't stand reddit. I've never been able to.

I "use" reddit by seeing memes and other popular imagery on Imgur.

Find subreddits with few subscribers and many comments.

> Some of my friends are Reddit addicts.

So the question is really "how do you not let it waste too much time"? I'm unsure whether the question is loaded or not.

EDIT: here is a more constructive part of this comment, a more general technique to dealing with doing "useless" stuff in general:

Get a small notepad and a pen. Imagine that you have two hours of free time. Now before you're about to do something, write down what you are going to do. Not a plan of the two hours, but what you are going to do right now - like "wash the dishes", which might only take five minutes. The point here is to shake you out of whatever autopilot you are running on, and do things in a more intentional way. When you are done with the dishes, you might write "practice the guitar". After that, maybe "check the front page of proggit, and bookmark the interesting links for later" if you don't have time for that right now, or want to do it later.

Hopefully this will avoid habitual things like the other poster mentioned, like immediately opening a browser and going to proggit or HN once the computer is turned on (I do this too!).

And of course, this technique can be used whenever, not just in your free time. The two hour free time was just an example.

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