Other forums with like-minded folks

21

Look for the :bell: icon. There’s one at the top of each sub and one at the top of each thread. I don’t really find it very useful though, since most reddit posts are one-offs followed by short-lived discussions. The format doesn’t allow for long conversations. There’s also a way to bookmark posts and threads if you want to refer to them later (assuming they don’t get deleted).

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22

I use the app on my iPad. Overall, Reddit is a leftist wasteland, but there are some forums that are useful. For example, for devices that interest me like the kindle scribe and for applications that I use like standard notes and for health foods like canned sardines.

All is not well in Reddit-land recently. The oh-so woke owners are trying to milk more money out of the developers who build applications on top of it. They are revolting and multiple groups are “going dark”
over the next few days. Could not happen to nicer guys. :sunglasses:

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23

I’m pretty active on Reddit. Mostly travel subs, and whatever random stuff it keeps showing me.

Reddit is sort of a weak imitation of other more primary sources that the younger generation don’t know about. Flyertalk for travel and the Bogleheads forum for finance. Unfortunately, Reddit has millions of members and a culture of it being OK to ask a question rather than googling it. So, I don’t think following a sub long term leads to anything other than just getting annoyed by the same questions over and over. It is certainly helpful when you need it.

I’ve gotten back way more than I put into it, although the rewards were largely outside of Reddit itself. I got a nice invite to a private miles and points local group based on helping a bunch of randoms on r/awardtravel.

The advantage here is that we’re small and sort of know some of each other in real life. A Reddit sub with hundreds of thousands or millions of users is often going to have a lot of pointless comments and minor corrections that don’t add to the discussion, just due to the sheer scale of the people reading.

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24

It’s great on iOS. Sort of bad on desktop.

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25

I hate it for this reason. It feels like the people asking questions truly don’t know how to use the internet. They start by posting a long question on reddit instead of using a short query in a search engine. I expected better from kids who grew up with the internet.

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26

and get off @scripta 's lawn :>

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27

I get it. Everyone thinks they need individualized advice. But often, someone asked the exact same thing yesterday. I can only hope that the people doing the drive-by questions are helping other people with answers on other subs.

On the other hand, I spent a non-trivial amount of time helping randoms on there in travel subs, and yet when I ask a unique question, I get all sorts of snark. American Airlines really should pay me for it.

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28

Exactly. I too sometimes fall into a cycle of helping randoms, but it’s a never-ending and thankless job, because people don’t search and sometimes they don’t even respond to the answers. “didYOUsearch” should be a full screen warning before a new question can be posted.

I think scrolling through questions and posting answers on reddit works the same mechanism as doom-scrolling other social media – a series of quick dopamine hits. It’s addicting, but it’s not worthwhile.

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29

I guess that would cut into reddit’s usage though, right? Meaning this is something they would not want to “fix”.

I don’t use reddit except for an occasional search result when I google my question (like a good Internet user should :slight_smile: )

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30

That’s the only time I fall into their orbit. Sometimes though, it’s hard to break orbit. :slightly_smiling_face:

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This goes part of the way to explaining the leftist bias of Google search results.

CNBC reports that Google is taking desperate measures to improve its search experience in response to the recent Reddit blackouts. The tech giant has introduced a new function called “Perspectives” to address user discontent. Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s senior vice president in charge of search, acknowledged the user discontent during the Reddit blackouts. “Many of you may wonder how we have a search team that’s iterating and building all this new stuff and yet somehow, users are still not quite happy,” Raghavan said. “We need to make users happy.”

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