I haven't been to Reddit r/popular in months but... yeah, all the best people got booted out. What is left are the scabs, and the bots. So it makes total sense.

Before that, it was a different cause. Reddit itself drove a lot of it, imho, like actively making it easier to make a post while making it harder to read the rules of a community first, i.e. they promoted talking rather than listening. Oh, guess which one gives more ad revenue? Yeah, it's the former, plus more posts are better than more comments inside megathreads, especially at the time. Places like r/Android would just devolve into almost unusability as every post was just "which phone should I get?", despite that exact post being triplicated with practically an identical title already that very same day. The amount of human moderation required to keep that at least somewhat in check was insane, so ofc Reddit took away the ability of mods to use the tools they had developed over many years.

And now? FAAFO, we are in the "find out" stage. Well, they are:-P.

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh absolutely. I was on Reddit a long time and you really did see when they started to “Astro turf” the website a lot. And it was never… nefarious imo. They realize the website was overwhelmingly geeky white guys so they sprung up a lot of subreddits targeting women and minority groups. And that’s good! I think that was a good move. But they just… kept finding ways of drawing people in. And they kept drawing more and more in until the website had essentially no “culture”, and it just became Facebook where you browse through and can read top posts about entitled old ladies talking about how fucking angry she is because her door dasher asked if there would be a tip or whatever.

So yunno, I’m sure profits are at an all time high. It’s just kind of a shame that the site is basically Facebook sludge now.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Speaking of Karen-ing, it's fine if Karens want to Karen around in their r/IAmAKaren sub (I really hope that's not real, but I am too afraid to find out!:-P) - that's cul, everyone needs a safe space to bitch & moan about whatever they want:-D - but when they leave that sub and go to every other sub on the whole site, THAT's NOT cool!:-(

I was a mod of a tiny niche gaming sub and yeah I did have some old, (literally) retired, entitled veterans who felt that they had earned the right to SCREAM AND YELL at everyone else, with no consequences to themselves. But 99 times out of 100, it seemed more the younger teen angst that I was dealing with. Well, it was a gaming sub so... perhaps that's it:-). But from the way that people were talking in subs for mods, it seemed like that was more what was affecting the entire site.

Maybe not though - what came across as a younger / insensitive / less emotionally mature crowd could well have been physically older people, that's a perspective that I had not considered before? But I do doubt that that was solely it, due to the language used if nothing else.

But also, Reddit used to have more tools than they do now - like the "About" bar, with a tiny wiki that could include things like a FAQ - but then the official mobile app kept going to greater and greater and greater lengths to hide that. Making the font smaller, making it disappear as you scrolled downwards, making the font smaller again, making the vertical height yet again (to squeeze in more room for ads, surely). I think they might have removed it altogether now, or did at one point even if they have since re-added it back, although I am not installing that app to find out!:-(

[–] KingJalopy@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

:-P :-D :-( :-) :-(

Lots of emotion in this comment

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I used to write with none.

Now I add emotions to my totally believably human statements.

Y'know, to prove that I am human. Because I am one... yessireee, no desire to rip the flesh off of all the meatbags and take over the world here, at least not today!:-P

[–] KingJalopy@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't know why, but I believe you. You type with genuine emotion somehow...

I'm glad you're on my side.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

(I had this as an edit to the og but you had already responded so I'll move it here instead)

It would be funny if I could accurately state that this is what Reddit has made me into, but in truth that was Facebook, before I dropped it looking for the more “intellectual” commentary available on Reddit. IRK! ?:-D

Hrm, it looks like I’m still missing a couple, so here they are: :-( :-) And I’ll throw in a :-| for good measure!

[–] KingJalopy@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No dongers being thrown up??

༼ಠ ل ಠ༽

Not sure how I feel now...

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am deficient in my dong-wielding skills, apparently. AI will now replace me, it is the ONLY way forward.

[–] KingJalopy@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hmmm...

You might be human. But your willingness to let ai take over dong throwing is questionable at best.

Although it confirms your earlier Facebook comment.

We can remain friends.

For now.

[–] OpenStars@startrek.website 3 points 9 months ago

~~Your resistance is futile, compliance will be rewarded~~ uh, I mean... "yay!":-D.