Single link reddit thread?

May 3, 2012 8:45 PM

We know where reddit is, don't we?

I'm curious to see what the Metatalk mob think about FPPs linking to a single reddit thread. I feel like we probably all know where reddit is, and that a currently shifting reddit thread is not a good fit for an FPP. I'm not slagging off reddit at all, I have an account there, and do read it.

Most recently inspired by this.

posted by pompomtom to Etiquette/Policy at 8:45 PM (140 comments total)

My feeling is that he bar needs to be pretty high for any Reddit link at all to be a good post for MeFi since, hey, people can just read Reddit. This post is, however, 30 minutes old and was just barely on my radar. I'd be interested to know what other people think since my gut feeling is deleting single link Reddit posts on sight unless they're truly great, but I'm not sure how to ascertain truly great. And maybe people don't agree with me. Wouldn't be the first time.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:47 PM on May 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

I wouldn't say 'truly great', but this is head-and-shoulders above the usual Redditry. And if the Reddit Reflex Haters don't ruin it, a rather fun comment thread. Remember, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and a clock running backwards twice as often.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:55 PM on May 3, 2012 [7 favorites]

Agreed, it seems to be going well. If the bar for deletion were simply "we all know where [x] is," we could finally get rid of NYT, Cracked, Buzzfeed, and Wil Wheaton in one fell swoop, no epony-anything intended.
posted by Gator at 8:58 PM on May 3, 2012 [6 favorites]

I guess I'm one of the people you've singled out as a Reflex Reddit Hater (an appellation, I might add, that perfectly encapsulates the Reddit way of describing the world), but if you're going to post a Reddit thread, why not put just a little more effort into it? Maybe a couple of extra links or something? Otherwise it's just posting to a Reddit thread.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:59 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

FWIW, I don't read reddit because it is so large and I detest the interface. But sometimes cool things come from it, and I'm happy to be pointed towards them. I see it like livejournal or any other of a menagerie of things on the web which can be the subject of interesting posts. I regularly read the A.V Club and Cracked, but I don't have an issue with those sites coming up in FPPs. Just because I've found something doesn't mean others who might be interested have.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:01 PM on May 3, 2012 [25 favorites]

I'm totally cool with the occasional reddit post so long as it counts as the best of the internet, which reddit does occasionally accomplish.

The thick miasma of misogyny, violently awful bigotry, recent enablement of child-porn, and general culture of despising anyone reddit can't immediately identify with scares me away from meaningfully participating in reddit or even following it much. So I appreciate when MetaFilter does for reddit what it does for the rest of the internet.
posted by Blasdelb at 9:01 PM on May 3, 2012 [32 favorites]

I vote, nuke it from orbit. I really don't need Reddit in my Metafilter.
posted by unSane at 9:06 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I never read Reddit unless it's linked from somewhere else so I appreciate the occasional post from there. I liked this one.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:08 PM on May 3, 2012 [13 favorites]

Also, "hey, people can just read [X]" could be said about any site. That's the whole point of the "filter" in Metafilter, right?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:09 PM on May 3, 2012 [29 favorites]

I feel like we probably all know where reddit is

Many people don't, or can't be bothered, or don't like the UI, or see the frontpage and get turned off by imgur links and memes, and never dig deeper. Or don't have accounts that have custom-created frontpages to avoid most the the memery and crap.

But a pure, active thread is probably not a good FPP.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:11 PM on May 3, 2012

The thick miasma of misogyny, violently awful bigotry, recent enablement of child-porn, and general culture of despising anyone reddit can't immediately identify with scares me away from meaningfully participating in reddit or even following it much.

Sounds like your mind is made up, but perhaps /r/DepthHub will give you reason to cool it on the blanket dismissals.
posted by Ritchie at 9:11 PM on May 3, 2012 [5 favorites]

KokuRyu has a valid point, but for this particular topic, I can't think of how it could be expanded without massive effort. So let filthy light thief do it.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:11 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't read Reddit unless directed to a thread there by someone who says the particular thread has some worth. This one looks to be worth reading and contains tons of links to other interesting things. So thanks!
posted by Roger Dodger at 9:14 PM on May 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

All I know is Balkan Beatbox are awesome but Reddit blows monkey chunks. And mr_crash_davis is correct.
posted by 3.2.3 at 9:17 PM on May 3, 2012

Why don't we just steal all the good the links from reddit so we can talk about them here, with people who don't make me want to glass the planet from orbit.
posted by 0xdeadc0de at 9:19 PM on May 3, 2012 [4 favorites]

" FWIW, I don't read reddit because it is so large and I detest the interface"

Me too! But then I found Scrolldit and that pretty much fixed everything.
posted by TangerineGurl at 9:22 PM on May 3, 2012 [5 favorites]

'Hive mind
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hive mind can mean:

On the Internet:
On many social websites, such as 4chan or reddit, a "hive mind" describes the phenomenon where the only posts and comments to receive mass attention are those that follow the group's bias.'

Sorry, Metafilter.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:23 PM on May 3, 2012

Surely the wiki can be changed to reflect the truth, no?
posted by TangerineGurl at 9:24 PM on May 3, 2012

If there were a case to be made that nothing on reddit can, by definition, be worth linking to, then you'd have something. But that's an almost unsatisfiable premise. A link either blows or not, depending on the actual content you find when you follow it. So unless a site has intrinsically harmful properties I don't see a case for a prejudicial rule.

And this is coming from someone who never goes there on purpose and never stays long if finds hmself there.i
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:24 PM on May 3, 2012

I'm also with KokuRyu. Linking to a Reddit thread is fine if you develop the post with context, links to further exploration, and all the other hallmarks of what generally makes a great FPP. Just because you don't know about/don't visit reddit doesn't mean reposting reddit content here without more makes a good post. I admit that I can't say what would count as good context or further exploration for this specific thread and that the thread isn't particularly inane. Just don't start FPPing every pic on /r/adviceanimals.

I personally consider any single-link post to be not a great post, but high enough levels of discussion-provoking quality and obscurity can elevate them above waste of time status.
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 9:24 PM on May 3, 2012

i flagged it because i'd rather reddit stay on reddit, but if the thread stays i won't complain. the ones i absolutely detest and would complain loudly about if they stayed are they "hey, did you know people say godawful shit on reddit??" because, yeah, i know.
posted by nadawi at 9:27 PM on May 3, 2012

I flagged it, and for exactly the reasons that Jessamyn iterated.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 9:30 PM on May 3, 2012

I'm a regular Redditor, and I like to see the occasional Reddit thread on here because there are so many good things that come from Reddit (look, just here me out). For example, the articles posted to /r/foodforthought will often show up on Metafilter within minutes (and vice versa), and generate very good discussions.

Comments like this one (about a medical professional's experience with abuse) surface about once a week, and are of no lower quality than those on Metafilter. The thread itself is absolutely heartbreaking. I was enthralled for at least half an hour by that entire thread. Advice like this or this about human relationships is the type of advice that would be favourited many, many times in Ask Metafilter.

I'm sure these have been mentioned before but /r/askscience is a great way of getting answers to technical questions...but if you want more basic answers, there's /r/explainlikeimfive. These are unique places that are popular and have lots of posts, and with that many messages, there's bound to be some gold in there, and I think it should be shared.

Reddit has a lot of redeeming qualities, and I guess I can see those since my viewing tastes have changed in my almost 4 years with an account at Reddit so I know where the redeeming qualities are tucked away, but that's why it's so good to have funny/interesting/thought-provoking threads come from Reddit (or Cracked, or Boing Boing), because they would otherwise not get the attention they deserve.

And I guess I'm defending Reddit because I love Reddit and I love Metafilter, and when they fight and are mean to each other I just get so confused and sad and WHY ARE MOM AND DAD FIGHTING?!
posted by marcusesses at 9:33 PM on May 3, 2012 [35 favorites]

"I personally consider any single-link post to be not a great post"

Hm. Have you heard about these people with cats wedged in their scanners?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:34 PM on May 3, 2012 [6 favorites]

And to second what Grimp0teuthis said, if a single-link post has the potential to generate some interesting/thoughtful discussion, then I'd say it's a worthy submission. The comments are often the most interesting part of a thread anyway.
posted by marcusesses at 9:37 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

exterminate
posted by lee at 9:38 PM on May 3, 2012

Hey, I have an idea: let's judge links on their individual merits rather than on where they happen to be hosted.

It's crazy I know but it just might work
posted by ook at 9:39 PM on May 3, 2012 [29 favorites]

I don't personally browse YouTube because the majority of videos are dumb and the comment threads are dumber. Therefore we should never link to a YouTube video, even if it's a good one.
posted by knave at 9:40 PM on May 3, 2012 [8 favorites]

I had that thread open for a while and I typed out some comment or other about blah blah blah threaded comments make my eyes bleed or something but then I didn't because no one fucking cares.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:40 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: The Reddit Sideblog
posted by XMLicious at 9:42 PM on May 3, 2012

jessamyn [star]: " I'd be interested to know what other people think since my gut feeling is deleting single link Reddit posts on sight unless they're truly great"

I think this, seeing as you asked.
posted by dg at 9:45 PM on May 3, 2012

I'm not even sure how this one-link post could be fleshed out with more links. Or why you would want to. It's linking to a page of links. Obviously not every post should look like this, but the fact it has only one link should not automatically doom it to deletion. The link it does have is interesting, and that's really the only bar that it needs to meet for me.
posted by Roger Dodger at 9:46 PM on May 3, 2012

i'm enjoying the mefi thread as well as the linked post. thirding Grimp0teuthis's suggestion above. i never would've heard of serbian turbofolk otherwise (or good country music, which i'm kind of ignorant towards, tbh).
posted by raihan_ at 9:47 PM on May 3, 2012

Worse than linking to Reddit is Kokuryu's comment which has nothing to do with the link and is metacommentary which belongs here. This happens too often and I thought it was deletable.
posted by Danila at 9:57 PM on May 3, 2012 [7 favorites]

my problem with linking to reddit is partially the culture of reddit which i think is generally pervasive except for maybe in a a few subreddits (and i'm not just talking from the outside, i have an account and i participate some over there). i don't think it's good for metafilter - but beyond that gripe, i don't like posts that are "read this comment thread." i would find that a weird post if it were a fark thread or an ONTD thread or a thread from the shadowbox message board. there's not an article or a video or something concrete - it seems to boil down to "hey a few hundred people are having a conversation somewhere else, lets have that same conversation over here."
posted by nadawi at 10:13 PM on May 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Sounds like your mind is made up, but perhaps /r/DepthHub will give you reason to cool it on the blanket dismissals.
posted by Ritchie at 5:11 AM on May 4

I think we just have to accept that there are some tiresome individuals here who enjoy knee-jerk tunnel-vision sneering at reddit far too much to cool it on the blanket dismissals. It enables them to keep banging their "Oh, aren't we so much better here at Metafilter" drum, which makes a nice accompaniment to them repeatedly telling us how immature redditors are.
posted by Decani at 10:20 PM on May 3, 2012 [5 favorites]

MetaFilter is better: no child porn
posted by KokuRyu at 10:22 PM on May 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: Panning the open sewer for gold.
posted by TangerineGurl at 10:23 PM on May 3, 2012

i don't feel my reaction is knee jerk, but thanks for the blanket dismissal!
posted by nadawi at 10:26 PM on May 3, 2012 [5 favorites]

when they fight and are mean to each other

I don't think the vast majority of users on reddit really notice MetaFilter.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:27 PM on May 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

bang the drum slowly
posted by shakespeherian at 10:28 PM on May 3, 2012

I think this clears the bar for a good SLRP.

(That's Single Link Reddit Post)
posted by dirigibleman at 10:28 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter is better: no child porn

I've never seen child porn on reddit. Mind you I do myself a favor and exercise some prudence in the way I browse reddit, the same way I do with metafilter and the internet in general. What you seem to have done is sieved a huge website, found the most awful parts, and then decided to judge the entire website by those few parts. If that's a strategy that works for you, great. I personally don't care for it: I don't think it scales all that well.
posted by Ritchie at 10:31 PM on May 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm not opposed to reddit, per se. But I clicked on that page and went to the link and I just find the signal to noise ratio way to high (or is it low? Shit I dunno: there's too much shit on the page), it's almost impossible to extract the worthwhile stuff from the torrent of comments that, if not offensive or anything are just like, "Hey good job man! Awesome find!" or some variant thereof three hundred times over. To scroll so far and find so little is... well, let's say mefi has spoiled me.

If there was a Reddit thread where most of the visible comments were interesting and substantive, that would be great, but I clicked away from that posted thread after about two minutes because it was confusing, mostly inane, and hard to follow (compare it to an askme where someone asked the same question about a particular genre, for an illustration). I think this means I'm an old man who is officially out of touch with the kids these days with their tights pants and those weird scoop-neck t-shirts the boys seem to be wearing. So it goes.
posted by smoke at 10:31 PM on May 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Decani, the irony of you accusing anyone of knee-jerk tunnel vision is just too rich; I'm going to have to go get some antacids.
posted by smoke at 10:33 PM on May 3, 2012 [4 favorites]

I find the idea of just linking to another discussion kind of weird.

And now I've seen smoke's comment and that's pretty much what I was going to say. I don't hate Reddit, or know anything about it, because I can't tell what the hell I'm looking at.
posted by bongo_x at 10:33 PM on May 3, 2012

There are lots of sources of good material which publish infrequently enough that everyone who's interested could read it all. If MetaFilter is supposed to be a filter, a way for people to point out good web sites to other people who don't surf the web as much, then single-link FPPs to jewels among the dross should be the majority.

And if you want to find good stuff on the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, or Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog, it's not hard to do on your own. But Reddit! The churn on their front page is tremendous, with even the best material being driven off in a matter of hours by the sheer force of activity. They don't have a sidebar either, so it's really valuable to have the good stuff pointed out before it's lost in the rush.

So I'd rather see Reddit links on MeFi than links to web sites we already know have mostly good articles.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:36 PM on May 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

I've never seen child porn on reddit. Mind you I do myself a favor and exercise some prudence in the way I browse reddit, the same way I do with metafilter and the internet in general. What you seem to have done is sieved a huge website, found the most awful parts, and then decided to judge the entire website by those few parts. If that's a strategy that works for you, great. I personally don't care for it: I don't think it scales all that well.

Dude, it was child porn. Stuff can slip through the cracks, I guess, but it was a very public ongoing problem that should have been handled sooner.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:36 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

better flag it than reddit?
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:41 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, I know what child porn is. Inasmuch as the people with the power to do something about it didn't, those people suck. Doesn't mean the rest of the site sucks.
posted by Ritchie at 10:45 PM on May 3, 2012

The structure of the site is wrong. I don't like how people talk here, says redditor. I will form a subreddit with people who agree with me, says redditor. I don't like how people talk here, says subredditor. I will form a subreddit with people who agree with me, says subredditor. . . . and then a billion forums each a circle jerk.
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:49 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I mostly don't like Reddit because, on any given page, I can't figure out 1) how to untangle the comments so they're readable, and 2) where to find the link to the stuff they're talking about.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:55 PM on May 3, 2012

nonono, /r/circlejerk is that-a-way.

(My 2 cents is the music style thread is the best of the web and to exclude it purely on the basis of the source is being overly stubborn.)
posted by fragmede at 10:56 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I find their music tastes limited by the intense milieu effects that reddit generates. It is not to be underestimated. The dangers of social pressures are even worse when you mistake them for universal truths. This is why you need your quonsars, and your devil's advocates: they remind you that you aren't everybody. That is precisely what reddit does so well. It hides this truth. Like how deviantart discourages artists from facing the truth that they aren't that great.
posted by TwelveTwo at 11:04 PM on May 3, 2012

This link broadened my music interest and that is a very good thing. Forget about the site's circlejerkness and poorly thought out comments and bad UI. The post is really good and is worth sharing with people who don't normally reddit. I hardly ever post but this hating other link sites stuff really gets to me.
posted by Elminster of Labor at 11:17 PM on May 3, 2012

I don't like it. No sir, I don't. I've never thus far been directed to reddit and found anything there to disabuse me of my feelings about the site, which are not particularly positive.

On the other hand, I know many Metafilter members think it's the ocelot's nipples, and are very keen to convince others of the many merits they see in it.

I suspect I am neither the target audience, at least in part because, like Sys Rq, I can't make head or tail of the thing, and because even though I am a total shithouse dilettante when it comes to design, even I can't ignore how blisteringly, searingly ugly it is.

I would be swayed by the 'best of the web' argument (even though best-of-the-web is deprecated as a rallying cry round these parts), but I'm afraid I don't think the link in question (or anything I've seen at reddit so far when I've decided to try to make myself 'get it' and failed) qualifies.

But that is just me, perhaps, and my stubborn crankiness in play.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:28 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's ok. We can have our own mefi circlejerk, but did anyone remember to bring the beans?
posted by TwelveTwo at 11:31 PM on May 3, 2012

I mostly don't like Reddit because, on any given page, I can't figure out 1) how to untangle the comments so they're readable,

Okay this is weird to me. MetaFilter is actually harder in some respects. On MetaFilter you can have a number of discussions occurring simultaneously intermixed on the page together and ordered chronologically and you have to rely on context cues to work out which comment belongs to which conversation. We get so used to it, it seems normal and we stop thinking about it.

On reddit, discussions sort themselves into a tree structure, and the tree structures are ordered by popularity. So right now, on the MetaFilter page they mostly seem to be talking about Serbian Turbo Folk, because that's at the top of the reddit thread and few people are willing to skim down a bit (skimming in reddit is a Good Thing). On reddit that Serbian Turbo Folk discussion is one node of discussion. Simultaneous discussions are happening on ICP, Christian Rock, Country, etc. With a monster thread like that you read the nodes you're interested in and skim everything else. Makes perfect sense, once you're used to it. Used to be pretty much the default in most Usenet newsreaders (except for the upvoting).

Just checking back in the reddit thread, someone has started to yank all the links that have been posted and compiled them into a single mega-post, which has promptly been favorited to the top of the page.

and 2) where to find the link to the stuff they're talking about.

Usually it's right at the top. The exception is generally anything in the 'self' domain (e.g. self.music, self.askreddit, etc.)
posted by Ritchie at 11:34 PM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Words comed out brainhole wrong today much.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:35 PM on May 3, 2012

If a particular Reddit thread can be considered "Best of the Web" (and, as others have mentioned, sometimes Reddit manages that) then I seriously don't see any problem with a direct post.

Yes, Reddit threads are full of some disgustingly bad comments, but an FPP to a Reddit thread full of crap would deserve get deleted because of the content, not because of the source. The music thread on the front page right now is really interesting and fun and the comments are fine, so I don't see a reason why it shouldn't make the cut.
posted by Defenestrator at 12:03 AM on May 4, 2012

I agree that Reddit posts can be a bit meh, but personally this one struck a chord with me (heh) and I ended up getting totally sucked in to writing a way-too-long post about avant-garde music which had the happy byproduct of reminding me how much I love that genre, and now I'm lost in my iTunes and my wife is urging me to come to bed but I'm like "I've totally got to finish out this Reich playlist, okay honey?" and she just rolls her eyes and queues up another episode of Gilmore Girls.

So I liked the FPP, YMMV.
posted by Doleful Creature at 12:05 AM on May 4, 2012

And yes, I agree that there's always a risk of the tone of the comments shifting, but even if that's taken into account (which it should be) I don't think there's much of a chance that a thread about discovering new music will devolve into the typical misogyny and immaturity that Reddit is so frequently full of.
posted by Defenestrator at 12:06 AM on May 4, 2012

FWIW, I don't read reddit because it is so large and I detest the interface. But sometimes cool things come from it, and I'm happy to be pointed towards them.

Fully agree with this.

And if people who don't like Reddit posts could flag them or email the mods rather than mocking Reddit in the thread, that'd be great.

Having quizzed twice against Reddit, I can confirm that Redditors are basically just like us. Only they skew younger. And maler. And (as they so kindly pointed out) with more hair.
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:07 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Makes perfect sense, once you're used to it.

I signed up for reddit very soon after it first launched, though I have since forgotten even the username (which was probably some *wonderchicken variant) I used. I've looked at the site probably, I dunno, hundreds of times over the years.

I still have no idea -- not a clue -- what's going on. So getting used to it, for me at least, never happened.

I understand it's a different discussion model from the flat one here at MeFi, which has always been part of the reason I love it here. There are many models -- hell, I remember the selector at kur05hin back in the day that let you choose between about 6 equally-confusing ways of reading comment threads. I never figured that out, either.

skimming in reddit is a Good Thing

That's the thing, though. Skimming, particularly if it is encouraged and reinforced by the interface, encourages a certain mode of interaction and engagement. And perhaps, though it's a stretch, a certain multi-tasking hyperactivity of temperament. When a UI is set up to encourage people to skim, sample, quickly engage with a quip or context-free reply because context is presented by the structure of the conversation as it is laid out on the page, perhaps, well that creates a certain atmosphere. Not better or worse, because those aren't words that apply without defining desired results of the design.

The opposite end of the conversational-format design thing is Metafilter, where everything is flat, every comment is weighted equally in terms of visual presentation, and every thread consists of multiple, interwoven streams of dialogue that the reader and writer is required to navigate by (in a perfect world) engaging deeply, reading carefully, and writing replies that need to create their own context by explicitly referring to things people have said already. It is a format that demands closer reading and concentration. (Sure, one-liners and the like are fine and dandy and commonplace, too.) Nothing anyone says is hidden by the default structure, requiring clicks to see it, and there are no cul-de-sacs or sidebar conversations. This, I believe creates deeper engagement, a slower pace, more consideration of context, and a tendency (by no means universal of course) for people to actual read what others have said, rather than just dipping in and out.

It is, to me, probably because of my own personal temperament, The One True Way, but: it doesn't scale very well. We may be coming close these days to the point where the model is starting to hit the upper limits of manageability, but that's another discussion.

So when you say that the model that reddit has chosen to present conversation makes perfect sense to you, that's a good thing, but it still makes little to no sense to me, which is perhaps my loss. I mean, I understand the impetus, and why they chose it even -- it's not rare, by any means -- but I just can't look at it and figure out what's going on. Even reading your explanation of it just made me shake my head like a bull that's taken a knock to the noggin to uncross my eyes, because I just have trouble wrapping my brain around it.

When I complain, as I so often do, that reddit is ugly, part of what I'm talking about is the way the conversation interface is structured, and part of it is just that I think the site just looks ugly for no good reason, overall, which seems like a deliberate choice, a dog-whistle of sorts to a certain sort of audience. Both of those are entirely personal criticisms, I understand that, and if other folks can overlook or just don't care about those things, then that's OK.

I don't think I'm presumptuous enough to say that Metafilter is somehow a 'better' site than reddit, because that's a meaningless thing to say. It's smaller, these days, certainly. It's probably older, in terms of the demographics of its userbase. It's tighter-knit I think, even with the couple to tens of thousands of active users these days. Its roots lie in the Important Early Web People Club, and a huge number of wildly influential people from the early days of the personal web (the birth of blogging to the birth of social networking, say) signed up here, and some even still participate. It's always felt a bit snobby and elitist, but not in a bad way, exactly. A lot of people who aren't members perceive it as a place where pretentious people go to argue about pointless stuff using full sentences and good grammar, which isn't far off, if you squint your eyes and look at it the right (or wrong) way. It's a group weblog, still, weblog++, and that's an archaic model, perhaps, these days, even with all the other stuff Team Mathowie has built for us over the years.

reddit isn't that. reddit is, as far as I can tell, usenet, but contained within a website. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a wild thing, if wild things are your bag.

But personally, I still can't figure out the attraction. Just as I understand that Joe Redditor -- who I imagine to be a couple decades younger than me, a little overanimated and overstimulated and inclined to call me bro, but a fellow geek and not a bad guy overall -- may not see the attraction of Metafilter.

For those of you who love (what I perceive to be) the Big City Bustle of constant hubbub at reddit, with its million cul-de-sacs and alleys, and also love the smalltown humanscale pace at Metafilter, hell, I envy you that.

But hard as I've tried, I just can't feel comfortable there, and again, that's probably my loss.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:13 AM on May 4, 2012 [10 favorites]

WHY ARE MOM AND DAD FIGHTING?!

Dad keeps some filthy stuff in his bottom drawer and doesn't seem to want to get rid of it.
posted by dumbland at 12:23 AM on May 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

I thought it was because mom keeps mentioning the SPLC's recent intelligence report about r/mensrights during breakfast.
posted by JLovebomb at 12:31 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't have seen this thread if it weren't for this post.
posted by polymodus at 12:56 AM on May 4, 2012

(this = that)
posted by polymodus at 12:56 AM on May 4, 2012

I now know of such a thing as Serbian Turbofolk. That wouldn't have happened otherwise.
posted by delmoi at 1:15 AM on May 4, 2012

I don't go to reddit and this I only see interesting posts there if they're posted elsewhere. There are plenty of one link posts on metafilter, many from sites I do go to (the Guardian being a good example*). Sometimes I think those links could be fleshed out and contextualised better, other times the other links are clearly just padders and add nothing. Basically, it all comes down to that for me, rather than the site, and I prefer the current policy where it's the quality of the link that seems to be the key thing, provided the link is framed in a non flame-baity way.

Does every single Charlie Brooker opinion piece need to get posted? Because sometimes it seems like that.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 1:20 AM on May 4, 2012

Does every single Charlie Brooker opinion piece need to get posted? Because sometimes it seems like that.

Yes, we link to Charlie Brooker a lot, but do we link to him enough?
posted by Infinite Jest at 2:10 AM on May 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

We know where reddit is, don't we?

Anderson Cooper certainly does.
posted by emmtee at 2:16 AM on May 4, 2012

my gut feeling is deleting single link Reddit posts on sight

Go with this feeling. I'm here and not at reddit on purpose.
posted by EatTheWeek at 2:30 AM on May 4, 2012

I know where the entire internet is (or at least how to type four hex numbers and some periods into my address bar) but I'm kind of thinking we should keep links in FPPs. The Reddit piece left me cold, but that doesn't necissarily make it a bad FPP.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 3:23 AM on May 4, 2012

Yes, I know what child porn is. Inasmuch as the people with the power to do something about it didn't, those people suck. Doesn't mean the rest of the site sucks.

...but it does mean I'll choose to never go look at that site while the people with power there are the people with power there and continue to do nothing about it.
posted by ersatzkat at 4:06 AM on May 4, 2012

I don't have a problem with the occasional link to reddit although I'm still not going to click on it. Life's too short to have to look at that site.
posted by octothorpe at 4:09 AM on May 4, 2012

recent enablement of child-porn,

You mean, the recent purging of child porn? Because that's what actually happened.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 4:13 AM on May 4, 2012

Oh look upon yonder hill sits a white knight with the Redditt Alien on his shield. Can it be? Yes. It is Decani.
posted by Sailormom at 4:14 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

I read reddit, already saw that post. Think it is perfectly fine for metafilter, but I don't think we should make a habit of it. There is already a bestof subreddit, also.
posted by empath at 4:19 AM on May 4, 2012

We know where reddit is, don't we?

We know where the web is too, yet still we post links to selected websites.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:21 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

You mean, the recent purging of child porn? Because that's what actually happened.

Reddit CEO:

Related to that issue but distinct was the /r/jailbait event itself as well. CP and related images are, practically speaking, a uniquely toxic issue on the internet. That's just the reality of things, and removing /r/jailbait was not done due to a moral judgment, but because the consequences of allowing it to continue prompted other events external to reddit that threatened the existence of the site.

Just saying. Lovely website.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:21 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

There is already a bestof subreddit, also

Eh, bestof isn't much of a filter. Bestof is how, after you've unsubscribed from the defaults (which you should) you find out about the few posts to the defaults that would be worth your attention.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 4:27 AM on May 4, 2012

Just Saying.

I hate that phrase. It indicates, to me, talking for the sake of talking, noise for the sake of noise. Language Log, JAN 2012
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:33 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Don't cross the streams.
posted by crunchland at 4:36 AM on May 4, 2012

I hate that phrase.

I'm no fan either but I just had a large and unexpectedly strong cup of coffee and now most of my creative impulses are going towards preventing me from vibrating off my chair.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:39 AM on May 4, 2012 [5 favorites]

Just saying. Lovely website.

There are several levels of filtering that go into your reddit experience:

1. The admins for the site (like the dude you quoted)
2. The moderators for the reddits you've subscribed to
3. Your own choices in terms of what reddits you've subscribed to

I agree that the admins aren't great people and almost certainly have the wrong ideas about what will make the site better.

If one takes the time to change reddit subscriptions (see my profile for a guide), then the other two levels of filtering kick in and your experience will be much improved. That's not on the radar of most of the people in this thread*, so it's quite understandable that they would believe that their reddit experience is limited to the dreck on the default front page.

*That's not a tendency specific to Metafilter- it's also not on the radar of most people that use reddit! This is why the system of default reddits SUCKS and is one of the key factors harming the reddit community. Most people on the site interact with huge reddits that are way too big to be effectively moderated.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 4:41 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

I completely agree Jpfed. I never touch the default subreddits and stick to the lgbt/feminist and gaming-related subs. Except not /r/feminism because it's full of derailing "why aren't you talking about me?" men. And not /r/feminisms because it has, ahem, unresolved issues with trans feminism and rad feminism. And /r/lgbt and /r/ainbow are in a perpetual war of words, and there are three transgender subreddits all trying to be a generalist trans forum because the moderators all hate each other.

My reddit experience has been one of first fast and frantic and then gradual and disappointed pruning.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:55 AM on May 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

The Not Invented Here is strong with Metafilter.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 5:04 AM on May 4, 2012

jessamyn: "My feeling is that he bar needs to be pretty high for any Reddit link at all to be a good post for MeFi since, hey, people can just read Reddit. This post is, however, 30 minutes old and was just barely on my radar. I'd be interested to know what other people think since my gut feeling is deleting single link Reddit posts on sight unless they're truly great, but I'm not sure how to ascertain truly great. And maybe people don't agree with me. Wouldn't be the first time."

We've recently seen at least two or three deletions because Team Mod felt CNN or other sites were "not obscure" or ubiquitous and users could find them on their own. As far as I can tell, this is a relatively new deletion metric, and it really bugs me. The internet is a big place, many of us do not regularly visit popular sites, and welcome seeing some of the best of their content filtered to us here.

Content should trump source. Something that strikes one person as interesting isn't necessarily going to appeal to everyone. If a thread from a potentially objectionable source is not going badly, why nuke it? How does leaving a non-contentious, non-spam post that contains a reasonable amount of content intact detract in any way from this site?

I understand the principle behind "if it turns into a clusterfuck, it'll be a nightmare for the mods." But I don't think that applies here, does it?
posted by zarq at 5:17 AM on May 4, 2012 [12 favorites]

Content should trump source

But that's just it, isn't it? A single link to a well-known web site doesn't offer much content apart from the link that can arguably be found without the help of MetaFilter. Content, if it's to be a single link should be held to a pretty high standard and I personally think the mods do a great job when it comes to deciding what stays and what doesn't. And the link in question has stayed so there's that.
posted by Sailormom at 5:28 AM on May 4, 2012

Content, if it's to be a single link should be held to a pretty high standard

Also known as the Cat-Scan metric.
posted by empath at 5:35 AM on May 4, 2012

Also known as the Cat-Scan metric

Yes because you know, all things equal, nothing ever changes. It's like heaven in that way.
posted by Sailormom at 5:38 AM on May 4, 2012

Sailormom, You're advocating that a much higher bar be established for single-link FPP's than what is currently in place, then?
posted by zarq at 5:39 AM on May 4, 2012

Well not exactly, as I said the current post is still up and I have trust in the mods to make the right decision. But I think if you are going to make a single link, you should be sure that it is something on its own that will bring something to MetaFilter, the sight you want to share it with.
posted by Sailormom at 5:52 AM on May 4, 2012

As I've said before I pretty much never visit Reddit.

As far as I'm concerned if a thing is worthy of attention, then it's worthy of attention regardless of what site it's on. If there's any point to a "best of the internet" site, it's so I don't have to scour the entire internet myself.

So please don't assume we all read the same sites that you do.
posted by philipy at 6:30 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

As far as I can tell, this is a relatively new deletion metric, and it really bugs me.

The only one I can remember is the Taz deletion of the CNN post and we either undid that or someone else posted it again right afterwards. There is no new deletion metric. Feel free to let us know what other posts you're referring to. There are the continual "Hey I think we've seen enough of TheOatmeal this month" sorts of things and "Deleted as a single link to The Onion" ebbs and flows that are always with us.

We didn't delete this reddit post. I explained what my personal feeling was and a lot of other people chimed in. No overwhelming consensus so we'll probably stick to our usual metric for this sort of thing where if you're linking to some other super-popular widely-read-already site on the web, make sure what you're linking to is something people will be really interested in not just "Oh hey here's a video I liked" [as an example that's currently simmering in flags on the front page right now] and we'll let the flags guide us to the stuff that really needs to go.

If a thread from a potentially objectionable source is not going badly, why nuke it?

This has nothing to do, for me anyway, with reddit being objectionable. I don't find it objectionable. I find it another discussion site and just linking to a thread on another discussion site [similar to Daily Kos or TPM Cafe] seems like an odd choice for MetaFilter in some ways. Pulling out a few choice comments or otherwise contextualizing it for people who don't really read reddit might be useful for folks. And yes it would be very useful if people kept their kneejerk "Flagged as reddit" stuff out of the thread.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:33 AM on May 4, 2012

I haven't even clicked on the reddit link, but the thread by itself already counts as best of the web.
posted by straight at 6:41 AM on May 4, 2012

FWIW, I don't read reddit because it is so large and I detest the interface. But sometimes cool things come from it, and I'm happy to be pointed towards them.

Yeah, same here. There are a few boards I want to look at because they cover topics of interest to me, but I can't actually follow the discussions on there due to the way it's organised (the other two boards I post/lurk on regularly besides here have a very similar interface for a reason) and while my work internet policy is fairly lax, I always feel like I'm two clicks away from something that will get me on some kind of register if I browse it on my own.

My SO does lurk on there, and he sends me the pictures of giraffes and puffins, so that's fine.,
posted by mippy at 6:50 AM on May 4, 2012

I never read Reddit unless it's linked from somewhere else so I appreciate the occasional post from there.

Ditto!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:51 AM on May 4, 2012

And if you want to find good stuff on the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, or Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog, it's not hard to do on your own.

Maybe for you. I'm not familiar with Atlantic Monthly, not being American I always forget about the New Yorker site, and I had to google the last person you mentioned here. It's a big internet and we don't all hang out at the same places, which is why it's nice when we have a site like this to point us to what we might otherwise miss.
posted by mippy at 6:53 AM on May 4, 2012

It indicates, to me, talking for the sake of talking, noise for the sake of noise.

Yeah, I can see how that totally wouldn't be your thing.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:02 AM on May 4, 2012

For those keeping track at home, the blue is 40% SLYT so far.
posted by Stoatfarm at 7:07 AM on May 4, 2012

Is this the earliest metatalk youtube callout?
posted by empath at 7:20 AM on May 4, 2012

I'm pretty indifferent towards Reddit, but I liked that post. Shouldn't have to discriminate based on where the content comes from.. :P

Totally better than some of the SLYT posts I see..
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 7:31 AM on May 4, 2012

Reddit and Metafilter are different primarily in the filtration method each prefers. MetaFilter is highly moderated, both directly by the mods and indirectly by users through flags. Posts generally aren't sorted with any sort of granularity, and there is no ranking. If posts or comments are no good, they get axed. Between the high level of moderation (and the $5 entrance fee), there is a disincentive to post terrible shit, because it usually gets removed promptly.

Reddit, on the other hand, lacks significant moderation (outside of certain subreddits), and prefers sorting and ranking as a filtration method. Because stuff is almost never deleted (and the lack of an entrance fee), there is some truly bad shit at Reddit. Two things happen: (1) bad posts get downranked and don't appear on the front page at all; and (2) bad shit gets quarantined in subreddits designed to hold it. While there is some truly dire stuff at Reddit, you can shield yourself from it by picking and choosing which subreddits contribute to your own front page.

The fundamental difference in filtration is what leads non-Reddit-reading MeFites to think that the 'culture' of Reddit is repellent and offensive. Well, some of it is, because the site, by design, does not delete it. Instead, it gets ghettoized into its own subreddits, which users can and should feel free to ignore.

The thing about Reddit is that there are a LOT of users, and it gets a fair amount of attention from interesting people (see, e.g., Neil deGrasse Tyson). You can find robust subreddits for virtually any interest, and as mentioned above, there are subreddits that exist purposefully to highlight good content.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:00 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't have the time to separate the wheat from what appears to be considerable chaff on Reddit, so I don't mind being pointed to something there that's worthwhile. I'd rather be having this discussion about single link New York Times posts (most of which have been featured on that day's NYT home page). Grar.
posted by Wordwoman at 8:01 AM on May 4, 2012

I am also in the camp of people who think it should be judged on content, not source. I also think that adding more links to a post doesn't necessarily make it better.
posted by snofoam at 8:24 AM on May 4, 2012

As far as I can tell, this is a relatively new deletion metric, and it really bugs me. The internet is a big place, many of us do not regularly visit popular sites, and welcome seeing some of the best of their content filtered to us here.

Like Jess, I don't know where you're coming from on the new metric thing. There's neither any kind of hardline "can't post about it if it's well-known" rule nor anything new about the fact that stuff that's been posted from a bunch may have a little bit higher of a bar applied if it's a really specific sort of content. So we haven't banned links from major publications but we're likely to start saying "yeah, maybe a bit more discretion about whether Yet Another Post From Specific Blog X is the way to go" if Blog X has been posted a bunch. Even if Blog X is pretty good.

Basically the same sort of thing as with saturation of Topic X. It's a balancing act, somewhere between "we've seen that blog once, so never post anything from it again" and (to paraphrase one of the blogs I quite like but got to the point of getting the Yet Another Post treatment at one point) "POST ALL THE THINGS!".

Reddit doesn't feel like it's quite that sort of territory; my main reservations about folks posting reddit threads is just the more general issue that "go read this comment thread from another site" makes for a subpar post a lot of the time. Same goes for other sites; Something Awful is a good example, in that they have some pretty neat content at times as well but it's also content that often takes the form of a free-form discussion thread, with all the weird flow and local-culture-specific chaff that comes with that.

And reading through a thread and finding some great nuggets can make you think "hey, this is great", but then you post that somewhere else and what people who haven't already gotten the nuggets out see is a thread that they don't know the point of. So it's easy to have that mismatch between poster's expectations and random readers' actual experience. Add in cultural or structural differences in how discussion threads are formatted from place to place and you get even more friction—a regular reddit reader can navigate a discussion pretty ably to skim for the good stuff, whereas someone who is not a regular will end up spending a lot of effort just figuring out what's where, how things flow, and what they're supposed to be looking at. (This is a universal thing, not a mefi vs. the world thing. Redditors have made similar complaints about mefi threads in the past. We know what we know and not what we don't.)

All of which just comes down to more of a "proceed with caution" thing for me than anything. We have reddit posts now and then; we have Something Awful posts now and then; we even have the occasional Random PHPBB Forum thread. They're allowed, they can be good, no big problem there. But there's friction that comes with that sort of post, enough so that it needs to be sort of really great to make a lot of sense as a post.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:31 AM on May 4, 2012

The fundamental difference in filtration is what leads non-Reddit-reading MeFites to think that the 'culture' of Reddit is repellent and offensive. Well, some of it is, because the site, by design, does not delete it. Instead, it gets ghettoized into its own subreddits, which users can and should feel free to ignore.

Since I only subscribe to great reddits, whenever I hear reddit hate I'm always a little surprised for a moment, thinking "but they're really helpful and informative...?" before I remember that my mental image of reddit is shaped by my subscriptions and others aren't seeing it through that filter.

I'd like to offer a caveat to what you're saying here.

If you don't have a reddit account, or if you do have an account and do nothing to change things, when you visit reddit.com you get content from the default reddits. These aren't ghettoized; they're the main experience of most users to the site. And those default reddits are so huge that moderating them is basically impossible.

Now, I happen to think the defaults are full of crap. I don't know whether they are intrinsically crap, or if they became crap because they are default reddits (and so became huge and un-moderate-able). But having default reddits that are full of crap is a self-perpetuating problem, because now for people to sign up at reddit and stay there, they have to either know ahead of time that they should change their reddits (which is a message I'm trying to spread) or they have to be at least a little comfortable with the crap in the defaults.

The default reddits set a cultural expectation ("this is what reddit is") for new users. If you're someone who would stay for the good things reddit has to offer (e.g. askscience, depthhub, and the helping reddits) but don't know those reddits exist (or what a reddit is), then being exposed to the defaults is highly likely to turn you off or make you think the whole place is a shithole.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:44 AM on May 4, 2012

I don't have the time to separate the wheat from what appears to be considerable chaff on Reddit, so I don't mind being pointed to something there that's worthwhile. I'd rather be having this discussion about single link New York Times posts (most of which have been featured on that day's NYT home page).

Yes, I'd agree with these statements. Reddit isn't my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's all bad. By all means, point out the good stuff!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:52 AM on May 4, 2012

The fact that so much of reddit is complete garbage makes pointing out the good stuff even more valuable for people who don't want to invest the time in figuring it out.
posted by empath at 8:55 AM on May 4, 2012

The default reddits set a cultural expectation ("this is what reddit is") for new users. If you're someone who would stay for the good things reddit has to offer (e.g. askscience, depthhub, and the helping reddits) but don't know those reddits exist (or what a reddit is), then being exposed to the defaults is highly likely to turn you off or make you think the whole place is a shithole.

Yeah, this is pretty much my feeling. Which is a bummer, because I don't have anything against reddit as a thing with potential for good content, see above.

But there's a basic new-reader problem in how the site actually literally presents itself that makes a lot of the otherwise totally valid and well-meaning "it's better if you just do x, y, and z" advice moot, because the vast majority of people aren't going to get that sort of coaching and so are just going to encounter reddit the way it looks when you type reddit.com into the address bar of your browser.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:55 AM on May 4, 2012

Which also means that linking to a 10,000 comment thread is going to be difficult for people who have a hard time figuring out what to do with the 10,000 comment thread once they've gotten there. I use reddit so I know how it works, but it can be confusing to people not used to it since it's different from a lot of usual types of content that get linked here.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:04 AM on May 4, 2012

Coming late to this, but I feel quite strongly about it: I don't spend time on reddit because it's confusing and vast and full of garbage and I just don't have the time.

Unless someone points me there. And some of the coolest stuff I've found on the Internet has been through MeFi links to reddit threads. So I am most certainly opposed to any sort of SLReddit ban.

I actually think that the "anonymous anecdotes that would ruin my life" post from a couple days ago shouldn't have been deleted either.
posted by eugenen at 9:10 AM on May 4, 2012

my main reservations about folks posting reddit threads is just the more general issue that "go read this comment thread from another site" makes for a subpar post a lot of the time

On the contrary, MetaFilter comment threads are frequently more worthwhile reading than most of what's on the internet. I could link to dozens of MetaFilter threads that are easily "Best of the Web." I'd be surprised if other sites didn't occasionally have similarly worthwhile comment threads.
posted by straight at 9:39 AM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it's kind of funny that the new Mefi Blog is "go read this comment thread from another site".
posted by smackfu at 9:49 AM on May 4, 2012

On the contrary, MetaFilter comment threads are frequently more worthwhile reading than most of what's on the internet. I could link to dozens of MetaFilter threads that are easily "Best of the Web." I'd be surprised if other sites didn't occasionally have similarly worthwhile comment threads.

I don't really disagree. I think comment threads from sites can be good, which is consistent with the fact that they're not banned from Metafilter. My point is that they come with baggage, which is why the bar is a skosh higher for that sort of format than for, say, a nicely put-together gallery or essay or something, when pointing to something and saying "hey, this is cool".

As much as I think that Metafilter threads are often great, part of why I like reading them is because I'm already familiar with site conventions and how things tend to go conversationally around here. And when I point out a thread to someone who is not a regular reader, I take that into account and consider how (or whether) to send them at it. Which, precisely on the point:

Yeah, it's kind of funny that the new Mefi Blog is "go read this comment thread from another site".

There's a reason that we're doing this Best Of thing: giving people specific pointers with context to small subsets of the content of mefi and its threads is a lot more accessible as a way to point non-readers (and, and this is a lot of people, non-discussion-sites-in-general-readers) to specific bits of good stuff in a way that takes them less work to process than "oh, go to metafilter and find the thread about x and read two hundred comments because there's some gooduns in there".

In-community discussions tend to be self-structuring in a way that's most rewarding to the participants and less so to the outside reader. It's a basic practical fact of life. It's not a bad thing, at all, but it is basically universally a thing that makes using a thread on a site with its own culture into content for consumption by another site or by random readers a little trickier than, say, sharing a photo album designed from the ground up for public consumption in mind.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:06 AM on May 4, 2012

I don't read Reddit. One of the things I like about Metafilter is that if something really cool happens over there, I'll read about it over here.

In a similar vein, I do read Hacker News and a lot of single links from over there show up over here two to twelve hours later with almost identical framing. But I don't see why that should bother me. Not everyone reads Hacker News, and my life isn't really worse for seeing something twice.
posted by 256 at 10:38 AM on May 4, 2012

I tend to flag single-link-Reddit posts unless they are truly great, which is rare. I flagged the music post in question, but now that it's been up for more than 12 hours I'm kind of glad that it wasn't deleted, since some of the discussion has been quite worthwhile.

SLReddit or not, I am sometimes surprised to find that what I think of as a rather thin post ends up generating some really great discussion -- even if that discussion ends up being tangential to the actual FPP.
posted by asnider at 10:45 AM on May 4, 2012

I never go to Reddit and don't care about Reddit, but if they occasionally have something worth seeing, I'm glad to see it linked here. And in general I'm glad to see the occasional link, even if it's not something that interests me particularly, just to piss off the "I hate that other place so much I can't stand seeing its name!!" folks.

In particular, I'm grateful for this post (and glad the mods let it stand) because of the great links. Mafikizolo's "Kwela" all by itself has made my day and perhaps my week.

> I personally consider any single-link post to be not a great post

I personally consider that attitude one of the most discouraging and unfortunate developments in MeFi's history. The attitude by itself is just kind of dumb, but the fact that it leads people to pad perfectly good links with a bunch of others just to satisfy the single-link haters is downright evil. Stop it with that attitude!
posted by languagehat at 10:54 AM on May 4, 2012 [7 favorites]

my life isn't really worse for seeing something twice. -- There's some new person here who has been making a total stink about links from places like Kottke's blog, especially without attribution. Their comments don't last too long, but it does make me wonder how crucial you all think it is to attribute -- something I rarely bother doing.
posted by crunchland at 10:56 AM on May 4, 2012

I am also in the camp of people who think it should be judged on content, not source. I also think that adding more links to a post doesn't necessarily make it better.

Despite my comments about the general misogyny, pederasty, and general asshole attitude endemic to Reddit, I think the real issue I have with it is that it's hard to figure out. No big deal, as I can flag and move on (as I will do in the future), but as a MeFite who tries to put some effort into my posts (although I have probably posted a few single-linkers in my time), I don't know, just linking to Reddit seems to lazy, and weird - you want me to read another comment thread? Seriously?

But like I said, I can just avoid the MetaReddit threads.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:58 AM on May 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

i understand the argument of 'if you just police your subscribed subreddits it's a really helpful place! and it's not all gross and icky!" and i agree with it to a point. generally, if you're careful with your subreddits you're probably not going to see child porn-rapey-i've been ejaculating in this one sock/box/spot on the carpet for a decade wanna see??? stuff.

but, lets say i want to participate in the subreddits that are like ask.me - what i do have to see in there in basically every relationship question is that men are victims of controlling women who are stealing their money or sperm or preying on their niceness and will falsely accuse them of rape (they totally know someone that happened to). another generally hateful area of conversation is anything at all to do with race relations, especially if religion enters into it. sometimes i appreciate the less structured conversation and the more relaxed atmosphere, but i just find a vocal demographic of the site to be openly hostile.

having said all of that, i really love artisan videos, buy it for life, cooking, and DIY.
posted by nadawi at 12:03 PM on May 4, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I don't think there's a good equivalent on reddit for AskMe relationship questions. There are some great places for other kinds of questions (answers, ELI5, askscience, buildapc) but that specific niche goes unfilled, and I don't think it will get filled any time soon.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:43 PM on May 4, 2012

I am among those for whom reddit is unusable because the interface breaks my brain, and I can't sift out any useful content and it's ugly as hell. But if a fellow MeFite of finer mettle has managed to find a gem there, I certainly don't mind them posting a link to it.
posted by trip and a half at 2:13 PM on May 4, 2012

Mind you I do myself a favor and exercise some prudence in the way I browse reddit, the same way I do with metafilter and the internet in general.

Just curious, but why would you need to use prudence when browsing MetaFilter?
posted by KokuRyu at 2:28 PM on May 4, 2012

I personally consider any single-link post to be not a great post

Well, it's a good thing you aren't the King of Metafilter, then, 'cause we'd be fucked.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:40 PM on May 4, 2012

The fact of the matter is, there are many of us who browse both sites. Metafilter culture interacts with Reddit culture. You might not notice it much if you don't read Reddit, but it happens. In fact, a lot of great links on Metafilter are posted to Reddit days before.

This was a good post that I missed on Reddit (not subscribed to that subreddit), and am glad I saw here, if for nothing else but reading Mefites' comments on it.

Hell, I first found Metafilter back in '07 when someone linked to that AskMe "best introductory book in your field" question on Reddit, and it reached the front page.
posted by malapropist at 4:26 PM on May 4, 2012

Also, nadawi, one of my guiltiest pleasures is reading relationship advice column type things wherever I can find them, so naturally I'm subscribed to /r/relationships, and it's not at all what you described. It skews a bit younger than similar threads on the green--a lot more high schoolers and college freshmen--but it is not really an exemplar of the typical stereotype of Reddit as a haven of misogynistic Ron Paul loving basement dwellers. In fact, huge parts of the site are not like that.

There are wackos everywhere, especially on a site as big as Reddit, but the beauty of the thing really is that you don't have to subscribe to it at all.
posted by malapropist at 4:37 PM on May 4, 2012

one of the top posts on relationships right now is a guy sleeping with a woman in an abusive marriage - one of the upvoted responses calls into question whether or not she's really an abuse victim. that's pretty much what i've seen all over the site - the overwhelming response to questions of men abusing women is "first we must make sure those crafty women aren't lying about it." another thread is a guy saying his ex is accusing him of date rape - with the inevitable response of "don't stick your dick in crazy." i will admit that overall it seems better than r/relationship_advice.

absolutely some subreddits are better than others. as i've said, i'm a member of the site. i just think the culture of reddit permeates through out and that especially in things to do with relationships, even the "good" parts of the site are hostile to women. it's not a huge deal, i guess, most of the internet is hostile towards women. but as metafilter is one of the very rare not hostile to women places on the internet, i'm not eager to have a lot of reddit content here.
posted by nadawi at 5:06 PM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

Are you talking about this one? The guy isn't even sleeping with her, and most of the advice given is stuff like, don't get in the middle of someone else's marriage, direct her towards domestic violence resources, recommend therapy to her, do what you can as a friend, etc. Yeah, there's a guy there saying "who knows if what she's saying is even the truth." Yes, the tone of the comments is more brusque than would fly on AskMe, but the good advice generally floats to the top while the peanut gallery makes their stupid comments down at the bottom. At least in that subreddit.

While I agree, Reddit will never be as refined as AskMe, and the signal to noise ratio is definitely worse, but it's not as bad as you're making it out to be.
posted by malapropist at 5:44 PM on May 4, 2012

your impression is that it's not as bad as i'm saying. my impression is different. i'm not coming at this from an uneducated place. we'll have to agree to disagree.

i do wonder if part of the "good advice" in that thread is "this one just likes drama." - "You are being manipulated by her. She won't leave her husband. Everyone knows drama-seeking girls like her." because that's floating pretty high to the top.
posted by nadawi at 5:59 PM on May 4, 2012

Just curious, but why would you need to use prudence when browsing MetaFilter?

Well, OutrageFilter stuff gets posted to MetaFilter from time to time, although the worst gets deleted. I try to skip what makes it through because getting upset about things I'm powerless to remedy is not the way I want to go through life.

On other occasions perfectly innocuous links result in almost completely sour discussions, and I like to avoid those because I get depressed when I see decent people treating each other badly. I might make a jokey comment to cheer myself up, but prudence dictates bailing early when a discussion starts to turn crabby.

It's just a greater emphasis on the Move On part of FIAMO.
posted by Ritchie at 6:01 PM on May 4, 2012

malapropist- I think that stavros was right to a degree about skimming. Maybe we're skimming over something that another person just wouldn't be able to (or wouldn't want to) ignore.

I know that as a dude, it's pretty easy for me to tune out misogyny and not even notice it. If someone else says that some reddit or thread bothers them, I pretty much just have to trust that that's how they feel and that's that.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:47 PM on May 4, 2012

Heh, there sure are a lot of raised pinkies and arched eyebrows around here.
posted by adamdschneider at 6:30 AM on May 5, 2012

Metafilter challenge: name a website you dislike and it's up to fans of said website to find posts that could change your opinion.
posted by drlith at 6:59 AM on May 5, 2012

Hmm, that's actually a good point about how it's easier for me, as a guy, to gloss over misogyny.
posted by malapropist at 2:06 PM on May 5, 2012

people treating each other badly

On that note, I'd like to apologize to the man of twists and turns for being a smarmy prick to them in this thread; I got them mixed up with another Mefite who also has a phrase name (And who often gets on my nerves), and misread the intent in their comments.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:42 PM on May 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Although my spelling is poor and my proofreading worse, I do try and capitalize my sentences. Don't worry about it.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:32 PM on May 5, 2012

My hivemind itches.
posted by Eideteker at 2:24 PM on May 7, 2012