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by IIAOPSW 1755 days ago
Oh boy oh boy I hope the site creator reads this. I've had an idea for years now to make a satirical reddit/hn. I call it 'skimmedit'. Please steal my ideas.

1. Instead of subreddits, content is sorted by font. The available fonts are Helvetica, Comic Sans, Times New Roman, Wing Dings, Arial Wide, Papyrus and braile.

2. When you submit a link, the title shows up as blue and underlined but is not actually a hyperlink. Here at skimmedit we just assume no one actually reads beyond the headline before jumping to the comment section.

3. We know that thinking of original things takes effort. So in an effort to reduce friction and increase positive, well moderatd engagement, all comments and replies are chosen from a drop down menu of pre-approved text blobs. The possible comments are "well actually this is wrong", "came here to say this", "thanks for the gold", "7/11 was a part time job", "I know the answer, but alas there is not enough room in the margins of this text box", "50% off lobotomies today only", "I wish I could upvote this more than once" and "this was a lovely 30 second distraction from the insatiable march of time which pushes us all ever closer to the grave."

4. Finally a real use for "reddit gold". Want to write an original comment? Really really want to spend the time and mental effort letting people on the internet know how stupid and wrong they are? Well for just 10 cents per letter, we'll let you violate the third premise and write a wholly original piece of text. In fact, we will add your original comment to the repertoire of comments in the drop down menu. If you're comment is popular enough, people will pay to use it and we will give you a royalty. Thus you can maintain the illusion that you can make a living off being a writer while wasting your life on our online dopamine casino.

5. Ever wish you could upvote or downvote something more than once. On skimmedit we are soft believers in firm libertarian values like free speech and markets or some shit. We believe that if you're willing to spend the price (in time or money), then you must be more invested in the outcome so your opinion should matter more. That's why we've removed all limits on the number of times you can upvote or downvote something. Good luck!

6. One in ten times the page won't load. Not cause the server can't handle it, but because we hate our userbase <3.

7. Some of our posts are by advertising partners. Those bits of blue underlined text really are hyperlinks.

8. In accordance with our vaguely pro-liberty bullshit, moderation is done by a jury of your peers. When content is reported, we ask 12 random users to decide "guilty or not guilty", and refuse to let them peruse the site any further until they pick one. No further instruction is given before asking them to make this decision.

5 comments

Number 3 reminds me of how online messages are shared on Fromsoft games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Players leave messages with "fill in the blanks" type form and a limited set of words to choose.

It works really well and there are some genuine gems scattered throughout the games.

Idea 4 is...actually kinda genius, and I love it. For 8, what happens if the randos vote "guilty", what happens to the poster?
The post is re-categorized as Wing Dings, unless it was already Wing Dings in which case the jurors are promptly banned for perjury.
looool we've got our hands full with ShlinkedIn at the moment but this is awesome. maybe our next project ;)
This is hilarious, I want this site to exist.
:) great collection. Addendum to 5 - let the world know at the end of each day who the highest up and downvoters are.