[rckclmbr]

I can think of a couple major points that have caused massive culture shifts on reddit (some might say for the worse). There have been other temporary shifts/events, but I think these ones were longer lasting

* The "Digg invasion", when Digg 4.0 came out in 2013. This is when reddit turned into mostly memes. Before that, the frontpage was closer to slashdot, but much more open conversation around it. (of course there were still ffuuuu comics, but we dont talk about those)

* The pandemic in 2020. It seems like your typical Facebook user started using reddit. Reddiquette is no longer a thing -- if you don't agree with something you downvote. Alternative views aren't supported, people don't want their views challenged. I think this has been the biggest culture shift and probably what you're getting at. It's people looking to kill time rather than adventure to learn something new.

[Sunspark]

The downvoting thing is interesting.. I fairly often upvote comments with 0 if they haven't said anything bad or objectionable just to make things more fair.

The mods on subreddits are a problem too. There is no recourse. If they decide to ban you for any reason, that's the end of it, even if no rule has been broken. If you message modmail to ask for more information, they can just mute you from messaging modmail.

[NonNefarious]

"The mods on subreddits are a problem"

An absolutely site-killing problem. If you actually try to pursue specific topics on subreddits, you find they're administered by a bunch of babies wallowing in their little sandboxes and throwing tantrums for no apparent reason.

[Sunspark]

No election campaigns either, they are all dictators-for-life unless reddit head office decides they need to be involved.

This is the same issue IRC has. In the old days, if you were lucky, sometimes you could unseat a tyrant, but modern IRC channel ownership is enforced by the server itself.

This is part of why I like Twitter, even though I haven't been active on it in some time. People have to opt-in to you on Twitter. It's impossible to be a tyrant on Twitter, you cannot compel people to pay attention to you there. The disadvantage of Twitter of course is that it's full of bots so you have to put together your own curated lists of people that seem reasonable. I don't even look at the home feed.

[warrenm]

> People have to opt-in to you on Twitter. It's impossible to be a tyrant on Twitter, you cannot compel people to pay attention to you there.

You can't "compel people to pay attention to you" on Reddit (or HN, Facebook, etc) either

Mute/block/ban exists on pretty much every social media platform (with the possible exception of HN (at least - I've never seen it hereon))

[Sunspark]

The way reddit implemented the block is very interesting also.

If you wish to control a conversation in some sort of strange manner, all you need to do is state something outrageous and plainly wrong, and then block the other person arguing with you. It makes you look like you got the last word because they can't respond and your comment stays up.

[warrenm]

It's kinda similar to Facebook - I block Joe Schmoe, but people who haven't blocked him (or me) can still see whatever it is he wrote

[fknorangesite]

> Reddiquette is no longer a thing -- if you don't agree with something you downvote.

The pandemic had nothing to do with it: people have been making this complaint about reddit for fifteen years. Rediquette was always a myth.

[parineum]

> Alternative views aren't supported, people don't want their views challenged. I think this has been the biggest culture shift and probably what you're getting at

I don't disagree with this but I'm not sure what I'd consider a reasonable solution. One thing I will say though is that the moderators on default subs promote this behavior. If I were to try to change the situation, I think that's where I'd start.

For example, I'm fairly certain I'm shadowbanned on r/news and my positions on topics range from moderate to liberal, depending on the topic.

[dmix]

It's fascinating to use https://www.reveddit.com/ for any of the big subs when a 'controversial' topic is posted. I've seen threads where 30-50% of comments were removed (in the thousands) and even the mildest critiques and disagreements of the topic would be deleted by mods, often faster than they can be archived.

Some of the bigger subs have 100+ moderators so people don't realize the massive scale of moderation going on.

The idea that comments get deleted because they are 'bad faith', racist, or whatever is wildly incorrect. Moderators act like editors of their own pet newspapers where the comments are the content.

[monkeybutton]

2020 and the pandemic was when I finally caved in and created my first accounts on Reddit, HN and imgur. It was entirely as an outlet for boredom and isolation. It's been a fun experiment starting engaging with all 3 around the same time. Of them, HN is the most interesting and satisfying but it is still very easy to reply with a "Google bad hur hur" comment in one of weekly "Google bad" threads and receive a ton of points.

[alar44]

The pandemic was a big one. I was already getting tired of the 0 effort posts on Reddit. Once the pandemic hit, it seems like that kind of behavior exploded. I left and haven't looked back.

[lp0_on_fire]

> Reddiquette is no longer a thing -- if you don't agree with something you downvote.

That's always been a thing.