[memetomancer]

So... I visited Reddit before coming here and finding the HN thread...

Most of the site is rebelling, but I took the time to visit, intending to give them impressions, just to see how they are holding up. And of course they aren't really holding up as we can see.

But their handling is unbelievably tone deaf - I was greeted by the message that I broke Reddit. They gave me the grade of 'F'. I refreshed the page and they showed me a cartoon corpse.

I get that it's a tongue-in-cheek leftover from happier times, but considering the circumstances it sure came off as hostility aimed at the few people willing to give them a chance on this dark day.

I mean, I was really just rubbernecking... so maybe i deserved it for my schadenfreude, but still. It is casual hostility directed at the source of their user generated content. It's not in good taste. But I suspect it would never occur to the entitled mindset of their leadership.

[bbbobbb]

Those error pages are actually infuriating. Maybe I'm just getting older but seeing "You broke reddit" and all the other shit annoys the hell out of me. It's their website, the error should be "we fucked sometning up, sorry" and be done with it.

[flutas]

I agree, I really long for the days of simple "there was an error" messages. This trend of "you bwoke us" or "OOPSIE WOOPSIE!! Uwu We made a fucky wucky!! A wittle fucko boingo! The code monkeys at our headquarters are working VEWY HAWD to fix this!" messages is infuriating to me even more than a simple error.

[TheNewsIsHere]

I intentionally write boring, plain English, mostly painfully bland error messages for this exact reason.

I long for the intellectual honestly and emotional sturdiness of “Error 123 in Handler XYZ. You should never see this.”

[codetrotter]

Reddit error pages are not following any kind of trend. They’ve been like that since for ever. No reason to get upset.

[boneitis]

Following the trend, trend setting, been like that since for ever, or something else: name it what you will. Whatever it is, I'd certainly call out the presence of a (less than welcome, imo) trend.

[hanspeter]

If Reddit didn't follow this trend, they created it.

The tongue in cheek communication and cute illustrations on error pages started with web 2.0 and is now so prevalent that a regular system error message is a refreshing experience.

[ryanstorm]

Imagine being a non-tech savvy user or someone who understands the world more literally than figuratively. That sort of message could be pretty confusing for them.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Windows 95. "This program has performed an illegal operation and must be shut down"

"WTF AM I GOING TO JAIL?"

[cjs_ac]

This was my grandmother's reaction. She turned the computer off, closed the curtains, turned the lights off, and waited for the police to show up.

She also used to cheat at jigsaw puzzles by gnawing at the pieces so they would fit.

[paulddraper]

That was an unexpected turn.

[jerjerjer]

Users can't read error messages anyway.

[Sohcahtoa82]

It depends on the type of user, even among the non-tech savvy.

A message as simple as "Sorry, reddit is receiving too much traffic right now and can't handle your request. Try loading this page later.", 99% of people will understand.

But there's that 1% of people that aren't just non-savvy, they're willfully non-savvy to the point where words stop having meaning to them just because they're referring to something related to a computer. The type where if you ask them something as simple as "Is the computer turned on?", they say they don't know. Meanwhile, the screen is showing their desktop.

[capableweb]

I don't think showing "you broke reddit" for a 5xx request counts as an error message. If it was a 4xx, maybe.

[judge2020]

Looks like this is from 2008, so they just never updated it. https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/commit/4778b17e939e...

[znagengast]

The page has changed over the years, there used to be a much more apologetic version "Reddit broke (sorry)" https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/commit/4778b17e939e...

So they actually made the intentional decision to change it back to the much more accusatory "you broke it", I'm not sure exactly when that occurred but I suspect it was roughly the time spez took over.

[SilasX]

Similarly, the self-important prima donnas of Mozilla who think the fate of the universe depends on forcing their shitty “zarro boogs found” in-joke on the general population — or rather, the subset of users who are only there because they’re already frustrated by a bug … that they now can’t find an existing ticket for.

[sixothree]

Agreed. I dislike all of the colorful cutesy stuff Google does to humanize their awfulness.

[stinos]

seeing "You broke reddit" and all the other shit annoys the hell out of me.

Could be getting older indeed, but his one, and "guru meditation error", almost make me act like younger me again feeling a sudden urge to smash my monitor into pieces

[Vrondi]

Those are the usual standard Reddit down error pages, though. Nothing unique to this outage or today. They've had those for years.

[bbor]

> I get that it's a tongue-in-cheek leftover from happier times

[flanbiscuit]

> I was really just rubbernecking

I was thinking that because today is the first day of the protests, which have garnered a lot of attention by media and individuals, that traffic might actually spike because everyone is checking in to see how it's going.

[TX81Z]

“Checking in to see it going down” is the sole reason for my once monthly sign in to Twitter.

[rchaud]

This is the kind of thing you don't have to worry about with 3rd party apps. Old Reddit was the best dumb pipe ever, I'll miss it.