[scarface_74]

> been cutting way back on my engagement. I have walked back through my post history and edited a bunch of them, using Yossarian's censoring rules - death to all adverbs, nouns, verbs, adjectives - or just replacing the posts with meme text or song lyrics to stupid songs.

So you don’t see that you are being part of the problem?

[add-sub-mul-div]

The site is systemically bad now. Shitting up or deleting the content is part of the solution, to accelerate the timeline of typical users finding it worthless so that it can die and give rise to something better.

[scarface_74]

So if you don’t like a place in the real world, do you vandalize it or just not go there?

[add-sub-mul-div]

It's silly to act like every online context has a real world analogue. But no, I don't vandalize it. Whatever you consider the real world equivalent of deleting my comments after the place has enshittified itself, that's what I do.

[scarface_74]

There is a difference between deleting a comment and purposefully posting meaningless junk.

[epakai]

Deleting is easy to restore. There have been cases where reddit restored deleted posts. Edits are a bit harder to filter for so they probably won't bother.

[add-sub-mul-div]

You're right, the latter is funnier. Like I said, the more it's weakened the faster people will move on from it and let it fully die. For now it's only spiritually dead.

[scarface_74]

Yes if you are 12 and posting to 4Chan it might be funny

[doodlebugging]

At least I didn't have the power of the spez and use it to edit someone else's comments.

[doodlebugging]

Are you intentionally ignoring the fact that from day one a user had the right to edit by adding to or subtracting any part of their content or to delete the entire comment? How is this vandalization? This is user control, the same level of control granted on a site that was built for users to post on and discuss any subject - free speech was a keystone principle until some bad actors couldn't stop posting trash and ended up rightly banned.

Millions, maybe billions of comments are digital dust at this point. Like thoughts lost just before they made it past the tip of your tongue. This is normal and expected behavior. Conversations get lost in the fog.

Reddit isn't a Banksy. Today, it's more like the monkey area of the zoo in spots with each monkey's hand ready to sling the shit. When you consider the huge number of bots on the site it is likely worse than that.

Originally /u/spez and /u/n0thing set a standard where a poster who dropped a reply containing information that didn't fit the established narrative and tried framing it as an accurate answer was asked to post the references that supported their conclusion. It was "tits or get the fuck out" days. That by itself promoted healthy discussions and worked to disseminate accurate information on important topics. It helped establish a cadre of users who are outstanding in their fields and who enjoy sharing their expertise with others.

In time, especially after Digg imploded themselves, the expansion of subreddits made it untenable for proper moderation so a lot of boogers were allowed out of the nostrils and while the quality of discussions in general on the site was still good, many subreddits were established where people could say anything with no one calling them out. It sideloaded all the horseshit that used to hit the front (and only) page of reddit to the subs - stuff like goatse, nsfw content, etc. In the earliest incarnation reddit's front page was a minefield of stuff you really needed to avoid if you wanted to surf online and still keep your job. Early users learned fast to read the comments before opening the post.

I'm having a hard time understanding how a feature - user control of content they post - is mislabeled in your reply as vandalism when the user elects to employ that feature in managing their content.

[scarface_74]

He said he was modifying the content to add useless messages and song lyrics. How is that not trolling and just plain juvenile behavior?

[doodlebugging]

>He said...

That was me. I know there are a lot of comments and replies to comments here so it's easy to lose track of who did what to who.

I think if you read my replies in this thread you can begin to understand why it is not trolling or juvenile behavior, it's just me exercising control over the content that I posted, on my own time, following all the rules that reddit established when they launched.

This is a feature. Like I mentioned, all the content that I have ever posted is likely to be indexed in someone's archive somewhere whether reddit controls that archive or not. There are too many players in that space and they have been active for years with publicly available tools to manage all the grunt work for anyone who wanted to download it all and slog through it looking for gems.

If they find one of my edited posts that has a suspicious amount of worthless updoot karma and that post is totally out of context then I am sure they are bright enough to figure out that they will need to get that content somewhere else.

I left untouched all of my old "Best of Reddit" and the gilded posts since those had above average value to the readers who chose to engage and updoot.

At the end of the day, the content has always been mine to edit or delete. That is the way that the site was designed to function so labeling anything I do as vandalism, trolling, or juvenile behavior only works to make you look like someone trying hard to understand how to value your investment in reddit in the event that others choose to act similarly.

As I mentioned somewhere else, reddit could change all of this if they instituted controls that would allow live users to instantly recognize bots and adverts so that users can instantly choose to read a post or comment or to ignore it. The fact that they embraced and actively ignore the bot armies, the shills for various products or philosophies, the blatant adverts, etc tells me and others that they have lost touch with their users.

As it is, forcing me to check karma levels and username age to hope to recognize reposters and bots is just wrong. Clear and ban the bots, ID the adverts, add a shill warning to those who evangelize or push agendas or misinformation, and the traffic finds a floor.

On that floor reddit will find those loyal, long-term users like myself a lot more likely to engage. Clean the house and make it more livable and others will move in to see what's up. Sunshine is the best disinfectant here. Otherwise people like myself will choose whether to continue to engage with reddit and set their own terms of engagement.

[scarface_74]

Then if you don’t want your content to be there…delete it instead of making a worse experience for everyone else.

If you don’t like a restaurant, don’t go. Don’t go there and shit on the tables.

A restaurant was also “meant” for you to go in. But not make the experience worse for everyone else because you don’t like it anymore

[water-data-dude]

The reason they commented originally was because they wanted to provide value to a community that had provided value to them. Reddit was simply the platform that hosted that community. Their loyalty was never to the platform, it was to the community. When Reddit decided to screw over that community so the execs could get a big payday from the IPO, it sort of broke a social contract.

Letting them keep extracting value out of you is kind of like if you worked at a grocery store, and then they unjustly fired you or a couple of your friends. Now they’re not doing so well, but are you “part of the problem” if you don’t keep shopping there?

No. Screw them.

[doodlebugging]

This is a great way to explain it. Loyalty to the community. You spend enough time on a sub and you begin to recognize a lot of posters even though you will likely never meet them.

[doodlebugging]

Not at all.

I have contributed a lot of content since 2005 under several different user names. A lot of that content required significant time for me to locate links, photos, etc to be able to provide accurate answers to a question or, as many of my posts attempt, to correct an inaccurate answer that seems to be getting a lot of traction in the post.

The content that I post is mine, the aggregation platform is theirs. I post with the understanding that it becomes as public as the sub allows and that I have the ability to edit as I feel appropriate.

Reddit is a platform for aggregating news and information on a huge variety of subjects but the content belongs to the users. Reddit felt like they needed to monetize things and the only thing they have that has any value is the user content and user ID info. I have never provided any ID info so they are stuck with an IP address for me. I'm okay with that.

They have had ample opportunity to crawl all of my posts over the years, archive them as they see fit, and repost them later as long as I get acknowledged as the OP. They have backups. Many others have used publicly available tools to crawl the site and index user content. It is safe to say that nothing that I have ever posted has disappeared. It is available in someone's archive somewhere. I'm okay with that because I can't change that now.

When I post today, I monitor the thread activity and when it dies I edit my post unless it fits the criteria that I honor - the post references a situation where someone needed information about a common issue with a vehicle or other product that I have a lot of experience with. For example if someone just bought a 15 year old vehicle and suddenly they encounter an issue that is well-known to everyone else who has ever owned that model then I post a clear answer with photos if needed to help them solve the problem. People like this tend to be unable to afford newer vehicles and problems like this can be expensive to fix if they go to a shop when they are really simple to fix with ordinary tools. I give a description of the process to repair it so they can get on their way and not have their "new-to-me" car break down and cost them a job. Most of my posts are reposts of content posted several times over the years such that I just grab the text from my local folder and the associated photos and let if fly again.

This is necessary on reddit because their search function is intentionally broken so that old useful posts can be hard to find. This encourages people to make new posts solving old problems and drives traffic to reddit. It's a dick move on reddit's part but I accepted that years ago.

The absence of permalinks on many subs also fuels this repost bullshit. Few subs have permalinks to popular questions or FAQs on the sub, therefore you see a lot of repetition in subject matter of the posts. Reddit subs are less of an information site than they are an activity site. Reddit needs a certain amount of traffic on a sub for it to be a useful place to post so search is crippled, permalinks are largely absent, etc.

The content I post on reddit is mine. I will do with it as I please. If you wanna see everything I have ever posted in its original form you need to use one of those crawler tools before I edit.

[scarface_74]

No matter what excuse you make, you’re still being part of the problem.

If you could do the same on HN would you? How is your action not petty and trolling?

And exactly how was Reddit suppose to be an ongoing concern without monetization? Were you going to donate to them? Provide free labor?

[doodlebugging]

I have been part of their free labor since late 2005. Now they want to farm out my content with no compensation to me. They would have nothing of value without the content that users like myself freely provided.

I donated my content without which they would never have gained any traction online.

>If you could do the same on HN would you? How is your action not petty and trolling?

I also edit comments on HN if the edit is appropriate and I remove comments if the thread is dead when I comment so that the comment adds nothing to the discussion.

>No matter what excuse you make, you’re still being part of the problem.

These words that I spent my time to type should never be construed as an excuse. They are an explanation. There's a difference. As to whether I am part of the problem or part of the solution or just a small part of something else, that is always open to an individual's interpretation based on and biased by their own personal experiences.

>And exactly how was Reddit suppose to be an ongoing concern without monetization?

This has never been my problem. It is a problem that they should have had the foresight to solve before they launched.

[scarface_74]

So exactly what do you propose? Should they pay everyone who makes a post or comment on Reddit?

Do you feel the same way about HN? You are posting here for free and providing value.

> This has never been my problem. It is a problem that they should have had the foresight to solve before they launched.

Do you feel the same way about all of the companies that YC funds?

If so, why are you commenting here “adding value”?

[doodlebugging]

It is not my part of their business to propose solutions to their self-inflicted problems of monetization.

I don't need to be paid for my content. I post on HN and reddit and several other forums as a way to help others solve problems when they own or use something that I am familiar with.

Like I said above, I understand that some of my content provides value when I post. I also understand that joining and posting to forums and sites is a personal choice that is totally optional. No one asked me to post. No one forced me to post. It is always my decision.

That is how it should be.

I also understand that the part of my content that has value is always content that I could choose to post to a personal blog or other personal website with all the tools to help me monetize traffic. I have made the choice in my own life to avoid that path since the chances of it gaining enough traction to be useful to others is less with a blog or youtube channel and I don't need that level of friction in my life.

EDIT: As for the part about why I comment and potentially "add value" - sites like HN and reddit and the other topic-specific forums that I post on add value to my life by providing information that I need so I post comments in an attempt to add some value on their end when I see the need. Value to you or any other user is always subjective.

[avtar]

AFAIK HN doesn't have similar VPN access limits in place. Nor is HN restricting third party API access [1] or selling user content [2] for model training purposes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Reddit_API_controversy

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensi...

[scarface_74]

So do you propose that Reddit fund startups every year and use Reddit to promote the startups it funds?

How do you propose Reddit make money?

[mplewis]

Everyone who used the site and moderated it was providing free labor. Do you not remember the moderation protests against the administration of the site?

Now that those mods have left, the value of Reddit has too.

[scarface_74]

If you didn’t get any value from Reddit why did you comment and provide content? Why are you commenting here?