Reddit can be a very savage place. But i think that if you’re going around the internet you must have a little bit of a thicker skin to let users commenting dumb stuff or arguing with you using ad hominem not affect you.
The place has almost it’s own language with the karma system and that can be good or bad depending on the situation. For example, on Reddit at least, theres a visual tool to express disagreement with a post/comment. It’s a more realistic way to manage a community because people can actually dislike stuff. I wish they weren’t so many trolls, but honestly i think it’s not as bad as a lot of people make it seem.
Thinking about it. This forums have no dislike button for anything (and i can imagine why lol), if you want to disagree with someone you have to go and comment why you disagree with said user, and that works really well for a forum about yoyoing because that encourages actual meaningful discussion, but it wouldn’t be that effective for a more classic or general forum on the internet. Yoyoers are generally very friendly ,both online and IRL, and that seems to be an stereotype that i’m happy to get behind.
r/Throwers has it’s flaws and some memorably bad stuff has happened there, but weighting the good things of that place vs the bad things it has, the good overweights the bad by a loooooong shot, that’s why i’ll always defend reddit.
That being said, i like here a lot too. I’m sure i can be part of both places and participate with meaningful content/commentary and live with it lol.
Why would you ever not want “meaningful discussion” in a classic forum?
Reddit isn’t really a forum, it is a meme and image voting machine. The funniest images always rise to the top. The best and ultimate Reddit post is really a gif or image.
I was talking about the “only likes” system, not the discussion thing. The karma system is actually really effective for managing communities with millions of members like the biggest subreddit reddit has.
Oh, im way past that part of the internet. Im already aware that the internet is full of rude kids that will nitpick and make fun of anything if it is possible, and ill even laugh at it sometimes. Other times it can get annoying and tedious, and if the discussion isnt meaningfully progressing ill just let it go.
I understand that there are benefits to the downvoting system. Going back to my previous example though, I think the cons of it are quite limiting. I make a simple post about preferring full service gas stations. Apparently since most people actually like to pump their own gas, I get downvoted, I get trolled with a few comments, and make another post. I say it is nice to have someone pump my own gas so I don’t end up smelling like gasoline. Downvoting ensues, I get trolled about how you don’t get gas on you at all when you pump your own gas, and that im basically an idiot. Im still getting downvoted.
I have a few choices now. I could continue to explain numerous ways in which you can accidentally get gas on your hands, shoes, or clothing when pumping gas, and ill just get downvoted once again and be told no im stupid. I could just leave my posts as they are and suffer further degradation of my karma for something im not even that passionate about, but admittedly the situation did annoy me quite a bit. The other option I could choose would be to delete my posts without taking any additional hit to my karma and move on, but then the whole discussion just looks like everyone likes pumping their own gas (which is not true). It isn’t like im obsessed with the karma system or anything, but it seems unfair for an opinion on an innocuous subject to have an affect on my “rep” points. I deleted my posts.
This situation was petty, but the same thing happens across the board with more important political and social issues, and this is where I begin to have a problem with general representation. Sub-reddits eventually coalesce into groups of people with similar opinions because it does not promote true discussion (via the downvoting system). And when you compare Reddit to the similar but different Twitter, you notice that the lack of a downvoting system allows for people of different viewpoints to get more accurate representation. The thing is, Twitter does not promote serious discussion because of its character limits. Reddit could, but suffers from a case of ‘only popular opinions can exist’.
Without downvoting, the popular and most helpful opinions would still get liked most and rise to the top, but would still allow other viewpoints to exist. Unfortunately I think we would see more trolling and malevolent posting, so of course it isnt like downvoting is the root of all Reddit’s evil. I still think Reddit would be better without it.
I can sorta see the argument that yo-yos are a visual performance skill toy so you want pictures and images a lot of (or all?) the time, but honestly Instagram is muuuuuch better for that over Reddit.
Also I just really really really really really really like… words.
You can’t do human civilization at all without words, but you can do it without pictures quite easily.
It took me a while to see the value of a forum like this, over reddit and insta. This forum combats the “short term instant gratification and then forget about it” syndrome that other social media breeds. It feels more like a slow steady maturity here where friendships and meaningful discussions are being made. It isn’t as fast paced and glamorous as other forms of social media, but it feels more like a community, you know?
