Slashdot Mirror
Reddit To Transform Into a Social Network With New Profile Pages (digitaljournal.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Journal: Reddit has announced it has begun trialling a radical new profile page design that's reminiscent of Facebook and Twitter. It will evolve the discussion board site towards being a social network by enabling users to post directly to their new profile page. At present, posts on Reddit have to be directed into a specific sub-Reddit community. You can't simply write a post and have it appear across the network which can make it difficult to get your voice heard. Unless you've got some reputation in a relevant sub-Reddit, your posts may end up going unnoticed. That could soon change. Last night, Reddit announced it's working on a drastic revision of its user profile page experience. The site has commenced testing of an early version of the design. According to a report from Reuters, just three "high-profile" users currently have access to the feature. When the new pages are eventually opened up to all, they'll showcase the user's profile picture and description. Below the header, posts from the user will be publicly displayed. The user will be able to add new posts to their page, without submitting to a sub-Reddit. Users will be able to follow each other to stay informed of new posts, effectively creating a social network atmosphere above the discussion boards.
This kills the reddit.
Can't see any upside to this.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
We use reddit specifically because it isn't a "social network". Don't try to turn it into one!
What about more radical changes towards transparency?
Shadow banning (only you can see your own posts), censoring, strange moderation, etc. etc. etc. have become a bane of many subreddits.
Decline in popularity aside, Slashdot still reigns supreme as the best 'format' for online discussion. I have to hand it to the creators for sitting down and thinking through how to do moderation and anonymity. Reddit seems to have just re-invented PHPBB and all the other forum software with this.
-1 to +5 limits bandwagoning. I've seen stuff recover from initial -1 to 5, on Reddit once the bandwagons and bots take over it's near impossible for a post to change the direction.
Limited voting rights. Random moderation points. Meta-moderation. Even something as simple as not being able to moderate and comment on the same thread. 90% of Reddit is "I disagree, I'll downvote then tell them why they're wrong".
AC accounts are all equal. No account needed in the first place or a simple checkbox if I am logged in. (Plus some hilarity of "I'm posting AC because I work for..." and then they forget to check the box.)
In the golden days browsing at +4 was nothing but decent discussion of tech topics. (Or people complaining about how that isn't news for nerds). Sure the trolls show up and people have been screaming about GNAA since I can remember but they're quickly down to -1.
If there's someone that I find insightful or hate I can friend/foe them *server side* and moderate a bit further.
It's not perfect but given everything that's come along since then it's still better.
I wish someone would give the codebase a good rinse and expand it to more news discussion. It's not Reddit, Facebook, Digg or anything else that I've found.
Reddit is already generally a toxic echo-chamber of superficial snowflakes CERTAIN that their opinion is the most important one. This will make it even worse.
The value of Reddit is in the focused subreddits - /r/askhistorians, etc., where the discussion is heavily moderated to be on-topic and to a standard. This change sounds like a horrible idea and will either go completely unnoticed by users because that's not how they use Reddit or will kill it off because the promoted profiles suck all the traffic from the specific subreddits.
12:50 - press return.
Reddit has been essentially "dead" for a long time now. It's no secret that mod abuse runs rampant there, and censorship has been very problematic.
Hell, it was only a few months ago that, as reported by Slashdot, the CEO was caught editing user comments and then begged for forgiveness. That's the sort of incident that cannot be forgiven, ever.
Don't we have enough Facebook already? Reddit was something special.
It's not April 1 yet, is it? I'd add more, but I need to update my MySpace profile.