> Isn’t Reddit that killed forums like 10 years ago?
Unfortunately, yes. I love reddit, but it suffers from a major issue that most forums didn't suffer from: homogeneity of thought, with little options for those who go against the grain, either in general or on one particular issue. If you have an unpopular opinion amongst a subreddit's members, your comment is ignored at best or goes to the bottom of the pile, never to be seen by anyone. How is this healthy for discussion?
Even if you were to go on a forum made of members with a completely different set of ideals and opinions, unless you were a jerk about it, your voice would be just as "audible" as everyone else's. Everyone could have their say and not be silenced just because they were outnumbered. And you weren't writing just to get the most upvotes, or having to tread super lightly in the hopes that you wouldn't offend anyone or have them downvote you instead of actually, you know, responding to you telling you why you're wrong.
Sometimes we all need to be exposed to things we don't like. Yes, the upvote/downvote tree system may have largely solved the "asshole forum member" problem, and that's great. And for some things, the upvote/downvote system is awesome. Finding a solution to a problem? On a forum you have to go through most of the posts - on reddit, the best answer is probably going to be at the top.
But at what cost? Reddit just feels like a form of censorship to me - even when politics aren't what's being discussed. Just because the government or a corporation isn't the one directly doing it, doesn't make it a good thing suddenly.
> homogeneity of thought, with little options for those who go against the grain, either in general or on one particular issue.
Doesn't this differ drastically from subreddit to subreddit? It's really hard to talk about Reddit as this one place with one line of thought when it is really made up of disparate groups each with their own moderation style.
What are these "against the grain" opinions that you can't find a subreddit for?
I wouldn’t lump upvotes and downvotes in as censorship, personally, but I hold the opinion that they’re a cancer slowly destroying society nonetheless.
Not even from a pure user posting perspective, it’s just too easy to manipulate them for things like subtle advertising.
I worry though that we’ve entered a world where people don’t know how to look for content without it.
It's not censorship in that it's technically still visible. But it's like shouting over someone when they try to speak. You're still preventing most from accessing the message unless people make a greater effort to find those messages.
Unfortunately, yes. I love reddit, but it suffers from a major issue that most forums didn't suffer from: homogeneity of thought, with little options for those who go against the grain, either in general or on one particular issue. If you have an unpopular opinion amongst a subreddit's members, your comment is ignored at best or goes to the bottom of the pile, never to be seen by anyone. How is this healthy for discussion?
Even if you were to go on a forum made of members with a completely different set of ideals and opinions, unless you were a jerk about it, your voice would be just as "audible" as everyone else's. Everyone could have their say and not be silenced just because they were outnumbered. And you weren't writing just to get the most upvotes, or having to tread super lightly in the hopes that you wouldn't offend anyone or have them downvote you instead of actually, you know, responding to you telling you why you're wrong.
Sometimes we all need to be exposed to things we don't like. Yes, the upvote/downvote tree system may have largely solved the "asshole forum member" problem, and that's great. And for some things, the upvote/downvote system is awesome. Finding a solution to a problem? On a forum you have to go through most of the posts - on reddit, the best answer is probably going to be at the top.
But at what cost? Reddit just feels like a form of censorship to me - even when politics aren't what's being discussed. Just because the government or a corporation isn't the one directly doing it, doesn't make it a good thing suddenly.