Yeah, he really hasn't seen the darkside to Reddit has he? And it can get really dark.
I deleted an account I had there a while back and started again, with a very different set of subreddits, switching from fun to serious sub-reddits. It's like a totally different website.
I shudder to think what a racist or misogynist's reddit looks like.
I tried that with Facebook and was surprised at how different the experience was, before they pigeonholed me and I started getting content and suggestions similar to my original account.
Help me ObiWan Kenonbi, you’re my only hope. What’s a good list of serious subreddits? I’ve found a small handful, but there are surprisingly few I could find that had genuinely compelling content or commentary.
As you can see, they're all very targeted to specific interests. However, I'd also be interested in learning about other good subreddits regardless of their focus. Which ones did you or anyone else find?
I believe that is the real key to enjoying Reddit. Communities that are laser focused. Basically doing just one thing well. When a community is too big and too general I think the quality suffers.
I was using Reddit before there were subreddits and the quality was excellent with a wide variety of topics. So rather than focus, the main problem is size. With size comes all the trolls, self-promoters and nation states all with motives other than good, honest content and discussion.
The best one is /r/askhistorians. They delete like 95% of all comments made for being low quality or useless, but the upside is that any comment remaining is worth reading. Some people find that subreddit draconian in how it is modded, but it works in keeping the quality of the subreddit up.
If you're looking to buy things or exploring new interests in general, there are great niche subreddits. For example, when I was interested in a vacuum cleaner, /r/VacuumCleaners/ was really helpful. /r/goodyearwelt/ was a really nice niche when I was exploring high-end footwear. When I was looking for a new fitness routine, /r/bodyweightfitness/ was useful.
It's not perfect, but /r/NeutralPolitics/ is worth keeping an eye on. It's an attempt to provide a platform to share facts and debate civilly.
I deleted an account I had there a while back and started again, with a very different set of subreddits, switching from fun to serious sub-reddits. It's like a totally different website.
I shudder to think what a racist or misogynist's reddit looks like.