Why is this subreddit now just askreddit for movies?
Some time in the last few months, r/movies has been entirely consumed by askreddit-style questions like “What’s your favorite hidden gem??” or “What actor fell off the map??”
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What is now causing all these unique, seemingly-non-bot posters to suddenly start flooding this particular subreddit with their discussion posts, instead of going to askreddit? Did the whole reddit protest shit change the moderation rules? Has the subreddit been infiltrated by a secret Buzzfeed content farming cabal? I unsubscribed from r/askreddit because I got sick of this shit, but now it’s back on r/movies!
What is going on??
I think the comments are most interesting though
Because the audience for reddit has dwindled since July. Reddits offial site and app push controversial posts over just well yovkted ones. Most controversial posts asks inane questions. Then there’s bots reposting those questions for karma and then websites juicing social media for content to get crammed down your throat via SEO.
They should make a second internet just for people
This all started with the boycott.
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I’d assumed things would go back to “normal” after the boycott, but it looks like a lot of power users really did take their ball and go home. (I wonder what they’re doing with their time instead? Hopefully some new hobbies? Time with friends?) Maybe reddit will regret removing the 3rd party apps, after all? Maybe we’ll just accept a future where niche subs become little more than BuzzFeed polls, but we get paid if our poll does well, so users won’t care?
It’s because Reddit is trying to drive engagement. I don’t know if you noticed, but since the purge of third-party apps, the comment sections have been kind of meager, and things don’t get as many upvotes as they used to. Heck, half the comments act like bots anyway. It seems like reddit has been distilled down to those most addicted to it and has taken a hard lean into all the most extreme views.
When Reddit killed third party apps, the quality fell off all over the place. It took me about a month to realize the timing and why r/all had so much AITA rage bait stories and celebrity gossip and stuff now. I think a lot of the quality posters and people who liked more high brow discussions just left Reddit.
This makes me sad. Not just because of what happened with reddit, but because I’m still missing that high-brow discussion. Most of my reddit comments were replies to other people, rather than top-level comments, and I spent more time reading comment sections than I did looking at the content they were discussing.
I like it here, but I don’t feel like I come across the depth of content I did on reddit. I don’t mind the lower quantity - that’s expected on a small platform - but I’m definitely not enjoying the lower quality. Most of the activity seems to be around memes and American politics, neither of which particularly interest me, and most of the comments across most posts feel fairly unsubstantial. It’s so much rarer for me to find something I want to reply to on here than it was on reddit.
I think the issue here is that there’s a sweet spot where quantity and quality are in equilibrium. You NEED a certain quantity before you have a high chance of finding insightful comments on a given topic – to simplify things, if there’s a 1% chance a given comment is going to be from an expert with great insight, you have a ~9.6% chance of finding that on a post with 10 comments and a ~63% chance of finding that on a post with 100 comments. The threadiverse just hasn’t hit that threshold yet.
Of course, there’s a tipping point which reddit is long past, where higher and higher quantities start to drown out the insightful posts with memes and quips, or downvote and mock them with a confidently wrong counter-opinion the mob wants to hear more.
I hope the barriers to entry with decentralized services that the masses find “confusing” are such that we eventually manage to reach equilibirum and not tip too terribly far past it.
Oh I agree completely (and thought about going off on a tangent about “critical mass” myself but decided against it). It’s a rough path towards reaching that point, though, if we can’t have enough discussions to draw those kinds of people in and keep them around in the first place. I agree, also, about the “signal-to-noise ratio” on reddit being too low in general nowadays - especially post-third-party apps controversy - although I think that’s preferable to there simply not being enough quality content in the first place; good moderation (not that reddit has much of that nowadays…) can deal with the noise, whereas it can’t make up for lack of substantial comments.
I’m not sure what the best way to address the barriers to entry to the fediverse might be, but I’ve thought that the various apps either hosting their own instances or partnering with other instances to funnel users towards them and streamline the signup process would probably be a good first step. I think having some barrier to entry is a good thing, though - so we don’t tip too far past that equilibrium.
I’d like to see more outreach initiatives in posting Lemmy content to Reddit. Nobody not specifically looking for Lemmy is going to even be aware that it exists. Think about how many times the same posts hits #1 on /r/all. The API protest was massive and I would still guess that less than one percent of Redditors have even considered alternatives like kbin/lemmy exist.
I’m personally not worried about growing too much because instances can only get so big and still afford to be online. There’s no incentive to grow an instance beyond sustainability.
I thought I might leave Reddit entirely, but then I realized this as well. So I have taken to posting some things exclusively here, some very few things also there, and when I do post there I post here first then just share the link.
On the other hand, keeping in mind that my “here” is Kbin not Lemmy, I’ve more or less ceased most of my encouragement to try to get people to join b/c of all the bugs that have been present - some of which seem fixed now but overall the set of features present in Kbin is very much behind Lemmy, which is itself enormously behind Reddit still. It makes sense: people were “hopeful” about Kbin/Lemmy, but to actually realize that hope has been slow going. And that too makes sense: Ernst has had family issues that MUST take priority, although it has greatly slowed down integrations of fixes that others have offered into the main code, for a time. And too there is the fact that Kbin, like many Lemmy instances, has been under DDOS attack. These things take time to develop even under the most ideal circumstances, and all the more so in the face of such challenges. Overall, Kbin is still alpha version software at this point.
And even Lemmy is still just a beta version. e.g. just to name one example: you still cannot migrate from one instance to another across the Fediverse, so whatever instance you choose to join is basically a permanent decision - like if you ask all your friends to come with you from Reddit and then jump ship yet again, you risk alienating them by leaving them behind as you hop around looking for the greenest grass. Joining instances here is nothing at all like casually joining subs on Reddit - they will need to learn all about that, and what it means, and how to curate their experiences here, etc.
In comparison, for now at least old-reddit or even new-reddit on a mobile browser with ad-blocking meets many people’s needs, especially with “everyone” more or less remaining behind on Reddit, and it is a tough sell to try to tell them to give all that up for an objectively worse UI/UX experience (the cost-to-benefit tradeoff is worthwhile to us, but is it to them?). At this point, those with the “early adopter” mindset are already here, and more importantly the content creators have already made their choices too. (Though if Reddit kills off old-reddit, that could change things in a BIG way)
I am not saying that there would be no value in such outreach initiatives, just that they have already happened and yet here we are. At this point it may be worth looking into the reasons why people who already know about Lemmy/Kbin have not chosen to come here. And on some level we just need to be okay with the fact that we are likely going to be small for a long time, especially as the code continues to be developed to help it catch up.
Unless Threads causes things to change much more quickly… which it very well could.
(edit: added UI/UX)
I don’t know. I get the same raw energy here as I did when I first joined that other site. I get a rush of joy when I discover a new, cool community. The truth is, Lemmy is literally what you make it, not shoved down our throats by someone looking for their first billion.
Lemmy is what we make it. I can’t keep a community alive on my own, but sadly that is the reality for a lot of subjects right now.
This is it. I can (and do) filter out the communities I don’t want to see, but I can’t generate the activity required from other people to make for interesting discussions. And as much as I want interesting discussions, I’m not interested in trying to carry every conversation myself. I want other people to bounce off and interact with, not just to feel like I’m typing into the void!
We’ll get there. It turns out that it’s more difficult than many of us realized to build a new social media site from scratch without any VC funding. It’s going to be a long and arduous journey, but I think we have already navigated the most dangerous leg and built a strong foundation.
Large scale movements of people take a very long time. We are on the vanguard, which can be a bit lonely but will ultimately turn out to be an extremely rewarding experience if Lemmy eventually does grow much larger.
It’s also far too confrontational for such a small community. People’s posts asking for help get downvoted, comment replies get voted down just because of tribalism (shit on Windows, much?), and replies devolve to insults far faster. There’s really no place for any kind of nuanced discussion.
I hate to say it, but I think that’s just an issue with online culture in general nowadays. I’ve been saying for years at this point that “the internet is where nuance goes to die”. But I agree; I wish it wasn’t the case here, and I wish it was something that got called out more. Calling out people for their extreme and distasteful political opinions is fine, but piling on people because they’re fine with using Windows or whatever is just ridiculous.
Calling out people for an extremist, strawman version of a popular opinion is not accepted. Because people eliminate all nuance, and you’re either for it or against it.
I’d give examples, but they’d get downvoted. I’m generally in favor of the government staying out of personal issues that don’t affect larger society. When it comes to a woman’s right to choose, that’s popular. When it comes to certain religious practices, it’s unpopular.
I’ll bite. Go ahead and give an example. I feel like most people are ok with people’s beliefs and opinions as long as they follow the whole “your rights end at your nose” premise. Popularity of issues pretty much falls in line with that every time.
Most people yes, but those who feel like their rights extend well up into your nose make a disproportionate amount of noise far out of proportion to hundreds of others who are more neutral, and b/c of how human psychology works, maybe also more than ten or so people who are weakly positive.
I guess I am saying: do not underestimate the human need to create an echo chamber for emotional validation:-D.
I was asking for an example of an extremist, straw man argument of a popular opinion.
And I hope the person you asked responds with such - I was definitely going off on a whole other tangent here.:-)
I’m generally in favor of parents being able to make decisions for their children (particularly infants) with little involvement from the government.
I don’t think you should pierce a baby’s ears. However unless the government can show significant harm, they should stay out of it.
You can speculate on the more controversial version of this.
Why speculate? You’re the one that said it. What’s the straw man extremist version of your statement?
I made this comment because I relize that I can be extreme when (even unrelatedly) angry despite fighting against extremeism otherwise.
Abortion debates are designed to be insane. Amarica uses it to divide and control its voters. For those that genuinely want a discission, im sorry. Here or reddit is probably the sanest place to discuss it online.
Ive personally attacked that toxic mindset before and found myself slipping into it. Windows is “bad”. I find by attacking windows on instict, I indirectly attack its users. Most (I too) struggle to imagine a diffrent and hopefully better world. So the current one becomes immitable and “natural”. By attacking their OS without showing somthing practical but better, you might as well the saying the flowers secretly spit asid too.
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That’s what happens when you openly express contempt for your userbase after doing nothing about spam or influence operations for 8+ years.
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Oh, yeah, Lemmy is tiny by comparison. We have to post content instead of just consuming it.
The general social media culture effects us, reddit culture is partially still in our blood. He may be right in that reguard.
You can get that with Tildes but that gets kind of boring too. I liked Reddit because it was nice mix of both and then it went really toxic from both the users and the admins. I like it here because I’m not addicted and it has a lot of good content.
I honestly completely forgot about Tildes.
Can you even sign up for tildes yet?
You have to get an invitation, but you can lurk. https://tildes.net/
Send them an email
I have invite codes from when I tried it out in 2018 if anyone’s interested.
I would be interested
About movies, [email protected] has discussion threads for every new movie being released
I find tildes.net fills the role of in-depth discussions pretty well, they don’t tolerate memes and other fluff which I do still find entertaining but lemmy has plenty of that. Only thing neither do very well is lots of content for niche hobbies or topics that just require a lot more users to work well.
Yeah I like tildes for the slower pace in depth discussions and thoughtful comment section, and Lemmy for the scrolling and occasional laughs. Throw in Hackernews for very in depth technical discussions and I don’t miss Reddit much at all. Spending a lot more time reading books or learning new things instead of doom scrolling on Reddit.
I agree with much of this. Though, I’ve been here for a couple months now (only just made an account) and I’ve noticed as the posts have become a bit more diverse. The commie stuff is a little wack/comical but eh - I like my commies out in the open and proud of who they are.
I want Lemmy to grow, but nobody I recommend it to is particularly interested. My husband thinks it’s really no better than 4chan or reddit. He’s never been a fan of either. He feels that the people here are too high handed and snobby and considering that 4chan has a better time dealing with trolls and (tankies) problem users because it’s hard to stalk someone on a completely anonymous web site he just feels like we’ll end up going up like a flash in a pan. Here one day gone the next. I hope he isn’t right but I also do see my fair share of what he’s talking about. We aren’t nearly as welcoming as we make ourselves out to be.
Quality is subjective. But there’s always gonna be some slag in the smelting pot. Pretending we can make a community that’s free of all of Reddit’s problems is kind of foolish.
On the other hand communities don’t just spring up over night. The kind of quality the majority of people say they want happens organically and I don’t think we can rush that. I do think that people with message boards or discords could migrate here and start their own instance or subs. That would be a good way to grow the community.
Agreed, I had largely the same usage behavior as you. Blocking dozens of meme communities managed to filter out most of the junk but substantive topics and discussions are still rare. While things seem to be decelerating lately, I’ll be sticking around in the hope that over time the sort of thing we’re looking for grows.
Same here. I miss having actual discussions in comment threads once in a while.
I’m more grateful for paywalled Web 1.0 platforms from two decades ago than I have been in a long time. Metafilter’s FanFare section is low-volume but particularly satisfying for thoughtful movie chatter. It’s fun when bursts of comments in an old thread are years apart between a title’s theatrical release and arrival on streaming.
I feel the same and that’s why I’m posting here And trying to do my part to grow the community. I loved the fact that I could be having a bad day and go to any comment thread and be laughing within seconds.
Many of us are still piecing together where our new homes will be on Lemmy. Several of the popular subreddits were re-created here but the content is largely bots cross posting reddit content that sucks. It’s taking longer than I expected to find content I enjoy interacting with too, but I suspect that’s a problem that can only be solved by continuing to interact with those posts as you find them.