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Reddit Vs Boards... what a difference!

The One Doctor

Had a first post on Reddit yesterday (different username and not a general topic thread) and wow the difference. Sensible answers, reasoned debate and no stupid comments. What an amazing experience compared to Boards. No professional trolls either!

Opinions?

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monkeysnapper

Beckett Uninterested Nitpicker wrote: »

There are plenty of forums on Boards where you'll find your sensible answers and proper debate. You can't judge the quality of Boards on After Hours. AH, quite properly, serves a particular purpose and niche within the myriad of forums.

If you're posting in or reading AH you know rightly what to expect.

This above ....

This might not be very popular what I'm about to say but I find boards very good for getting information and proper advice as long as you post it in correct forum ...

I've also saved a bit of money over years getting advice and from bargains forum ... also got 2nd hand cycling gear ....

Now and again I see a new poster in after hours posting a question and you almost feel sorry for them ... like you need to put an arm around them and guide them from going down that dark alley and deliver them into a safe environment....

[Deleted User]

I never got Reddit but I’m just too old to do something that’s not in chronological order as that’s how I’ve always done forums. It’s all in the same box as influencer and youtuber for me anyway.

super_furry

Reddit works because every community is self policing. The up vote/down vote system means that trolls, dickheads and people with an obvious agenda don't get any traction because they're all down voted and don't make the front page.

Wibbs

super_furry wrote: »

Reddit works because every community is self policing. The up vote/down vote system means that trolls, dickheads and people with an obvious agenda don't get any traction because they're all down voted and don't make the front page.

It also means validly argued opinions that differ from the subs internal narrative tend to go the same way. I'd rather a few trolls and dickheads than that.

[Deleted User]

I like boards for being Irish, and reddit for being international. I find funny how so much from reddit gets posts on boards like it is new.

Tom Mann Centuria

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I like boards for being Irish, and reddit for being international. I find funny how so much from reddit gets posts on boards like it is new.

Also funny how much from reddit gets posted on reddit like it's new. Every day. Not even cross posted, on the same reddit. Repost after Repost with people looking for fake Internet points stealing people's posts.

Zascar

Reddit is brilliant and better in many ways but yes the thread order is a bit annoying sometimes - but its done to keep things fresh and turning over. To Op's point though it's sensible discussion and debate which is pretty rare around here. Rubbish ****posts get downvoted so you end up with far better discussion. As mentioned on /ireland the ra / united ireland posts are relentless - it has got a lot more like after hours int he last year I've found.

[Deleted User]

super_furry wrote: »

Reddit works because every community is self policing. The up vote/down vote system means that trolls, dickheads and people with an obvious agenda don't get any traction because they're all down voted and don't make the front page.

Does that mean that you don't see alt-right trolls on every thread on Reddit, blaming d'immigrants and d'dolers for everything from bad weather to the bus being late?

Say Your Number

Took a look at the Ireland page it reminds me of After Hours a few years ago before it was wall to wall shouting about the dole, foreigners, women and travellers, although this place seems to have improved since all nonsense was shunted off to it's own little corner of Hell.

Earthhorse

I get the feeling people who don’t like Reddit’s layout are looking for the same experience as they get on boards. On subs like AskReddit I tend to only look at the top level comments. You get different perspectives (in this case stories) that way, even if it’s not set up as point-counterpoint, though of course you can still get that experience in the individual comment chains. This has the added bonus of not enabling the most stubborn posters to dominate a discussion with relentless back and forths from the usual suspects like you often get on boards.

The vast majority of content on boards (AH in particular) could basically be written by bots at this stage.

andekwarhola

That's what I hate about the internet: the way you have to stay loyal to one forum, even to the extent of starting threads about pledging fealty to one or the other.

I just wish you could read and contribute to as many as you like and not think about it too deeply.

ILoveYourVibes

Right now on the front page.

BelovedAunt

Professor Genius wrote: »

I’m eating my breakfast Kate

What's the reference here?

MrMusician18

If it's r/Ireland were talking about issue it just pictures of sunsets and captioned with "shur where else would you get it"

Utterly tedious.

PonchoMcHoncho

Long time user of both Boards and Reddit (although been off Boards for a while, happy new year to you all!). Here's my take.

Initially I hated Reddit due to the layout. I found it very hard to navigate and keep up with discussions. But after using it for a while and getting used to it, it's so much better than boards from a usability perspective.

1. You get notifications when someone replies to your post.
2. Your post becomes its own thread so getting into the weeds wont derail the thread and conversations flow better where everyone isnt shouting over everyone.
3. You can sort the thread by new, top, controversial or whatever depending on the thread.
4. The upvotes\downvotes temper the dicks a bit. Nobody likes being downvoted so people learn quickly to self moderate what they say. You always get pricks but being able to downvote and the way the threads within threads get isolated means bickering and crap dissipates easily.
5. It's a huge site with lots of busy subs and yet easy to navigate (subs are /r/Whatever, users are /u/whoever)
6. You can start your own sub and do your own thing if you want.
7. Sorry but has to be said. Mods are less likely to be jobsworths on reddit. They keep things flowing rather than trying to babysit everyone.

There's obviously downsides too.

1. The voting is abused and threads can become circle jerks and minority opinions drowned out.
2. It's very American in general and the Irish sub is like a tiny microcosm of Irish culture, much much smaller than Boards and more republican or something and very repetitive content outside current events. There was a failed coup there a while back and a group of users were exiled and tried to start their own republic. There was a plot to take down a mod, secret discord groups, espionage, double agents, it was hilarious.
3. There's not the same sense of community as Boards has. It's more every man for themselves.

[Deleted User]

Reddit is generally left wing, boards seems to be leaning right wing these days

Alecto

I like boards because it has more of a community feel and it's Irish.

I like reddit because of r/boobs and r/lesbians

[Deleted User]

The Ireland subreddit isn't meant to be a place for Irish people to hang out. It's for posts about Ireland.

Irish Guitarist

This is just comparing the Reddit Ireland forum to After Hours/Current Affairs, but there seems to be less goading there. If you say something that someone else doesn't agree with they don't tend to keep demanding you explain yourself and making up shite you never said. This may just be because they can get their anger out of their system by down voting you.

I've noticed on other parts of Reddit if you ask a question that you want help with (for instance if you ask for help with something about Netflix on the Netflix forum) no one will answer and instead a load of idiots will down vote you for some bizarre reason

Ardent

What I hate about Boards is when you get one or more folks engaged in a tit-for-tat argument on a thread that completely details and destroys the discussion. On Reddit, that shïte can simply be collapsed.

Cienciano

greenttc wrote: »

I know all about the ability to sort in different ways but its still not all chronological when you take into account reply's to comments etc and having to open posts etc, the whole layout is just annoying and badly presented in my opinion

It is chronological when you sort by new. Replies to comments aren't considered new as they're addressing an older comment. All match threads are sorted by new by default for instance.
Advantages reddit has is long drawn out threads like The Case of the racist blackcurrent one won't be top for months on end because 3 posters are going around in circles arguing with each other.

Deleted User wrote: »

Reddit is generally left wing, boards seems to be leaning right wing these days

That's because trolling is much easier on boards, they get much more visibility and responses. On reddit they just get downvoted.

CrankyHaus

Really you can only judge each SubReddit individually. It has some great niche subreddits, like truly among the best resources of their kind. However the larger ones are liable to fill up with banal junk, at least unless you scroll down past the most upvoted stuff.

It is comical to observe how obviously astroturfed Reddit is compared to Boards; as this reflects the relative value those doing the Astroturfing place upon the two platforms. Over here we have the three amigos throwing out FG party lines with their (quite entertaining) scat threads, over there they have slickly drilled squads of sophists backed up by legions of silent downvoters.

Personally I think the Reddit interface is far superior. Couldn't give a toss about that Karma/Silver/Gold rubbish they have going on though. I assume it's some attempt to monetise the platform. I just give mine away to the most inconseqential comments I can find.

[Deleted User]

Cienciano wrote: »

That's because trolling is much easier on boards, they get much more visibility and responses. On reddit they just get downvoted.

I don't wanna derail this thread but you're making the (incorrect) assumption that anyone right wing is trolling

[Deleted User]

CrankyHaus wrote: »

It is comical to observe how obviously astroturfed Reddit is compared to Boards; as this reflects the relative value those doing the Astroturfing place upon the two platforms. Over here we have the three amigos throwing out FG party lines with their (quite entertaining) scat threads, over there they have slickly drilled squads of sophists backed up by legions of silent downvoters.

Could you explain this a bit more for those not familiar with astroturfing and scat threads and sophists please?

Skylinehead

Deleted User wrote: »

The Ireland subreddit isn't meant to be a place for Irish people to hang out. It's for posts about Ireland.

What it actually is, is posts about Britain.

Reddits grand though, spend more time there than here these days. Specialist subreddits though, the popular ones are awful.

wyrn

I was a huge Boards user but because of some stuff that happened on Boards, a few of us moved over to Reddit and I ended up staying. I still dip into Boards every now and then but I couldn't be all that arsed these days. Only for a few threads / users still here, I'd be long gone.

I hated the layout of Reddit initially but I figured out what settings worked for me and now I'm flying. I've found some really great subreddits which keeps Reddit fresh for me. The one thing I absolutely do not miss is the fairly frequent "please respect that mods have a life outside of Boards" postings. It always comes across as rather chastising. I saw an example of this recently where it was used as an excuse even though the poster wasn't getting at the mods (they were apologising to a poster than no one had posted a reply sooner).

CrankyHaus

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Could you explain this a bit more for those not familiar with astroturfing and scat threads and sophists please?

Specific subreddits become dominated by certain viewpoints which appear to argue from a script and gang up to shout down any opposing viewpoint which then becomes downvoted into invisibility (exploiting the Reddit interface) so that people on the fence cannot even see the opposing argument.

From how unrepresentative such positions are it is often evident that this is organised to hijack the "commanding heights" of Reddit, usually large subreddits with a generic title like R/Worldpolitics that the floating Redditor may gravitate towards expecting balanced debate who then can be influenced by control of such commanding heights.

Boards has no real equivalent, although it does have some few posters who appear to be political party sock accounts that act with a revealing concert with one another, almost as if its one person behind the same accounts. Basically attempts to influence debate on Boards are on a far smaller scale and a generation behind in sophistication. It's almost quaint in comparison.

u140acro3xs7dm

I've seen diddies on reddit, I haven't seen any on boards.

Melanchthon

monkeysnapper wrote: »

This above ....

This might not be very popular what I'm about to say but I find boards very good for getting information and proper advice as long as you post it in correct forum ...

Agreed, Reddit is occasionally useful for information but much less than I thought it would be, its search functionality is crippled.

Thoughts after being a Reddit user for a few years now.

- Anybody that thinks Reddit is a good source of information should go look up something they actually have a good/professional knowledge of, your going to see some very poor takes being highly upvoted because they sound right rather than being right, maybe its better on the specialist smaller IT/programming subs due to reddits IT heavy userbase but any larger subscriber sub won't be great, remember upvoters upvote what sounds right they wont be fact checking themselves.

-Even heavily moderated "high quality" subs have their issues particularly with letting approved posters/mods post stuff that is more conjecture than backed up material

-lots of karma harvesters

- Subs are going to change their userbase on occasion and its not always organically.

- Relating to above, lots of brigading, sometimes quiet organized via discord chats

- Mods are generally awful on Reddit if you come to their attention by countering whatever sub your on circlejerk, genuinely boards moderation might be annoying but now being familiar with reddit I can see my complaints about it in the past pale in comparison

- An example of how messed up Reddit and their mods can be at times, Ed McDonald is a moderately successful author, the main Fantasy sub preemptively banned him and highlighted allegations of sexual harassment, day or two later it turns out on of the mods was running multiple sock puppet accounts across multiple platforms talking to themselves for a significant period of time due to a personal vendetta - thats a moderator trying to ruin somebodies real lifee carrier putting months/years of work into it

- People talking about how Reddit moderation is better are possibly not to aware of how reporting is fairly recently been weaponized to remove/suspend mods themselves by getting them noticed by Reddits Admins and the "anti-evil" team

- The big subs are just cringe, want to see the calibre of the average reddit user take a look at r/pics or AmItheAsshole, be annoyed with it, clutch your head when they reach such hot takes as , yes concerned father your an asshole for not buying your thirteen year old daughter a vibrator, relax a bit when you realize that your reading responses written by children and shut ins.

- Reddit is generally spectacularly wrong about most things relating to general public opinion, Trump, Brexit, Borris Johnson all good examples.

- You'l get sick of reading Umberto's Eco's definition of Fascism, similarly the Paradox of Tolerance, these two are pulled out very frequently, remember a large part of the userbase is teenagers and undergrads who like the smell of their own farts

Positives

+ Despite all these complaints the "meta" is quiet interesting if you like looking at online "communities", how they change and astroturfing/political campaigning online

+ Massive userbase

+ Generic site is awful but good 3rd party mobile apps, something boards should seriously work on

+ Good for occasional browsing of funny videos that will later appear on a buzzfeed list

+ Once you find the right subs can be a good source of interesting articles, debate less so

+If somebody doesn't like the moderation of a sub they can set up a new one themselves

+ Young and American userbase is obnoxious but it is different to boards

Melanchthon

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Specific subreddits become dominated by certain viewpoints which appear to argue from a script and gang up to shout down any opposing viewpoint which then becomes downvoted into invisibility (exploiting the Reddit interface) so that people on the fence cannot even see the opposing argument.

From how unrepresentative such positions are it is often evident that this is organised to hijack the "commanding heights" of Reddit, usually large subreddits with a generic title like R/Worldpolitics that the floating Redditor may gravitate towards expecting balanced debate who then can be influenced by control of such commanding heights.

Boards has no real equivalent, although it does have some few posters who appear to be political party sock accounts that act with a revealing concert with one another, almost as if its one person behind the same accounts. Basically attempts to influence debate on Boards are on a far smaller scale and a generation behind in sophistication. It's almost quaint in comparison.

Yeah the Iranian government astroturfing on r/worldnews I think has been proven?