Two more Reddit horror shows for your amusement

[EricBarbour]

First: "For the third time in two years, feminists at a major Canadian university interrupt a male issues lecture on campus. The feminists yelled and talked over the lecturer, blew air horns in the lecture room, and later pulled a fire alarm to sabotage the lecture." (warning: stupid and loud)
Which produced a massive Reddit thread, full of raging against the "evil feminists". Inevitably, some of it was split off and stuck into r/shitredditsays, where massive downvoting ensued. By this time, r/shitredditsays has become a sewer of racist, misogynist, and other invective/trolling.

Second: this post, about the notorious Richard Dawkins critique of Sokal and Bricmont's Intellectual Impostures, the greatest work of mockery of the absurd parts of postmodern philosophy ever written. But the Reddit post isn't about the postmodernists Sokal and Bricmont tore into, it was about one French feminist, Luce Irigaray, and her rather bizarre and eccentric ideas. Mockery ensued.
(The latter story relates to Wikipedia. Go and look at Luce Irigaray (T-H-L). Especially the talkpage. That "LotLE" editor who spent years trying to defend Irigaray against criticism? That's David Mertz. Remember him?)

[enwikibadscience]

First: "For the third time in two years, feminists at a major Canadian university interrupt a male issues lecture on campus. The feminists yelled and talked over the lecturer, blew air horns in the lecture room, and later pulled a fire alarm to sabotage the lecture." (warning: stupid and loud)
Which produced a massive Reddit thread, full of raging against the "evil feminists". Inevitably, some of it was split off and stuck into r/shitredditsays, where massive downvoting ensued. By this time, r/shitredditsays has become a sewer of racist, misogynist, and other invective/trolling.

Second: this post, about the notorious Richard Dawkins critique of Sokal and Bricmont's Intellectual Impostures, the greatest work of mockery of the absurd parts of postmodern philosophy ever written. But the Reddit post isn't about the postmodernists Sokal and Bricmont tore into, it was about one French feminist, Luce Irigaray, and her rather bizarre and eccentric ideas. Mockery ensued.
(The latter story relates to Wikipedia. Go and look at Luce Irigaray (T-H-L). Especially the talkpage. That "LotLE" editor who spent years trying to defend Irigaray against criticism? That's David Mertz. Remember him?)

(Too bad it's not really funny.)

[Johnny Au]

This thread deserves this banner:

[enwikibadscience]

This thread deserves this banner:

So does en.Wikipedia. ColonelHenry would have been blocked for his repeated PAs against a male, but not against me.

[Cla68]

There is currently no article on Janice Fiamengo in Wikipedia.

[Zoloft]

There is currently no article on Janice Fiamengo in Wikipedia.

Can you imagine how messy that would get?

[Textnyymi]

Reddit is yet another general content box, just a little more organized than 4chan.

[Poetlister]

to Textnyymi.

[Drowninginlimbo]

Reddit is yet another general content box, just a little more organized than 4chan.

I'm not entirely convinced that Reddit is any better than 4chan. At least the filth on 4chan disappears before it has the time to fester and inspire more filth. It's true that some of the content on certain boards like /b/ and /pol/ boards is disturbing, but the users don't take its sexist content nearly as seriously as those on subreddits such as /r/theredpill and /r/mensrights.

[EricBarbour]

I'm not entirely convinced that Reddit is any better than 4chan. At least the filth on 4chan disappears before it has the time to fester and inspire more filth. It's true that some of the content on certain boards like /b/ and /pol/ boards is disturbing, but the users don't take its sexist content nearly as seriously as those on subreddits such as /r/theredpill and /r/mensrights.

Not to mention r/spacedicks, r/beatingwomen, r/eatingwomen, r/niggas, r/gonewild and numerous offshoots, etc. etc.

Plus the "meta" section r/shitredditsays, always full of the worst of Reddit.

Our collection of Reddit garbage just keeps getting longer and longer. And we are supposed to be focusing on Wikipedia. Reddit is such an insane, deviated place, you can't look away.

[greybeard]

Our collection of Reddit garbage just keeps getting longer and longer. And we are supposed to be focusing on Wikipedia. Reddit is such an insane, deviated place, you can't look away.

Actually, I have always found it very easy to avoid Reddit, which is something less true of Wikipedia. I don't know if this is based on forum structure, or just on some form of google-fu of which I was not aware.

[Textnyymi]

2 years ago Reddit was ranked as the 150th most visited site globally.
Today it's ranked as the 58th most visited site globally, 21st in the US. It's much more popular than 4chan, ranked as 1055th most visited site.
Since it's structured like Usenet and other BBS sites, there may be another "Eternal September" effect taking place, with teenagers and people with smartphones invading the site and driving away users who would like a more controlled and serious environment.

[Johnny Au]

Blame CGP Grey (T-H-L) as well:
Notice that his channel cannot be viewed with safety mode on.

[Kelly Martin]

Actually, I have always found it very easy to avoid Reddit, which is something less true of Wikipedia. I don't know if this is based on forum structure, or just on some form of google-fu of which I was not aware.

It depends on your interests. For some topic areas, the reddit subforum for that topic is the best available source of information. I rarely end up on a reddit forum as a direct result of a search, though; I usually end up there after chasing links for a while (e.g. end up on a blog, wiki, or traditional forum that then links to a reddit thread). I rather suspect that Google penalizes linksharing sites (e.g. reddit, digg, stumbleupon), either intentionally or as a side-effect of its antispamming algorithms, while Wikipedia obviously gets upscored in Google search results.

Outside of topically specific subreddits, though, Reddit is a seething mass of DramaDramaDrama. That's the problem with being a content vehicle with no specific goals or aspiration. The high-traffic non-topically-specific Reddits are just firehoses pumping out whatever crap they can find as fast as they can, and the main measure of success is how many eyeballs you can attract. Nothing attracts attention like an ongoing trainwreck.

[EricBarbour]

It depends on your interests. For some topic areas, the reddit subforum for that topic is the best available source of information. I rarely end up on a reddit forum as a direct result of a search, though; I usually end up there after chasing links for a while (e.g. end up on a blog, wiki, or traditional forum that then links to a reddit thread). I rather suspect that Google penalizes linksharing sites (e.g. reddit, digg, stumbleupon), either intentionally or as a side-effect of its antispamming algorithms, while Wikipedia obviously gets upscored in Google search results.

Because Gizoogle luv Wikipedia. Jimbo Is Ouw Widdle Fwiend For Evew and Evew, he give us Fwee Stuff.

Outside of topically specific subreddits, though, Reddit is a seething mass of DramaDramaDrama. That's the problem with being a content vehicle with no specific goals or aspiration. The high-traffic non-topically-specific Reddits are just firehoses pumping out whatever crap they can find as fast as they can, and the main measure of success is how many eyeballs you can attract. Nothing attracts attention like an ongoing trainwreck.

Lately it appears that Reddit has been cracking down on a lot of outright trolling on the major/popular sections. I bet they are constantly being pressured by users to "clean it up", especially the misogyny and the political squabbling. (The sysops recently made r/TwoXChromosomes a "major" subreddit, putting it on the top list that all new users see by default. It was promptly attacked by a wave of angry misogynist boys, and requested to be made "semi-private" again. Try this as an example.)

I also bet Reddit's management are being harassed by investors to improve their rankings, which would require making Google like them better somehow. Have fun with that, kids.

(Like headaches? http://www.reddit.com/r/rainbowbar)

[Johnny Au]

According to the BBC, Reddit is popular with males 18-30 (which happens to be exactly the same demographic that likes CGP Grey's videos). That demographic is most likely to condone misogyny in public (note films, television shows, and video games that target that demographic mainly have misogyny).

[Drowninginlimbo]

According to the BBC, Reddit is popular with males 18-30 (which happens to be exactly the same demographic that likes CGP Grey's videos). That demographic is most likely to condone misogyny in public (note films, television shows, and video games that target that demographic mainly have misogyny).

It being most popular with males 18-30 does not surprise me at all. The misogynistic content is probably the most disturbing aspect of the website because it is so widespread. I feel so sorry for the moderators at feminist related forums on there. I read that the forum that shares the most commentators with r/feminism is r/mens rights. This is not true the other way around (it's r/askmen I think). That means that there are more people posting on r/feminism who also post on r/mensrights than those on any other forum on the website. Considering the way that men's rights posters act, let alone the red pill filth, I am not surprised that female users are not thriving on the website.

[Johnny Au]

Alexa presents a contradictory analysis: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com