Devil's advocate -- the only cure that will save Reddit.

ceol_ · 3 months

You should also learn when it's appropriate to play Devil's advocate. Going into a thread in, say, /r/funny with the intent to argue will only hurt the site further.

ZorbaTHut · 3 months

Reddit is too far gone. You know what happens now if you try to argue for the sake of the argument? You get immediately dismissed as a troll. Once your comment score hits -1, it will continue to drop. I don't think people even read things with a negative score, they just go right to the downvote button.

13143 · 3 months

Why not just unsub from the trashy circlejerk reddits and focus on the small communities? Some of the best reddit moments I've had have been in ~1000 members communities. I don't even bother commenting in the big reddits anymore.

tksocratic · 3 months

Hmm I'd be game but I suspect there would be far too many mismatches:

"No, what about - "

BAM 800 word essay.

"Ummm okay... good points but..."

BAM "n00b!"

:(

Maybe a dedicated "debatehoning" reddit?

verdammt · 3 months

Ok, I'll start by playing the devil's advocate against this thread.

I don't agree with you. Of the whole pool of human beings, only a relatively small fraction are capable of rational and/or independent thought. Because, lets face it, thinking takes energy and most people aren't willing to use up that energy on thinking.

Therefore, in any setting where people are given a bit of freedom to do what they want, they will stick to the same repetitive activities that they already know are rewarding for them. Looking at pictures of cats, participating in pun thread (I did nazi that coming) and so on. This isn't a characteristic of reddit, it's a characteristic of human nature. The majority of people will rather watch a soap opera, or jersey shore or whatever it is people watch now rather than for instance educated themselves on a new subject, or trying to look at a familiar subject from a different perspective. Reddit is just one of many entertainment options one has when he wants to burn his time.

So to put things into perspective, I'll translate your view into the pre-internet era. People shouldn't be watching Who wants to be a millionaire / The big brother / Soap operas! They should be doing that requires them to actually use their brain and which I personally aprove of! Lets poke our noses into their lives and convince them they should be more like us!

TL,DR: Unsubscribe from the subreddits you don't like. You don't go in there and they don't come in here.

rounder421 · 3 months

As long as Reddit adheres to its voting philosophy, there will be no devil's advocate, nor a healthy discussion. Because of Reddit's fascination with karma, be it comment or link, the only things that will get upvoted are hivemind approved ideas. Reddiquette does not work; never has and never will. It's a systemic problem with the voting/karma system, that I don't think will ever be overcome.

Yorn · 3 months

I think you're all going to hate me for this, but...

I've been using Google News for my news lately. Reddit isn't a site where I can come to learn anything anymore. Even my favorite subreddits are starting to suck. It's like a brain drain to everyone to either yhacker or that other one - hubski? :/

Popular-Uprising- · 3 months

But didn't Star Trek prove that emotions are just as important as logic? That stuffy, humorless guy with the pointy ears was such a nerd and he loved logic.

verdammt · 3 months

Oh and I just want to clarify that I am guilty of both of those currently.

Just take a look at my comment history.

Zazie_Lavender · 3 months

Well, I certainly play the DA whenever I can. No point in being a DA in the middle of a circlejerk though unless you have allies and *lots of them. *.

But that doesn't mean one shouldn't try to be a DA. All over the Internet, when one plays DA... You are often dismissed as a troll at first. The trick is to not give up or let that accusation derail you from your argument.

de-inspired · 3 months

It worked!

And by worked I mean totally failed. Probably my fault. Just thought I'd show an example in action from the fiery bowels of the emotionally reactive.

g33n · 3 months

I started a reddit just yesterday that I was thinking could act as a place to dissect irrational arguments and make them stronger, or something. I'm not entirely clear on what vision I had—if it's going to be /bestof for bad/good argument, /SRS for backing up logical arguments getting downvoted, /theoryofX for endless rationality circlejerking...

I kind of have a hybrid vision that I don't really have time to flesh out, but I'll post this and suggest that if there's interest maybe this ship can set sail wherever some community wishes to take it.

viborg · 3 months

Emotions are a part of every debate, whether you admit it or not. Everyone's political beliefs have some emotional component, and you can't just logically decide to cut out the emotional aspect of your beliefs, because they are so fundamental to your entire belief system. I believe this pattern applies equally well to all of our beliefs, not just the political.

hideyomudkipz · 3 months

I can agree that reddit has become quite a circlejerk, but, unlike other websites, reddit users have the tools to look back and critique the content of the website. A site like 9gag and by extension facebook only allows for positive reinforcement, which is why the top comments on 9gag are always the same, people who question the establishment gain less momentum. However, reddit has so many tools to keep this in check, voting (up and down), self posts, even r/circlejerk and r/theoryofreddit help users analyze the site as a medium and improve its quality. I can reference Canv.as as well as being very down to earth about when it is becoming a circlejerk.

Levitz · 3 months

The problem is that, by definition, not belonging to the hivemind will get you less upvotes than doing so, users don't care about the matter, they don't care about discussion, they do care about what they think, instead of upvoting inspiring or thoughtful comments, they upvote whatever they agree with and downvote whatever they dont, as if it was the "I like" button from facebook.

In the Woody Harrelson IAMA he has downovtes IN ANSWERED QUESTIONS, how the HELL does that happen?

In a AskReddit post titled "We tend to be an open-minded bunch. But what would make you disappointed in your real or hypothetical children? Be completely honest." people take offense for things such as racism or homophobia, even if it's exactly the kind of answer to expect in such a thread.

The vote system has gone completely corrupt in reddit, things that are worth to be seen should be the ones upvoted, instead, people upvote things they like to see, sometimes those aren't the same.

funknut · 3 months

They need to eliminate the down arrow, and rely on the report button for inappropriate posts. It's too bad that unreasonable abuse of the down arrow has the immediate effect of muting a user in a particular subreddit in the way that a several minute time limit is placed on the frequency of posts after receiving negative karma in a subreddit. Downvotes are for comments that contribute nothing to the discussion. Do not downvote comments simply because you disagree.

wauter · 3 months

STOP. GENERALIZING. TRUTHS. ABOUT. THE. BIG. SUBREDDITS.

I personally think reddit is in better shape than ever, as there are now enough people to make a reddit purely about my favorite cities, obscure hobbies, etc... (It used to be just self, programming and politics in the ole days)

I am getting really sick of these everybody is doing it wrong, except for me/us of course posts. Is r/theoryofreddit so bad, to name one obvious example?

WillToHave · 3 months

Regression to the mean.

culturalelitist · 3 months

I think that this is a pretty bad idea. Can you imagine if this became widespread? How annoying would it be to never know if the people you were talking to on Reddit were being genuine or not? And there's the fact that many of the people I see playing "devil's advocate" on Reddit now are just trying to make excuses for their shitty arguments after someone else comes along and destroys them. The only way I could see this being a good thing is if someone created a novelty account called "DevilsAdvocate" or something similar and started spreading it all over Reddit. What Reddit really needs is more people who are willing to stand against the hivemind and defend what they genuinely believe in without fear of being shouted down.

BeelzebubsBarrister · 3 months

You called?

verdammt · 3 months

[deleted]

lpetrazickis · 3 months

So... more trolling will save reddit?

xerogod · 3 months

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