Reddit

Something I'd like to share:

I've been periodically checking reddit in my Browser to see what's going on. I commented last week about noticing a sharp decrease in posts on "my" front page. Since then I've observed a few more interesting things.

1. Late last week, I noticed that multiple subreddits (BORU and PICS in particular) had like 2-4 posts when sorted by "top, 24 hours." It wasn't a case of having to click "next" (I really miss rifs endless scrolling feature...) to navigate to a second page of posts; there was no 2nd page. That was it.

2. I also noticed that on the mobile website, ads are designed to look nearly identical to posts (imo it was more obvious that they were ads on rif), and most of the time the website would only have 1 or 2 posts before one of these fake ad posts, so your user experience is immediately impacted.

3. The ads don't seem to be as targeted as they used to be. I used to get ads that seemed to be geared toward me, my searches, and interests. Creepy, but I found it way less annoying than the alternative. Which is apparently a lot of "He Gets Us" and ads for complicated electronics or unnecessary services. Like a mobile vet clinic that isn't even available in my area, lol.

4. The bot posts are getting obvious and WEIRD. I took screenshots last weekend because just about every other post had a robotic, overly formal, and/or downright confusing title. Here are some examples:

56.3k, front page: "A brain tumour changed her life Her nerves are badly damaged! But today she opened a car door.....walked.....opened a gym door.....walked and sat down ..BY HERSELF what a lady"

[Quotation marks, format, and ellipses are original]

40.5k, front page: The trapped dog doesn't wait a bit to hug the rescuer after being freed..

Same weird ellipses, and the way it's phrased is like a "correct the mistakes" worksheet for 2nd graders.

I think Reddit is in the "find out" stage of their fucking around, even if it's a quiet or subtle change to the casual observer.

I also tried going to ModCoord [I'm not a mod it just felt like a good place to find updates] and, on my end, it looks like almost everything has been deleted. The same day I took screenshots, /r/PICS posted a public response to reddit's threats, which weren't even acknowledged on modcoord. The most recent post I could see was something from GallowBoob? It was really odd.

Is the website being glitchy? Probably. That is, after all, part of the root of this problem. But if anything, I'd say it's pretty clear that the content has decreased in both quality and depth in the last 10 days. Even if a lot of users are still signing in, I don't think they're posting, commenting, or voting as much as they used to. That may be a reflection of the quality of posts, or of users displeasure at the situation, but regardless of where it came from, at least it's something.

Making reddit go back to their own ways is not victory. We need to get redditors onto Lemmy. It is up to us to use Lemmy and spread its awareness to redditors.

R/ videos got clever, I love it. Thier new rule is

Only text posts describing videos are permitted, and must describe a video in detail. Video links are permitted in the comments only.

That must be interesting haha

I genuinely don't care. Lemmy has completely replaced reddit for me. I was a hardcore RIF user for over ten years. Connect is amazing and content had been like 90% there but with half the bullshit filler that reddit had. I honestly love it. Fuck protesting, just drop them hoes.

I was an Apollo user when I had an iPhone, then moved to Android and was a Boost user to finally move to Sync, now all of these 3 are dead, do you really think I'd want to keep being active on that "community"?

These devs deserved better, luckily both Android devs moved here, and they will receive the support of their followers, and Apollo already has numerous spiritual successors, Wefwef/Voyager being an awesome PWA and some iOS apps like Memmy and Artemis!

I'm enjoying Lemmy more and more each day. From the moment I loaded Wefwef, I knew I had a new home. It's not perfect, but it was reminiscent enough of Apollo for me to know that Lemmy is a contender. I still mainly use desktop access, but having a mobile app I can pull up and scroll made me feel much better about leaving Reddit.

I cut ties today. I had been a mod in a sub of over 3 million users for years. All reasonable folk on the mod team were gone and a huge fight broke out because I suggested that we "Try to be decent to each other" as if it was the most offensive statement they had ever heard. I have zero regrets leaving that kind of toxicity behind.

New here, I miss using RIF but Connect seems pretty good.

These kinds of posts remind me exactly of my first few days on reddit post Digg Great Migration. There was a great multipage webcomic made then too.

The decisions that Reddit made allowed Lemmy and Kbin to grow faster.

I think it's all had a bigger impact on Lemmy than it has had on Reddit. The lasting impact might be that Reddit now has viable competition for the first time since Digg, which is a good thing.

Dropped Reddit a month ago after 12 years of daily use and while it was tough in the initial days Lemmy/Kbin activity has really picked up and is beginning to absolutely fill the gap. Just need the apps and a bit more stability and think it's going to be a proper successor.

Without Apollo on my iPhone and Sync on my android, I'm not using Reddit. Lemmy filled that void. The only thing missing are niche communities. That will come with time.