zippergz · HackerLangs

I think you also have to remove subreddits that the member is not part of showing up in search results. Several very niche subreddits I participate in have fairly regular low-quality posts by clueless people who just stumbled across them in search (usually looking for something related but different). The bar for searching for a term and posting in the related subreddit is SO MUCH lower than the bar for finding a forum in a web search, signing up for an account, and posting. It might sound minor, but it's not.

zippergz

9일 전discuss

The differences aren't chiefly technical. They are cultural, as you alluded to. I started out using BBSes then usenet and email lists then forums and now reddit, for an overlapping set of hobbies. I can tell you with certainty that the subreddits about those hobbies are a pale shadow of what existed on ANY of the prior discussion platforms.

The volume of conversation might be higher, but the depth and sophistication is lower. The repetition of clueless questions. The endless posting of the same joke responses rather than actually answering questions. And so on.

All of that stuff existed on forums and usenet and other places too. I'm not saying it didn't. It's just that the proportions have shifted. And I think like you said the friction is part of it.

It's not just the interface. It's that effectively "everyone" has an account on Reddit. So if they stumble into random niche subreddit because the algorithm suggested it or someone linked to it or it popped up in a search result, in two clicks they can be posting their own new posts or replies in that very niche community. With standalone forums, it was both less likely that you'd just stumble across them if you weren't specifically interested in the topic, and the bar for starting to participate was much higher.

Even if there were no real restrictions on joining or posting, just creating a new account is a lot more work than participating in a subreddit when you already have a reddit account. You could argue that the same dynamic existed in usenet, but the overall bar for participating in usenet was so much higher, and the global userbase so much smaller than what reddit has. And still, we did in my experience see a lot more of the kind of garbage participation that comes from people who aren't really interested in or knowledgeable the topic being able to participate with zero marginal effort.

An extremely low barrier to participation creates a radically different culture than a situation where you actually have to want to be there before you contribute.

It's not just about how many people are on the internet now. There are still a handful of niche forums I participate in, and maybe they aren't as good as they used to be, but they're still way better than most subreddits.

zippergz

3개월 전discuss

I have a lot of hobbies. Programming is one of them, but not the only one. There are times that some piece of software would help me with one of my hobbies, but I don't want to steal time from hobby X to build the software. And often these don't involve the kind of coding that I want to be doing for fun. This has been a sweet spot for LLM-aided coding for me. I've built several hobby helper apps where the goal was making one of my other hobbies more fun rather than programming. It's still hobby time, not work, but the hobby is not coding.

zippergz

8개월 전discuss

Can we also not have Levi's? Ford cars? Jack Daniel's? All of their namesakes died a very long time ago.

zippergz

8개월 전discuss

I haven't done 4x5 in a while, but I have an HP flatbed with a 4x5 adapter (purchased used on ebay) which does an OK job for the price.

zippergz

8개월 전discuss

I dread running my own Python projects if I haven't worked with them in a while.

zippergz

10개월 전discuss

Curious what part of the world this is in. I can recall a grand total of three places I've seen in my area do this. It's a tiny minority here.

zippergz

5년 전discuss

The prices we are comparing against are Meraki, Aruba, Ruckus, etc. I would be shocked if Ubiquiti was similar in price to those even in the UK.

zippergz

5년 전discuss

I barely know what Wayland is, but this attitude doesn't make me eager to try it.

zippergz

6년 전discuss

Somwething seems wrong if your non-cheap LEDs are dying that quickly. I have an entire house of LEDs, many going on 5-6 years old, and I only ever recall replacing two (and they were a pair, used outdoors -- only one failed, but I replaced both so they would match).

zippergz

6년 전discuss

I'm on year 5 or 6 right now with the Cree bulbs I bought.

zippergz

6년 전discuss

I have some spots in my house where it's a major hassle to change the bulbs, so the long lifetime of LEDs was an important selling point there (in fact, much more important than the energy savings). Thankfully I've had good luck with those (all Cree bulbs), but I'd be pretty annoyed if I bought LEDs for those fixtures and ended up having to replace them after a year or two.

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