Can't take seriously an article that talks in good terms about mods.

>Pali Bhat joined Reddit from Google about a year ago — he’s actually Reddit’s first-ever chief product officer, which is pretty surprising considering that Reddit is a series of product experiences: the reading experience, the writing experience, and importantly, the moderation experience. One thing we always say on Decoder is that the real product of any social network is content moderation, and Reddit is maybe the best example of that: every subreddit is shaped by volunteer moderators who use the tools Reddit builds for them. So Pali has a big job bringing all these products together and making them better, all while trying to grow Reddit as a platform. > >Pali wanted to come on Decoder to talk about his new focus on making Reddit simpler: simpler for new users to join and find interesting conversations; simpler to participate in those threads; and simpler to moderate. We talked a lot about the tension between what new users need when they’re learning to use Reddit and what Reddit power users want — if the goal is to grow the site, you run the risk of irritating your oldest users with change. > >We also talked about video. Reddit is rolling out a dedicated video feed, which sounds a lot like an attempt to compete with TikTok, which every social network is trying to do — and we talked quite a bit about Google and search. Lots of people use Google to find things on Reddit, which is often used as a criticism of Google’s search quality. I wanted to know if Pali thinks Google is vulnerable in search, if Reddit can become a primary search engine for people, and most importantly, what he took from Google’s culture and what he left behind in organizing Reddit’s product team.

This was an interesting interview. Of particular interest to me was that before Pali there was no chief product officer. Even without that though the product team(s) seemed to be doing a passable job at the very least. Hopefully this new director impacts the user experience in a positive way in the coming months and years.

They talk a lot about all the new features and user-centric design and all that and here I am still using old.reddit.com mode, because every time I resolve to get used to the "new" fancy design, I give up and return to the original within an hour. It's fucking godawful. If they ever discontinued the old mode, I'd just quit reddit altogether the same day.

So, all this talk sounds empty to me.

> Lots of people use Google to find things on Reddit, which is often used as a criticism of Google’s search quality. I wanted to know if Pali thinks Google is vulnerable in search, if Reddit can become a primary search engine for people, and most importantly, what he took from Google’s culture and what he left behind in organizing Reddit’s product team.

That paragraph makes no sense. Google is used to search for things on Reddit, because Reddit's own search is useless. How is that criticism for Google...? Nothing that Reddit will ever do to its search will be able to square up to Google's tools. There's no way in hell.

agreed. I check out the new layout occasionally and encounter multiple issues within minutes. From a usability standpoint it's a nightmare. Clearly they feel the pressure to compete in the doomscrolling marketplace, but If they force reddit to be just another tiktok, it will lose what makes it unique and worth going to. Searching the web with the term "reddit" is probably their biggest marketing coup rn, if they bust up communities they will be losing massive value.

Yeah, I'm with you when it comes to using the old Reddit as well. It's honestly a miracle that they're able to succesfully maintain the two versions to this day like this.

Why so? Lemme guess, you've got a serious beef with them or something?

Nah.

A volunteer position of power is bound to attract individuals who just want power. You don't need to have a beef with them to acknowledge the fact that thousands of people complain that rules are applied arbitrarily.

I get that there are thousands of subs and that hiring staff for each one of them would be impossible. But the bigger subs should be moderated by Reddit employees.

Moderation is time-consuming, mentally exhausting and only a person who's not doing well IRL would accept these massive cons for the small dopamine rush of "being in charge", whatever the fuck that means.

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

Are you sure you don't want to try the mobile app?

I see. Well, it is true that the power of a mod should always be used in a responsible manner. And therefore one shouldn't be a mod in first place if they're willing to abuse that power. The option to temp ban someone exists and thus it should ALWAYS be preferable to use that in lieu of perma banning hapless users on the spot for arbitrary reasons.

I use Infinity For Reddit since the actual reddit app loves popping ads in every 2/3 posts.

Yeah there’s plenty of great third party mobile apps, I like Apollo on iOS and Sync on Android.

I've not heard of Sync but I'll check it out thanks! (Sometimes Infinity bugs out remembering what you've viewed)

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At this point I presume the only people using new reddit are people who don’t know old reddit exists

I use a third-party app rather than the official app or the desktop interface so…yeah.

It's certainly possible, yes. Especially since the toggle to make the site always direct you to the old layout can be found in the settings. Presumably very few users have reasons to visit it other than to set their user icons and other minor stuff.

I joined reddit before new reddit existed. I can't stand old reddit layout. Its hard to look at. Just a bunch of lines of text with tiny little thumbnails. New reddit is far easier to look at and use for me.

New reddit is basically unusable

The bare-bones lightweight format of OG reddit was a major part of why the site took off over other message/image boards in the first place.

Nowadays it has the near-monopoly on web forum content to retain users despite newer horrendous layout design.

Companies hire a bunch of people who then need to find busywork to do all day to keep their jobs relevant. That results in continually redesigning UI that wasn't broken in the first place, usually for the worse.

Then you get "Make it look more modern" which ends up translating to "make the usability worse", by aping other companies' bad design that was generated by that very ludicrous process of unnecessary design worsening.

Sites and services that became popular in part or whole due to UI success, have a tendency to destroy that UI once they have achieved critical mass. The users become a captive audience and are stuck with it, and whoever runs the company by then time is usually completely clueless as as to how the site/service attracted users to gain any value in the first place.

It's a cancer that infects almost all of computing.

Reddit modding is a joke. I've only ever seen a handful that I would consider well-run and the worst offenders are the most popular. Power trips aside, most mods basically don't want to do their job, assuming their job is making a "good" space that fits the sub name and description.

In one sports-related sub I visit, sometimes a conversation can get heated, with people challenging others' closely held beliefs when off-the-field real life bleeds into the subject. If more than 3 or 4 people take it too far, they lock the whole thread, ending the actual good conversation taking place between a hundred other people. They stop the whole discussion instead of the few who can't act civilized, just because they don't want to put in any effort at all. It's maddening.

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Indeed. Makes me anxious that eventually it will go the way of the dodo. Even now uploading multiple image posts already requires switching over to the new design, multiple tables formatting is broken - the new features are not getting implemented in the classic mode anymore. Just a matter of time until something critical kills it off, imo.

Let's cross our fingers shall we?

Consistent design and usability!

'simple' is a kind way of describing the decline of this site.

ENSHITTIFICATION

This was the best read I’ve had this week, thanks!

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Spitballing

Maybe because people arent satisfied with the google results.

Googling "reddit" my car is making x noise can get people a lot farther than straight my car is making x noise.

Imo its the google equivalent of pressing 0 to talk to a real person.

/r/unpopularopinion: I like the new Reddit web interface, though it does have a few things to improve.

While that is absolutely true, in my opinion it has a lot more to do with reddit being the platform where this information actually exists in a readable form, rather than Google being bad at finding other places. Random forums not organized in to subreddits to focus knowledgeable people in to particular field, where they are more likely to see and respond to any given problem with some form of qualification, not using upvote/downvote system to get an idea how much bullshit a given reply has and thread layering to actually get to all relevant responses to any given comment quickly are always incomparably worse than information found on reddit. There's a good reason we are talking here right now.

i.reddit.com user here 😅

Huh. This looks weird. I should try this on my tablet later. I typically just browse in desktop mode.

Yes this is for mobile mode. However it loads seamlessly in low bandwidth situations.

I like new reddit. :( I find it easier to read

I can't comprehend how people can use anything other than old reddit

Mobile browser has gone to shit as well, breaks more often, slower to load, and in general is more of an eyesore.

You could say it's like a lightning in a bottle type deal when it comes to the sheer usability factor.

Reddit isn't getting simpler, it's getting shittier. It was simple like 6 years ago, now it's bloated with meaningless bullshit, awful redesign and shitty administration combined with shitty moderation.

>Nowadays it has the near-monopoly on web forum content to retain users
>
>despite newer horrendous layout design.

The funny thing about that is that I would likely never use Reddit for something that I would typically go to an existing forum for, you're not going to find the same type of community and interactions here you would find on a topic-dedicated forum, much less the granular level of discussion and information you'd likely be looking for.

I just loaded up the new Reddit. On my 1440p monitor I can see 3 stories.

On old Reddit I can see 20 stories.

I use new reddit, but turned on as many things to make it look like old reddit. I went back to old reddit once or twice, and it does look dated.

New reddit does have a lot to gain. And I don't care about the app to the point where I don't want to use reddit on mobile at all.

Jeff: Why are you two dressed like chefs?

Abed: We're cooking up new features for Reddit, Jeff.

Jeff: You idiots! If you keep adding and taking stuff away, the whole cafeteria is going to think Reddit is more unstable than they already do.

*Troy's fake mustache falls into the pot

Jeff: Reddit is fine. Just keep serving it and stop messing with something that works.

*Jeff leaves

Troy: I do think we should get the mustache out first.

Abed: No. I think it adds panache. The carrots are what's really throwing off the flavor. Start scooping.

Both: TROY AND ABED IN THE MO-O-RNING

I agree with that generally. Though a big part of that reason I think is most mainstream special interest communities established their main forum sites/communities long prior to the existence of reddit and "web 2.0" social media.

I would say that newer communities tend to coalesce around reddit / twitter / discord first now, because it's the path of least resistance. Communities focused on newer technologies / fandoms / arts from only the last decade or so seem much less likely to have dedicated high-traffic old-school forums now.

Wait... I can use Reddit on my phone through a third party app?!

You can also just use a webbrowser with desktop mode.