
Inside the Dramatic, Painful, and Hugely Successful Return of Reddit's Founders - dsr12
https://www.inc.com/magazine/201810/christine-lagorio-chafkin/reddit-we-are-the-nerds-steve-huffman-alexis-ohanian.html
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ndesaulniers
Was Aaron Swartz a cofounder?

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dangero
Depends on who you ask I believe. Both Reddit founders have gone on record
stating that he was not a co-founder. Wikipedia says Paul Graham says he was,
but he wasn't technically there since the beginning. He joined forces with
them through a merger of his project called Infogami six months into Reddit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)
[https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Aaron-Swartz-and-Steve-
Huffman...](https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Aaron-Swartz-and-Steve-Huffman-and-
Alexis-Ohanian-not-get-along)

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charlesism
If I were either of them, I'd be frantically doing whatever I could to
disassociate myself from Reddit. Five years from now Reddit will have slid off
the Alexa rankings. It will be replaced by two upstarts: one for moderate
users, and one for "edge lords."

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mark_l_watson
Wow, sorry but I strongly disagree! Reddit has good value as a customizable
and personal web site. Over time I adjust the subreddits on my home page as my
tech interests change and I enjoy seeing the community top ranked pictures
every morning. I have met and talked with Alexis and this article provided
interesting background on how he and Steve got back into running the company.
He explained to me why he and Steve dropped the Lisp version of Reddit.

BTW, I gave you +1 Your honest opinion does not deserve to get downvoted.

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charlesism
There's plenty of positives to Reddit. The trouble is that the prevailing
philosophy behind Reddit (and FB, Youtube, etc) doesn't accomplish what
everyone thought it would. We have been operating under the assumption that
"filter bubbles are bad" and that private businesses should uphold "free
speech" the way the judicial system does in the public realm.

In practice, it looks as though online conversations aren't constructive
unless the participants share a certain amount of common ground (eg: "first
principles" like whether the strong should dominate the weak, or whether all
"MSM" are part of a conspiracy and untrustworthy). I think in the future
social media startups will have a "point of view" and not try to cater to
everyone.

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pathseeker
>We have been operating under the assumption that "filter bubbles are bad"

The entire premise of Reddit is that filter bubbles are the solution. You get
to create bubbles for your own views called 'subreddits' where you can
moderate out any wrong-think until the remaining subscribers reinforce the
correct-think with their upvote/downvote mechanisms.

A system that operated under the assumption that "filter bubbles are bad"
would not allow its members to upvote/downvote each others' content so simply.

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charlesism
I worded that poorly. I mean filter bubbles are the right idea, but don't go
far enough. A site should should hold specific enough values that its users
can debate each other _in good faith_ , and so that admins can stamp out (what
they consider to be) toxic behavior without shocking half their users.

~~~
miemo
>specific enough values that its users can debate each other in good faith

you agree with me? great. wonderful debate thanks guys

~~~
charlesism
Just because two people are, say physicists or atheists or believers in
liberal democracy, doesn't mean they agree about everything (or even much at
all).

The past few years make me think that without sufficient common ground,
rational debate is impossible:

•Alice: "Rosemary's Baby is the best film ever." •Bob: "Devil woman! Satan is
speaking through you. But you can't fool me!"

•Alice: "My father just died. Everyone, give your dad a hug. You'll miss him
when he's gone." •Bob: "Cry me a river, loser! Cow farts. Cow farts. Hitler
was right!"

•Alice: "I didn't vote for Trump, but I am glad he's talking to North Korea"
•Bob: "Of course you are, Russian bot! I hope your handler is happy"

•Alice: "I used to be a cop, and this video is way over the line." •Bob:
"Antifa scum! How much does Soros pay you to write this BLM propaganda?"

•Alice: "Just a reminder that you can get a free vaccination today, if you
live in Charleston." •Bob: "Great, free autism everybody! Bet you'll trot out
your MSM 'facts' now. Science is the new religion."

The web is so full it's bursting with "debates" like these. They are not worth
having. They do not change anyone's mind. They cause people to dig in. They
just further divide society.

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Cthulhu_
In all of those cases, Bob is being a dick. A rule to not be a dick is pretty
straightforward and can be enforced by moderators.

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jandrese
Moderators don't scale very well though. Those filter bubbles are really just
letting the users do their own moderation. This reduces the scope of the site
moderators job down to enforcing the rules.

If you try to do everything through the global site moderators you immediately
get pulled into arguments like this: User 1: You need to ban User 2 because he
is a racist. User 2: I only said that User 1's views are not supported by
evidence. User 1: My views are well supported by my life experiences, and
there is no good evidence because the government outlawed funding for research
into them.

It's a no win situation, and neither side is going to change their mind and
there's no clear winner. They're going to bicker and raise your noise floor
constantly though. It's much better for site health if they can be isolated
from one another, and better for your moderator's health if they do it
automatically by themselves.

This is the messy messy world of real life.

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shawn
An interesting question: how did the founders of Reddit make it worth their
time to return to Reddit after having sold to Conde Nast? There must not be
many startups where founders have sold and then returned, right?

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rangibaby
Apple and Dell are two off the top of my head

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rebel
I believe Skype was another

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_Marak_
...

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actionscripted
To be fair and a little blunt, this is about founders returning to their
product and gives a backstory about those returning. Aaron can't really
return, so it makes sense he's not mentioned in this article.

I believe he's mentioned in the book the article is excerpting, "We Are the
Nerds".

