
Ask HN: Do you still use reddit.com? - asmbaty
What are some good subreddits you visit on Reddit.com?
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ragalaga
Like others have said reddit is most useful the smaller the subreddit is. I
use:

/r/hardwareswap, /r/buildapcsales, and /r/homelabsales as an alternative to
ebay

/r/selfhosted, /r/homelab, and /r/datahoarder for new project ideas

/r/sffpc, /r/mechinicalkeyboards, /r/watches for fun

/r/unixporn, /r/firefoxcss, and /r/pop_os for wasting time

/r/deepintoyoutube and /r/youtubehaiku are pretty fun too

~~~
khun
Yes, small niche subreddits are really good. Sometimes they are the only place
where you will find a particular community on the internet.

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superasn
No, I don't know but like Facebook I just stopped using it alltogether one day
and I don't miss using it at all.

The only thing I use reddit for nowadays is when I'm looking for suggestions
like best vpn, best headphones, etc.

Instead of just googling these keywords I often use e.g. "reddit usenet
providers", etc and I find that the quality of results is much higher than
google's blogspam.

~~~
searchableguy
I use discord for that now.

Reddit's quality in recommendation is not great when it comes to tech. I was
looking for a laptop and suggestions made were better than your average
consumer guy but still sucked.

Also for headphones too. Almost anything tbh.

They all end up with American brands whereas there are many nice brands
outside of USA or Canada.

There is lot of astroturfing going on. Discord is less prone because usually
it's private and split into small groups. Hard work for dem marketers.

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robtherobber
Absolutely. It has some really nice communities on a number of niches, you can
find some amazing in-depth answers from specialists in many corners of the
society and the curation of some channels is excellent. When Digg f-cked up, a
generous amount of users onboarded Reddit.

I couldn't find another online platform around topics that interest me that's
simple enough to join and participate as Reddit (Stack Overflow comes close,
but is also one of the most abrupt social networks out there). I rarely engage
in commenting, but I do submit & read quite a bit of content in the channels I
follow.

old.reddit.com is still the best format, in my opinion. Like HN, keeping it
simple and focused on the _content_ instead of the users will ensure to some
degree that the right type of public will be interested to spend time around
there. This, I suspect, is where almost every other social platform fails and
becomes perishable. And probably desperate monetisation efforts, like Quora.

As with every social platform, the more popular it becomes, the more often you
find low quality content and users trying to take advantage of the traffic or
business generation potential offered by the platform.

LE: typos & suggested channels.

Channels I can recommend (though some are quite niched)

\- r/AbandonedPorn/ (images)

\- r/AcademicPhilosophy/

\- r/Archivists/

\- r/bestof/ (arguably best user comments)

\- r/indepthstories/ (long form articles)

\- r/longform/ (long form articles)

\- r/Longreads/ (long form articles)

\- r/TrueReddit/ (long form articles)

\- r/privacytoolsIO/

\- r/selfhosted/

\- r/stopworking/

~~~
khun
r/privacytoolsio is really good. I find it more accessible and friendlier than
r/privacy

------
x092
I found that reddit has grown some very nice communities around topics I care
about. As long as I try just a little bit to avoid the distractions that other
subreddits bring, it gives great value. Some subreddits I joined are r/compsci
r/linux r/programminglanguages

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djhworld
I use it every day. My favourite subreddits are

/r/london

/r/rust

/r/golang

/r/UKPersonalFinance

/r/Games

/r/linux

EDIT: and I always use old.reddit.com. The new site is a disaster.

~~~
sfjailbird
Have they released any statistics about the redesign? Reddit is only usable to
me with the old interface. I can only imagine new users will run away
screaming, if they only see the new Reddit.

~~~
djhworld
I honestly could not care less about statistics of the redesign, although user
numbers would be interesting

The new design is an absolute train wreck, it loads in slowly, feels like
you're constantly running through treacle to do anything, let alone it gives
my CPU fan a workout just to scroll through a page.

The old design runs butter smooth, almost instantaneous. Navigating feels
light and quick and it feels functional. I'm really hoping they don't turn off
the old design because that will be a real sad day.

~~~
qplex
Beside the heavy-ness, I've found the site unusable with mobile browsers
because it constantly nags you in various different ways to "try out" their
app.

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0xy
Is it just me or is Reddit.com (non-old) intentionally bad? It feels like
they've deliberately slowed down the website in order to force you to use the
app.

It's worse in practically every way. I genuinely wonder if any of the PMs or
developers who worked on it have ever worked on high-traffic websites before.

~~~
voicedYoda
IIRC It was done to make the site more accessible to a wider audience,
specifically on mobile devices.

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switch11
Yes

There are lots of cons and a few pros

It's best to think of Reddit as a giant grouping of millions of subreddits

Some very good some good Many terrible some absolutely terrible

1) Use old.reddit.com

the new site is terrible

2) The more niche you go, the better the experience

3) Be prepared for the worst kind of idiots you can imagine. If you end up in
a subreddit like that, get out ASAP

4) There are lots of very smart and helpful people. If you are interested in
any topic, you will find something devoted to it

5) Be very careful time wise, it's a great time waster and you should avoid
things that are negative and/or useless

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m-p-3
On desktop I don't mind the new interface too much, on mobile (Android) I use
Sync for Reddit. I bought the "Pro" version in 2012 and I'm still using it
today.

It did evolve quite a bit since.

Some subreddits I enjoy are * /r/selfhosted * /r/sysadmin * /r/HighQualityGifs
* /r/talesfromtechsupport * /r/IDontWorkHereLady * /r/GifRecipes *
/r/bapcsalescanada * /r/sffpc * /r/GamePhysics

------
EasyTiger_
No. It’s astroturfed to an insane degree, controlled by power-mods with an
obvious agenda and I don’t find it a particularly friendly or healthy place
anymore.

~~~
0xy
The power-mods are so obviously controlled by multiple people or agencies that
it's insane they haven't been banned.

Some of them literally post 24/7, all content violating their own subs' rules,
and usually partisan political junk.

------
jasoneckert
I still do - I'm sure if I look around more, I'd find a few more gems on
there, buy my favourite four right now are:

/r/unixporn

/r/linux

/r/retrobattlestations

/r/vintagecomputing

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marksbrown
I lived on ukpolitics for most of the last decade. I can safely say that was
the stupidest decision of the 2010s.

~~~
bjohnson225
R/Unitedkingdom and ukpolitics are both dreadful. The dominant views are
completely detached from the country as a whole. And as a bonus it’s
depressing as hell to read.

~~~
EasyTiger_
It’s due to serious amounts of astroturfing

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rurban
No, old.reddit.com

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chadcmulligan
Some I haven't seen mentioned

r/sfwpornnetwork/wiki/network links to all the sfw porn network some great
pictures depending on your interests and to waste some time

for graphics r/vfx r/simulated r/gamedev/ r/generative/ r/blender

for idle time r/DIY r/ArtisanVideos r/BeAmazed/ r/bizarrebuildings/
r/EngineeringPorn/ r/ScientificArt/ r/Lost_Architecture/ r/specializedtools/

for food ideas r/EatCheapAndHealthy/ r/chinesefood

for book recommendations r/books r/scifi

~~~
voicedYoda
Also love r/diWhyNot

~~~
chadcmulligan
looks fun, r/redneckengineering/ is another I forgot to mention

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kasperni
10 minutes of r/aww before bedtime is a nice way to unwind.

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decibe1
Less and less. I don't care about the larger subs - but even niche subs are
getting silenced without breaking site rules. While activist subs that openly
and actively brigade are left alone. There are less and less places to have
conversations outside the Overton window. thedonald.win is good for a laugh,
but voat and gab are just cesspools.

------
Swisstone
Yes, my favs:

r/askscience/

r/coolguides/

/r/DidntKnowIWantedThat/

r/EngineeringPorn/

r/Infographics/

r/interestingasfuck/

r/LifeProTips/

r/BeAmazed/

r/todayilearned/

r/Showerthoughts/

r/oddlysatisfying/

~~~
lokedhs
hydrohomies

hotsauce

mtb

common_lisp

------
pizzicato
Some subreddits I like: Books: r/books, r/fantasy, r/printsf

Games: r/lowendgaming, r/patientgamers, r/roguelikes, r/interactivefiction,
r/shouldibuythisgame

Music: r/listentothis

Misc: r/arduino, r/thinkpad, r/cyberdeck, r/raspberry_pi

Fun(ny) stuff: r/disneyvacation, r/boottoobig, r/sbubby

Edit: formatting

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jamesholden
I do. I know it has a reputation, but I have found Reddit has some great
communities, interesting and helpful people, and a lot to explore and
experience. Sure hanging out in /r/thedonald or whatever is going to be a
toxic experience. /r/unixporn? Not so much. :D

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ryder9
Do you still use news.ycombinator.com ?

~~~
ratherlongname
of course I do

~~~
rozab
The joke is that people normally just call it reddit

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disposekinetics
You can get an RSS feed of any sub, you can enjoy a small and specific topic
without ever visiting the site itself.

Can I recommend r/abstractgames/ it's a very small community designing and
playing games.

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nealsama
I am partial to user research and startups, so some of my favorites are:

/r/Entrepreneur

/r/GrowthHacking

/r/prodmgmt

/r/product_design

/r/ProductManagement

/r/startups

/r/usability

/r/userexperience

/r/UserExperienceDesign

/r/UXResearch

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wcoenen
The only functional subreddit I've found so far is /r/spacex, that's the only
one I visit regularly.

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voicedYoda
I use the reddit enhancement suite, which only seems to work with the old
site. Without res, I'm never on it.

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xboxnolifes
Yes, just unsubscribe to all default subs and sub to the communities that are
relevant to your interests.

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maxdejesus
r/ProgrammerHumor is pretty good

~~~
ryder9
yeah 13 year old me would have loved that sub

------
kjsingh
/r/idiotsincars /r/batman /r/scala /r/me_irl

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gtt
Only niche or non mainstream subreddits. Anything popular is absolutely cursed
those days.

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jpmoral
I use it for reading about

Clash Royale Australian personal finance Pen-and-paper RPGs, mostly D&D

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baal80spam
I use it but more and more I see how big an echo chamber most popular reddits
are.

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pc123
I use it only for NSFW content (mostly OC from real users).

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lihaciudaniel
Hacker News is a subreddit of sorts

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agumonkey
less than I used to but mostly because I changed and want to do more and read
less

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triyambakam
r/LockdownScepticism and r/conspiracy

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fattybob
less and less...

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audessuscest
reddit content is mostly editorialized now, so it's not the same website that
is used to be. Now it's one more media in the end of the mainstream. Useless
and not interesting.

