I'm a longtime mod in the /r/bicycling subreddit and have been a transit-alternatives advocate for years in 3 major cities, I'm a member of the lefty SF bike coalition, and am also a fan of strongtowns that leans toward the right side of the spectrum. This shouldn't be a left or right issue. I'd be happy to answer any questions about this topic.
We a former football quarterback was killed today because of dangerous pedestrian infrastructure. We lose 100 people in America per day due to, trivial fixable, dangerous automobile infrastructure. It's a death toll we happily ignore, because it's better to just not think about it.
They apparently edited the article at some point to mention the truck in the lede:
> Dwayne Haskins, an NFL quarterback drafted by Washington and on the roster of the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Saturday morning after being struck by a truck in South Florida. He was 24.
> I'm a longtime mod in the /r/bicycling subreddit
I was a Reddit mod for a while, but after I reflected on the fact that Reddit pulls in nearly $200MM in yearly revenue thanks part to my unpaid labor where I primarily deleted Youtube video spam posts and idiotic flame wars in comment threads, I decided to spend my time and energy elsewhere. The next logical step was to stop contributing anything at all of value to Reddit. So every once in a while I'll visit a few subreddits to see if anything new or interesting happens (i.e., sort by Top for the last month).
Unfortunately for r/bicycling I find the content to pretty much just be, "Hey everyone check out this picture of my bicycle!" If it's the goal of the sub to advocate for cycling infrastructure, I question how the top posts from just this past month accomplish that.
* Check out this picture of my bike in the Ukraine!
* Check out another picture of my bike in the Ukraine!
* Truck driver slows down and stays behind cyclist going through a rather long tunnel with no shoulder to keep said cyclist from what seems like certain death otherwise
* Cyclists near bike storage in the Netherlands lining up to leave the station
* Cyclist climbing a steep hill
* Cyclist forcing protesting trucks in DC to go slow
* Check out this picture of my bike! (And I'm depressed!)
* Check out this picture of my bike!
* Silly stationary bike that actually moves
* Check out this picture of my bike!
* Cyclist holding up a line of traffic on a remote mountain
road
* Cyclists riding gravel
* Check out this picture of my bike I got for cheap!
* Check out this picture of my bike!
* Calvin and Hobbes comic about bike/car drama
* Video of flying down a remote mountain road
* Picture of a mostly-empty bike storage room
* 50-ish mile bike ride map
* Video of a cyclist riding around for 60 miles
* Tesla crashed into a shop with a sign against bike lanes
* Check out this picture of my bike! And I rode 100 miles
Anyway, you get the idea. r/bicycling could be so much more, but for some reason few visitors there seems to care much about anything except people posting pictures of their bikes, and for a lot of what gets upvoted, I just don't see why it's really even all that novel or interesting.
I don't know how to fix that, or whether it's even really worth trying to fix. Like I said, I'm a jaded former mod on Reddit who just doesn't see much anything virtuous coming out of that platform.
It's not a bike problem or a reddit problem but a people problem. Forums were the same way if not worse because people had so much rep tied to their username. It's the same thing with all my different interests, it's like you can take out all the topic-specific language from the flamewars to the constant posts suggesting you buy x brand that the community has ordained as the best product there is for y use, and the forums would be perfectly interchangeable whether people are arguing/showing off about bicycles or skis or ham radios. The hobbiest internet self validates a lot of gear acquisition syndrome too. It's uncanny how similar they all feel no matter the topic at hand.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m generally fine with it. I don’t see Reddit as a vehicle to serve my interests, and I generally only passively moderate. Automod does most of the work.
People like sharing pics of their bikes and I think that’s fun, even if I mostly don’t care.
https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes
I'm a longtime mod in the /r/bicycling subreddit and have been a transit-alternatives advocate for years in 3 major cities, I'm a member of the lefty SF bike coalition, and am also a fan of strongtowns that leans toward the right side of the spectrum. This shouldn't be a left or right issue. I'd be happy to answer any questions about this topic.
We a former football quarterback was killed today because of dangerous pedestrian infrastructure. We lose 100 people in America per day due to, trivial fixable, dangerous automobile infrastructure. It's a death toll we happily ignore, because it's better to just not think about it.
https://www.strongtowns.org/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/04/09/dwayne-hask...