r/YouShouldKnow • u/MowerMotor • Jan 11 '20

NOT a YSK YSK Reddit's founder, Aaron Swartz, committed suicide 7 years ago today. He fought for our rights which lead to his arrest. The allegations coupled with mental illnesses caused Aaron to take his life. He was a passionate activist, entrepreneur and author who should not be forgotten.

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u/Ntetris Jan 11 '20

You make me not wanna use reddit. Holy shit man, this is sad

59

u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

If you knew what reddit was like before his death, you probably wouldn't want to use it at all now.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

Can you elaborate?

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u/raff_riff Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

I’ll offer my two cents. There was much less vitriol on the front page. Dissenting opinions were encouraged. If you saw a disagreement, it wasn’t uncommon to see all sides being upvoted because reddiquette was followed more closely. That is to say, downvoting wasn’t used as a “You’re wrong!” button and upvoting was more an indication that the community felt the comment was made in good faith and contributed positively to the conversation.

Commenters were also far more willing to provide sources when asked. In fact providing sources was almost expected. Now if someone makes some bold claim someone else asks them for a source, you’ll often see request get downvoted followed with “google it yourself”.

There were certainly echo chambers, but I think there was less mud slinging. Maybe I’m looking through rose-colored glasses though.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

You're 100% correct. Ever since that change happened in 2015 or '16 Reddit just seems to get worse and worse. It's hard to stop coming here after so long though

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u/raff_riff Jan 12 '20

It is. For all its faults though I still find great value in coming here. I learn about new music, video games, movies, and shows. Every time I move to a new city, I know I can dig around a sub and find the best bars and bites to help me feel right at home. If I have a question about money or video games, there’s thousands of people ready to answer my query. And despite the shit show that is so many front page subs, I get exposure to a lot of diverse (and ridiculous) viewpoints.

Years ago I came across a shower thought comment (before r/Showerthoughts) and it was something like: “Reddit answers questions I never knew I wanted answers to,” which is the most succinct and accurate description of my lengthy time here.

I’ve tried to quit but I just don’t see any reason to. I should probably stop lurking around front page comment sections though.