Google is dead. Long live Google + “site:reddit.com”

Switch to Duckduckgo. No data saved, no activity reported to anyone.

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Uh…

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If I want to know all the issues with a particular piece of hardware, I’ll search directly on Reddit for a subreddit where all the bro guys argue.
If I want information, I’ll do a Boolean search on Google and then rage as the first 4 results do not have one or more of the search keywords, because it then asks me if I want to include that term. Well, duh, of course, that’s why I typed it!
If I want a recipe, I won’t use Google. The first 6 pages of any recipe search are clickfarms, not recipe sites. I’d rather search through the indexes of dozens of cookbooks than deal with that.

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about half the blog entries here come direct from reddit posts. u r welcome

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And I get to see takes on those posts from a community that I enjoy!

sure –– but fact is you are getting your information and opinions (on what are popular posts) from reddit.

you want to kid yourself, be my guest

I am not sure that you understand that what I don’t like about reddit is interacting with the community on Reddit. That community is not here, though it is very obvious that some people are staunch reddit users and also use boingboing. They are also usually not the people that make reddit an unpleasant place. If they are the mods here actually do something about it.

I am not kidding myself, I am just not going to reddit, which was my original point.

Boingboing does not exist because it steals content from reddit. It exists because it stole content from laughing squid and hundreds of other places before reddit existed and it will continue to exist after reddit dies, stealing content from places that don’t even exist yet.

Boingboing’s value to me comes from the curation and commentary provided by site’s editors and from the community of commenters on the bbs, all of which is independent of the sources of the content.

ETA: Bring back comments on store posts you cowards!

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Ugh. There are parts of reddit that are toxic, and there are parts of reddit that are far from toxic. And there are parts of reddit that are useful and parts that are not useful.

Google has forced us to consider using something as squishy as “reputation” as a proxy for usefulness. Instead of giving us the the tools to find the information that is useful for us, we have to go about it in a roundabout way. This is backwards.

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As fun as it is to bash reddit, if people stay out of the big subs and look for targeted things they care about, reddit actually can be really useful. I can see why people would use google’s searches to try to look for useful information on there. It’s pretty hit or miss though depending on what you are trying to find out about.

Like it’s a great place to find, say, swatches of an eyeshadow one might want to buy, for instance. It’s great for finding out what a local grocery store is putting on sale too or follow information about a very specific interest or hobby. So when it comes to niche discussions like that online yeah I can see it being a resource, and useful too, but it’s also a place where you can find anyone saying anything somewhere so there’s that.

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Isn’t this more of a pinterist thing?

Not really. Reddit is huge and there’s something for everybody there - and this can be negative, yes, but also positive.

I’m in a subreddit for a medical condition I have, and it’s a nice and supportive environment. I’m also in subreddits for specific things like r/AskHistorians, r/Astronomy, etc. as well as some niche things I do and like, and I’ve had really nice discussions. Sure, I come across dicks every now and then, but dicks are everywhere. If you stay out of the “controversial” subreddits, and the obvious cesspits, Reddit is not a bad place to be on the internet. (I mean, I’ve had my own country’s history USAsplained to me by members of this board, even after I pointed out that they were events I experienced first-hand…)

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No. Why would it be? I honestly don’t know who uses pinterest for anything anymore though unless you like decontextualized images with no obvious link to whatever it was you wanted to find out about and mlm spam. With reddit you can get coherent information along with a picture, and you don’t even have to sign up to do it. It’s a definite advantage for people looking for specific information like what types of colors are in a specific set and how that looks on a specific type of skin etc. while getting context insofar as how people like the product now that they’ve used it (is there something cheaper they like better, did it give them a rash, whatever).

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Because text-heavy reddit is for men and image-heavy pintrists is for females… /s

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Ah I get it cause makeup is for women and women love bad web interfaces! /s

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Hmm. The big problem with pinterist imho is that people don’t cite their stuff consistently. That and the obnoxious ads. But that’s true of similar boards on reddit too.

Facebook is really frustrating-- they do horrible things to links and if someone says they want research help, a response that may contain a long detailed analysis is trunctated to a little itty bitty two sentence reply.

I’ve dipped my toe into reddit over the past few months… and the results have been mixed. I’ve read some great conversations, and I’ve seen fights blow up over the smallest things (sometimes in the same thread.) The signal-to-noise ratio varies, depending on subject matter, degree of moderation, and the participants invoved… just like any other platform on the web, including this site. :woman_shrugging: I can see how reddit’s gotten its poor reputation, because things can turn toxic very quickly, especially if mods are slow to respond. Yet some of the subs are decent communities, and I’ve learned a thing or two there. YMMV.

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Yeah, in this tragic age of media consolidation, Reddit is probably one of the better ways to find out what’s actually going on locally and get a variety of opinion on things. Remember how every major Canadian newspaper aside from the Toronto Star endorsed the conservatives last election? Yeah…

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My particular reddit experience has trended strongly to the positive. There are areas I stay the hell away from. But generally, if I’m looking for someone’s experience of a product / condition / location, I can be relatively sure that I’m hearing from actual people, which puts it way above most web results. Specialized forums are usually better, but they’re getting harder and harder to find. Comparing results (forum vs reddit) can be very enlightening. It just depends on the specific niche you’re looking at.

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Because text-heavy reddit is for men people who don’t post images in every response and image-heavy pintrists is for females people who share images,

Neither is ideal but one cannot turn ideals iinto money, so…

Ah… well let me have a sharing moment then. People who like talking about makeup like talking about makeup! People like to share skincare routines, ask questions, get tips, compare experiences, etc etc same as any other hobby or interest. Like I said I’m not really sure what people use pinterest for, I think it’s fundamentally broken, but it’s certainly no use to anyone who is looking for detailed and specific information. Think of it this way, if I’m looking for a good moisturizer that works all right with similar skin issues to mine then finding one or two pictures of pretty girls with the name of a brand of moisturizer is literally no use. Reddit is full of image posts though too so? IDK ymmv? Like there’s an entire subreddit for posting in-game selfies for pretty much any mmo. And there’s one only for posting pictures of cats standing up.

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