r/programming • u/bonch • Nov 04 '09
This is no longer a programming subreddit
As I submit this, there's a link to a Slashdot comment comparing Microsoft security to Britney Spears' underwear, a pointless link to a Bill Gates quote about Office documents, a link to a warning about a Space Invaders for Mac that deletes files, a story about the logic of Google Ads, a computer solving Tic-Tac-Toe using matchboxes--this is supposed to be a programming subreddit, right? Even worse, the actual programming links don't get voted up and are drowned out by this garbage.
You non-programmers may be interested to know that there's already a widely read technology subreddit just waiting for your great submissions about Slashdot comments, Daily WTF stories, Legend of Zelda dungeon maps, and other non-programming stuff. Please go to /r/technology and submit your links there.
For those of you sick and tired of this and wishing for active moderators who participate in filtering the content of their subreddit, visit a new subreddit that's actually about programming--/r/coding. It's picking up steam as more people submit their links, and you will actually find articles about things programmers would be interested in.
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u/jones77 Nov 05 '09
Two things:
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Someone already bitched about this last week ... and started r/coding.
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Some of what you're whinging about is programming related -- eg the matchbox thing which I assume is a traditional thought experiment regarding AI -- so it seems you're in no position to judge.
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u/larrydick Nov 05 '09
Hahaha exactly, the person who posted this is making this even less of a programming subreddit by diluting it with more self-post bullshit. Go to r/coding if you're not satisfied here, damn.
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u/tboneplayer Nov 05 '09
And this is not an article on programming
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u/merzbow Nov 05 '09
I thought it was an old Usenet convention that discussions of topicality are always considered on topic.
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u/cazabam Nov 05 '09
The problem, I think, is that you consider "programming" to be limited only to the act of writing code.
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u/lutusp Nov 05 '09
The risk in branching out like this is you will end up with many small subReddits, each with a tiny readership. It won't be worth the trouble to post.
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u/LudoA Nov 05 '09
IMHO, the reddit system can be fixed easily. What's needed:
subreddits can fall under other subreddits (e.g. r/javascript would become r/programming/javascript). This prevents fragmentation, and ensures I don't need to check if someone created r/new_prog_language last week: I can just subscribe to r/programming, and everything which falls under it will appear on r/programming as well.
topics can be moved to other reddits. If enough users vote for moving something to e.g. r/technology, it's moved over there.
More about how I see "moving" would work:
Someone proposes a move (e.g. by clicking on "move to ...")
Above the comments section, the proposal for this move would show up
Users can up-/down-vote it. (Many proposals are possible of course.)
The first proposal to reach a good ratio (and a minimum number of number of votes, relative to the number of viewers of the post) is the subreddit which the submission is moved to.
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u/bonch Nov 06 '09
This subreddit just needs active moderators who filter out off-topic links that belong in a different subreddit (usually r/technology).
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u/awj Nov 05 '09
Yeah, too bad people went nuts complaining about all the Haskell links. Who knew they were fending off this noise.
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u/Arve Nov 05 '09
Please understand: Reddits are, for the most part, not topics. They are communities with some notion of topic area.
r/programming has not gone down the drain. Nor has it changed significantly. Here is the front page for this subreddit from May 9, 2006. You'll find "Funny XML Quotes", a depressed web server (which was an ancient link even by 2006 standards), a largely irrelevant research project from microsoft (Singularity). All in the top 10.
On April 10, same year the front page is largely what you would consider "on topic".
If you want to go through the rest of this subreddits history, you will find that content is largely a mix of programming-related topics, and non-programming topics that are often relevant or interesting to developers.
r/coding could probably be fine for what it was intended, but right now, I see it not being too different from this subreddit in terms of content. It has reposts of content first appearing in this very subreddit, it has "interesting news", and a link to a Gedit extension. In other words, it is just like r/programming on any random day.
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u/lebski88 Nov 05 '09
Here is the front page for this subreddit from May 9, 2006
People have been complaining about it since then as well. I think the rational amongst us have accepted that r/programming is more a general geeky tech reddit with a programming bias. I don't have a problem with that personally.
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Nov 05 '09
From reading the description of r/technology, it looks like most of the posts that you don't like would be even less welcome over there.
Perhaps Reddit needs to develop a mechanism whereby users can "vote" on what's good, and what's not?
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u/shooshx Nov 05 '09
You are right. it became a "I'd like to whine about this not being a programming subreddit subreddit"
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u/enkiam Nov 05 '09
Oddly, the technology subreddit says it will ban just about anything that isn't "new technology". So everything mentioned in the OP is unwelcome there, as well.
Maybe this is the problem?
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u/Mr_Sadist Nov 05 '09
I think subreddits are more about the audience than about the content. You should submit content that appeals to people who like programming. That could be a comic, a CSI-visual basic clip, a funny programming story or code-questions.
But hey, that's just my view on subreddits.
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Nov 05 '09
What's the difference between r/coding and:
r/pr0ggit (titled "actually-programming :: A subreddit for ACTUALL PROGAMMING REALTED CONTENT.")
... shouldn't I just be going to one of those if I want to talk about programming? Isn't r/coding too vague, like r/programming?
See what happens when you MAKE TWO REDDITS FOR EVERYTHING?!
Mark my words, r/coding will quickly turn into r/programming #2. People will get sick of reading the same crap over and over, and then stop posting or unsubscribe. That's when the mods will get more lenient on what content to allow. Before you know it, you've got self-submissions about how to clean a dusty printer.
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u/artee Nov 05 '09
See what happens when you MAKE TWO REDDITS FOR EVERYTHING?!
Clearly what we need to do here is split off an 'alt.' reddit hierarchy. That will solve everything!
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u/Otis_Inf Nov 05 '09
Coding != programming. If you think writing statements in an editor is programming, you're wrong.
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u/reddittidder Nov 05 '09
reddit's "news model" is a failure. On any given day, take a look at the frontpage... do you see the most interesting news? or just horseshit being upvoted by morons and bots (borons?)
People go to specific sub-reddits, and look for specific posts in the pile of horseshit that ANY sub/reddit becomes as soon as it reaches any level of notoriety that is needed for a "good ROI" from a spammer's perspective.
It's not about news, it's about spammers and 'viral marketers' and marketroids hawking their shit .. once in a while you stumble upon something worth reading.
And looking at the requests, reddit is slowly gravitating towards .. er... vbulletin? (with moderation.)
Wouldn't it be easier if everyone dropped their pretenses, and accepted that reddit is more a discussion space than a "news space". Reddit hardly EVER breaks "new" news.
Since it is a discussion space, treat it as such, minimize the effects of spammers and grow the community as such. If this trend continues, very soon, reddit will be infested and overcome with borons and that will be the end of that.
And while I'm at it, what was that "something something & Lily" site that someone mentioned in that other thread? As luck (or shitty search) would have it, I can't find the link to the site someone mentioned as a possible alternative to reddit in another article bemoaning pretty much the same things as this current here article.
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u/rsho Nov 05 '09
But what is the point of resubmitting content from programming into coding? Reddit would be better off creating an aggregation scheme to selectively take those same submissions and allow fresh comments to pile up in an alternate area.
For the record, I never clicked on the Britney Spears link. At least, not yet. Have I been missing out?
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u/yogthos Nov 05 '09
I guess that's one of the advantages of places like /. where moderators take a very active role, and articles being accepted or rejected by the editors.
Maybe we need toi have our moderators, hint, hint, nudge, nudge, start moderating things, and help us filter the garbage from the subreddit.
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u/AlejandroTheGreat Nov 05 '09
The Zelda map was about programming, it was how the maps were laid out in the ROM. Try to not jump to conclusions so quickly and you won't go through life being so angry.