I found this commentary on the Reddit platform striking. Parallels here, in the context of Audio and DIY?
[–]PackOfWildCorndogs 4 points an hour ago
I feel the same, I love being forced to reconsider my opinion or perspective, and that’s something I am regularly pushed to do on here. Spending time on Reddit over the years has increased my empathy for, and understanding of, the experiences of people with different worldviews than me. Less quick to judge, more tolerant in general. Plenty of complaints and fully aware that you can forget it’s an echo chamber itself sometimes, but I think my time is much better spent here engaging in, and reading, (mostly) civil debate with people who think differently than me, and have had vastly different experiences than me.
I lurk in a lot of subs that I don’t engage with, because they neither need nor want my thoughts, but reading their thoughts and debates helps me be a more informed fellow human with a more tolerant worldview. I wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to these groups organically in my day to day life. It’s also helped me to become a more discerning and skeptical news consumer — reading some of these conversations helps give some nuance to headlines and the claims they contain. I can go to some of th subreddits where I know the group or event referenced in the headline likes to congregate, and almost immediately I can see where the headline is sensationalized, or the motivation behind it (positive or negative), by reading the conversations of the people involved or affected by the event. Again, not perfect, but it’s a really effective way to add some depth and texture to the topic, beyond just the news as it is being reported.
Aside from being an endless source of satisfaction for intellectual curiosity, some redditors are funny as ****. Little unexpected bursts of dopamine/laughter in the comment sections isn’t something I can regularly expect in comment sections on Instagram, which usually only leave me feeling a tinge of deflation seeing the lack of critical thought and hardcore tribalism, with zero nuance or effort at coherence. Reddit upvote system isn’t perfect and it’s easily manipulated by users and mods, but the highest effort, most thoughtful, valuable comments are often the most visible, so I feel like even my time spent is more efficient on here than in the comments of platforms like TT & IG, where there is no rhyme or reason to the most visible comments, and more concerningly, where the comments that are most visible to you are dictated by the algorithm.
For example: My mom (right leaning views) and I (left leaning views) looked at the same Instagram post with thousands of comments, at the same time, side by side, from our own phones/IG accounts, and the comments that were visible to her were entirely different than the comments I was being shown. The algo exists to reinforce your echo chamber over and over again, by serving you the content and comments that the algo has determined you’re most likely to engage with. Two people looking at the same post, at the same time, in the same physical location, are having two entirely different (and oppositional) user experiences. It’s a bit disturbing, even when you know why it’s happening. And yes I’m aware Reddit algo does similar, and has of issues with brigading and bot manipulation, but at least I can see all of the comments if I really want to. On other platforms, it’s not as easy to see the full spectrum of comments when you want to.
[–]PackOfWildCorndogs 4 points an hour ago
I feel the same, I love being forced to reconsider my opinion or perspective, and that’s something I am regularly pushed to do on here. Spending time on Reddit over the years has increased my empathy for, and understanding of, the experiences of people with different worldviews than me. Less quick to judge, more tolerant in general. Plenty of complaints and fully aware that you can forget it’s an echo chamber itself sometimes, but I think my time is much better spent here engaging in, and reading, (mostly) civil debate with people who think differently than me, and have had vastly different experiences than me.
I lurk in a lot of subs that I don’t engage with, because they neither need nor want my thoughts, but reading their thoughts and debates helps me be a more informed fellow human with a more tolerant worldview. I wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to these groups organically in my day to day life. It’s also helped me to become a more discerning and skeptical news consumer — reading some of these conversations helps give some nuance to headlines and the claims they contain. I can go to some of th subreddits where I know the group or event referenced in the headline likes to congregate, and almost immediately I can see where the headline is sensationalized, or the motivation behind it (positive or negative), by reading the conversations of the people involved or affected by the event. Again, not perfect, but it’s a really effective way to add some depth and texture to the topic, beyond just the news as it is being reported.
Aside from being an endless source of satisfaction for intellectual curiosity, some redditors are funny as ****. Little unexpected bursts of dopamine/laughter in the comment sections isn’t something I can regularly expect in comment sections on Instagram, which usually only leave me feeling a tinge of deflation seeing the lack of critical thought and hardcore tribalism, with zero nuance or effort at coherence. Reddit upvote system isn’t perfect and it’s easily manipulated by users and mods, but the highest effort, most thoughtful, valuable comments are often the most visible, so I feel like even my time spent is more efficient on here than in the comments of platforms like TT & IG, where there is no rhyme or reason to the most visible comments, and more concerningly, where the comments that are most visible to you are dictated by the algorithm.
For example: My mom (right leaning views) and I (left leaning views) looked at the same Instagram post with thousands of comments, at the same time, side by side, from our own phones/IG accounts, and the comments that were visible to her were entirely different than the comments I was being shown. The algo exists to reinforce your echo chamber over and over again, by serving you the content and comments that the algo has determined you’re most likely to engage with. Two people looking at the same post, at the same time, in the same physical location, are having two entirely different (and oppositional) user experiences. It’s a bit disturbing, even when you know why it’s happening. And yes I’m aware Reddit algo does similar, and has of issues with brigading and bot manipulation, but at least I can see all of the comments if I really want to. On other platforms, it’s not as easy to see the full spectrum of comments when you want to.
In my view, it is the worst platform for engaging people on an intellectual level. It is nothing like this site, or any real forum where people put in the effort to think. Reddit is also devoid of sensible moderation and respect fellow humans.
During the pandemic, Reddit became a gatekeeper’s dream as a social clout farm and vanity club for the unelected who wanted to set world policy as they saw fit. It became a septic tank of wokewashing by thought police who played the part of “Good Shepard” while telling what others were allowed to think.
The upvote/downvote system is manipulated by bots and is used to beat down posts that it does not like, and many replies are also AI.
I had seen people with genuine concerns that were mob attacked, and that’s part of why I refuse to partake.
During the pandemic, Reddit became a gatekeeper’s dream as a social clout farm and vanity club for the unelected who wanted to set world policy as they saw fit. It became a septic tank of wokewashing by thought police who played the part of “Good Shepard” while telling what others were allowed to think.
The upvote/downvote system is manipulated by bots and is used to beat down posts that it does not like, and many replies are also AI.
I had seen people with genuine concerns that were mob attacked, and that’s part of why I refuse to partake.
Reddit is like any other social media, i.e. user needs to develop effective search and filter techniques. It has often been a source of great information for me when seeking specific assistance not offered on other sites, e.g. r/hvacadvice, r/identitytheft, r/plumbing, etc. Actual HVAC techs and Plumbers hang out on these subreddits!
Social media is polarising our planet like never before.
I was in the Reddit "audiophile" forum... for a few months until the "moderator" and I went at it, privately.
Turns out the guy is a active in ASR and a complete dimbulb.
He did not appreciate my honest comments that picking up a Radio Shack 8 track for 10 bucks at the local Salvation Army, cleaning it up and posting it for sale on eBay for 100 bucks as a "rare audiophile jewel" was an honest thing to do.
By that time, I had had quite a few people from that forum that had started PM'ing me about audio topics... I guess the Moderator was a known little 💩 who did not tolerate much deviation from HIS rules and opinions. So, people were bypassing him any way they could. Moi, of course, I don't much give a hoot about such intellectual mini frogs (*) so we went at it.
The little Gestapo Gruppenführer threatened to "get rid of me", so I told him to eat 💩 , removed ALL of my posts from Reddit and then cancelled my account.
Later, I found him over at ASR.... So I sent him a nice little PM..... for all I know, he's still in there....
Reddit... not a very smart place to be honest. There are precious very, very few "social media" places that I enjoy, this being one of them.
(*) Mind you, I don't mean to insult little frogs, if you are a mini frog, please accept my apology.
Turns out the guy is a active in ASR and a complete dimbulb.
He did not appreciate my honest comments that picking up a Radio Shack 8 track for 10 bucks at the local Salvation Army, cleaning it up and posting it for sale on eBay for 100 bucks as a "rare audiophile jewel" was an honest thing to do.
By that time, I had had quite a few people from that forum that had started PM'ing me about audio topics... I guess the Moderator was a known little 💩 who did not tolerate much deviation from HIS rules and opinions. So, people were bypassing him any way they could. Moi, of course, I don't much give a hoot about such intellectual mini frogs (*) so we went at it.
The little Gestapo Gruppenführer threatened to "get rid of me", so I told him to eat 💩 , removed ALL of my posts from Reddit and then cancelled my account.
Later, I found him over at ASR.... So I sent him a nice little PM..... for all I know, he's still in there....
Reddit... not a very smart place to be honest. There are precious very, very few "social media" places that I enjoy, this being one of them.
(*) Mind you, I don't mean to insult little frogs, if you are a mini frog, please accept my apology.
diyAudio is still the best community I've seen.
Moderation team, yeah they do a good job, but they are expensive. Do you know how much beer it costs to stick around?
But I think it's more, it's the quality of the people around and the humor. Not to be too grandiose, but in most forums I feel like Einstein.. 😉🤣. in these forums I do a lot of learning. I feel like Hal Lewis. 😕 🤔🤓
Cheers.
But I think it's more, it's the quality of the people around and the humor. Not to be too grandiose, but in most forums I feel like Einstein.. 😉🤣. in these forums I do a lot of learning. I feel like Hal Lewis. 😕 🤔🤓
Cheers.
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Cheers.
STOP posting pictures, showing things I like, that I can´t find in my country.
Makes me wanna cry 😍
Me too, I feel this is one that place fulfills the promise of what the internet was meant to be. Funny, I've never really thought of it as social media!
I think a huge difference between sites like this vs say a reddit or instagram, fb, X etc. Here advertisers know pretty much the target is audio/electronics, so the ads are easy to target. Anyone ever seen a diaper ad on this site as just one example. Generic social media sites don't know without knowledge of your comments what your interests are and what ads you should be served. And then to increase your engagement, they target content to trigger your dopamine even more to serve you even more ads. My view is just don't do any of them. I cancelled my linked in after uSoft bought it. It had already started circling the drain before they bought it. Remember, YOU are the product in social media. And they will sell everything they know about YOU. I've never had an account on any of the generics. I am not product.
Everyone is here because they are interested in building, repairing, improving, learning, and experimenting with audio electronics, and of course a love of music. The attitude here is pretty unique in that it is a friendly and polite (and very supportive and helpful) environment, with the help of the moderators of course. There are instances where someone has been insulting or disrespectful, but not very often that I have seen at least. Everyone is capable of saying something stupid before thinking, ask my wife, she'll tell you how much of an idiot I can be. The group here is very adult, and professional, which helps, and this is not a place for political or religious discussion, fortunately. The ads here kept out of the way, unlike many other sites, they can try to sell whatever, it doesn't mean I have to buy it. As far as Reddit or any other social media site, any one persons opinion is legitimate, at least to them, as it is subjective. And of course, it is what you make it, tempering expectations, and maybe knowing when to be quiet.
Sometimes I will find myself in another forum.
Check out this guy's system.. He is so proud of his stuff... he even sent me a PM telling me he's gonna ignore me, because I noted that all of those fancy named ethernet stuff is not needed...
Audio Hungary Qualiton X200 Integrated, Sonner Legato Unum with Sonner Stands, REL T-Zero X 2, Innuos Zenith MKIII , LessLoss Echo's End Dac, LessLoss Firewall 640X 2 , Wyred4Sound ISO Recovery, Uptone EtherRegen, Sonore OpticalModule Delux, Finisar SFP (various). OC FOC, SPL Phono Stage, Thorens TD 145 MKII, LessLoss C-Marc Classic Power Cables, IC's (x200) Purist Audio Design Poseidon Diamond Interconnect . Digital Cable Purist Audio Design CAT7 and Ultimate USB Cable. Speaker Cable Purist Audio Design Poseidon. REL T-Zero with Signal Cable Speakon.
SPL Phonitor 2 +, Gold Note PA-10 x2 run as mono's, bridged. Power Cables: Signal Cable Silver Resolution(3), Inter Connects, Analysis Plus Solo Crystal Oval XLR's Speaker Cable: Townshend Audio DCT (Deep Cryogenically Treated) Isolda Speaker cables
Filters: EE1 Ethernet Filter, Puron Filter x 4, Akiko Audio, Tuning Stick (4) Stack Audio Smooth Lan
Power Conditioning: LessLoss Firewall 640X (2), IsoTek V5 Corvus. TeraDak DC-200W Dual Output LPS NO AP Fuses but have 6 Swiss Digital Fuse Box by Vera-Fi Audio
Power Distribution: WISDOM CABLE TECHNOLOGY POWER STAGE ES-10SR Reference Power Distribution (all amplification is powered by this unit)
This is in a "measurement" forum. Have you ever seen more fancy sounding marketing dreck in a few lines?
The Internet is full of morons like that. It must be a boasting thing. Spend lots of money to boast you've spent a lot of money. Sort of like a Ferrari in the garage and a wife with aftermarket enhancements.
However, if you look at the thread, there is one guy that has a complete PL system. Unfortunately he has the X amp, not the XA.... We need people like that to keep Nelson and Wayne rolling in the dough. ;-)
Note, for kicks, I tried to egg them on..... I'm pretty much done with them.... sometimes I'm just an Evil Old Guy who likes to poke at people with more money than brains. I mean, I had nothing else to do... no cigar on account of the rain and wife watching Korean soap operas on Netflix....
Audio Hungary Qualiton X200 Integrated... seriously, everybody knows that the Zoundj by Serbia makes better amps...
Sometimes, I'm evil... oh well...
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/the-inaudibility-of-ethernet.20148/page-4#post-1026840
Check out this guy's system.. He is so proud of his stuff... he even sent me a PM telling me he's gonna ignore me, because I noted that all of those fancy named ethernet stuff is not needed...
Audio Hungary Qualiton X200 Integrated, Sonner Legato Unum with Sonner Stands, REL T-Zero X 2, Innuos Zenith MKIII , LessLoss Echo's End Dac, LessLoss Firewall 640X 2 , Wyred4Sound ISO Recovery, Uptone EtherRegen, Sonore OpticalModule Delux, Finisar SFP (various). OC FOC, SPL Phono Stage, Thorens TD 145 MKII, LessLoss C-Marc Classic Power Cables, IC's (x200) Purist Audio Design Poseidon Diamond Interconnect . Digital Cable Purist Audio Design CAT7 and Ultimate USB Cable. Speaker Cable Purist Audio Design Poseidon. REL T-Zero with Signal Cable Speakon.
SPL Phonitor 2 +, Gold Note PA-10 x2 run as mono's, bridged. Power Cables: Signal Cable Silver Resolution(3), Inter Connects, Analysis Plus Solo Crystal Oval XLR's Speaker Cable: Townshend Audio DCT (Deep Cryogenically Treated) Isolda Speaker cables
Filters: EE1 Ethernet Filter, Puron Filter x 4, Akiko Audio, Tuning Stick (4) Stack Audio Smooth Lan
Power Conditioning: LessLoss Firewall 640X (2), IsoTek V5 Corvus. TeraDak DC-200W Dual Output LPS NO AP Fuses but have 6 Swiss Digital Fuse Box by Vera-Fi Audio
Power Distribution: WISDOM CABLE TECHNOLOGY POWER STAGE ES-10SR Reference Power Distribution (all amplification is powered by this unit)
This is in a "measurement" forum. Have you ever seen more fancy sounding marketing dreck in a few lines?
The Internet is full of morons like that. It must be a boasting thing. Spend lots of money to boast you've spent a lot of money. Sort of like a Ferrari in the garage and a wife with aftermarket enhancements.
However, if you look at the thread, there is one guy that has a complete PL system. Unfortunately he has the X amp, not the XA.... We need people like that to keep Nelson and Wayne rolling in the dough. ;-)
Note, for kicks, I tried to egg them on..... I'm pretty much done with them.... sometimes I'm just an Evil Old Guy who likes to poke at people with more money than brains. I mean, I had nothing else to do... no cigar on account of the rain and wife watching Korean soap operas on Netflix....
Audio Hungary Qualiton X200 Integrated... seriously, everybody knows that the Zoundj by Serbia makes better amps...
Sometimes, I'm evil... oh well...
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/the-inaudibility-of-ethernet.20148/page-4#post-1026840
^ The ironic part is that it's their "measurement" forum.... BTW, I got some likes in there.... ;-)
Saying "Reddit is bad" is like saying "The roads are bad" or "Traffic is bad." What country are you in? What city? Highways, main thoroughfares or back roads? I can see where different people may have very different experiences. Different subreddits may vary greatly in quality of info, friendliness, goodness of moderators, frequency of trolling, etc. It's somewhat like an earlier forum I was on for years, Usenet.
Usenet had (it still exists but I consider it dead, it's now binaries and warez and such, the text discussion groups are mostly gone) a large variety of groups, some were as awful as you could imagine an unmoderated online forum could be, and others approached the quality of diyaudio. The good one I'm thinking of was rec.audio.pro (the pro was short for production, not professional) where people making a living in sound recording studios gave free advice on how to record things - mic choice, mic placement, mixing and EQ, effects use, etc. I had always wanted to know that kind of stuff, and there it was for free. I'd read Jerry Pournelle writing in Byte Magazine about Usenet newsgroups when they were on Arpanet where he described thousands of groups on most any subject, and I wanted to get "online" just for that. Groups in general weren't always as good as I hoped, but some of them were.
Reddit seems to have become the commercial version of Usenet, with moderators added, and both the mods and groups are of variable quality. I've found some interesting groups, but not enough to keep me consistently going back. I've made maybe 100 posts in 10 years, and I've made a LOT more on here or Usenet newsgroups.
Usenet had (it still exists but I consider it dead, it's now binaries and warez and such, the text discussion groups are mostly gone) a large variety of groups, some were as awful as you could imagine an unmoderated online forum could be, and others approached the quality of diyaudio. The good one I'm thinking of was rec.audio.pro (the pro was short for production, not professional) where people making a living in sound recording studios gave free advice on how to record things - mic choice, mic placement, mixing and EQ, effects use, etc. I had always wanted to know that kind of stuff, and there it was for free. I'd read Jerry Pournelle writing in Byte Magazine about Usenet newsgroups when they were on Arpanet where he described thousands of groups on most any subject, and I wanted to get "online" just for that. Groups in general weren't always as good as I hoped, but some of them were.
Reddit seems to have become the commercial version of Usenet, with moderators added, and both the mods and groups are of variable quality. I've found some interesting groups, but not enough to keep me consistently going back. I've made maybe 100 posts in 10 years, and I've made a LOT more on here or Usenet newsgroups.
My favorite usenet of all time was alt.evil.
Everything was allowed, you could call someone a Nazi, flame them, etc... just had to keep it as civil as Lucifer can be. The rules were simple, don't make it personal, no cheap insults, no trolling and NO AOL'rs. Learn to flame and learn how to be flamed.
I learned to flame people to a crisp... so well, that I got complemented a couple of times by the toasty receivers. It was business, you see? Nothing personal. We were just playing in our own World in a way the Miss Manners of the World would get a heart attack and a terminal case of the vapors... at the same time.
Over at Cisco we had an employee alt.cisco.evil group too. And many subgroups, I followed alt.cisco.evil.ios ( The IOS R&D group).
One day, sometime in '99, in the afternoon, we got this incredible rant from a junior engineer about the crappy VOIP phone he just got on his desk, He wanted his old Lucent ISDN desk phone. He went on and on and on how crappy this thing was. It was a darn good rant. An excellent rant indeed. An intelligent yet passionate rant, you didn't want one of them crappy phones after reading this. The kid had great potential in the alt.evil world.
..but.... yeah.... timing....scope....
This was on the same day when Chambers, our CEO, had done a big shot presentation in the morning at Wall Street about our new Cisco Division on VOIP devices and how it was the future and how it was gonna be a $2B run rate group.
It turns out the junior engineer had meant to send his rant to this own alt.cisco.evil.ios.voice ( or something like that ) list but somehow screwed up and 5000 IOS R&D engineers got the rant.
The kid was gone in less than a month.
Everything was allowed, you could call someone a Nazi, flame them, etc... just had to keep it as civil as Lucifer can be. The rules were simple, don't make it personal, no cheap insults, no trolling and NO AOL'rs. Learn to flame and learn how to be flamed.
I learned to flame people to a crisp... so well, that I got complemented a couple of times by the toasty receivers. It was business, you see? Nothing personal. We were just playing in our own World in a way the Miss Manners of the World would get a heart attack and a terminal case of the vapors... at the same time.
Over at Cisco we had an employee alt.cisco.evil group too. And many subgroups, I followed alt.cisco.evil.ios ( The IOS R&D group).
One day, sometime in '99, in the afternoon, we got this incredible rant from a junior engineer about the crappy VOIP phone he just got on his desk, He wanted his old Lucent ISDN desk phone. He went on and on and on how crappy this thing was. It was a darn good rant. An excellent rant indeed. An intelligent yet passionate rant, you didn't want one of them crappy phones after reading this. The kid had great potential in the alt.evil world.
..but.... yeah.... timing....scope....
This was on the same day when Chambers, our CEO, had done a big shot presentation in the morning at Wall Street about our new Cisco Division on VOIP devices and how it was the future and how it was gonna be a $2B run rate group.
It turns out the junior engineer had meant to send his rant to this own alt.cisco.evil.ios.voice ( or something like that ) list but somehow screwed up and 5000 IOS R&D engineers got the rant.
The kid was gone in less than a month.
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It is striking content on the Reddit platform. As a former moderator and a content creator on Reddit since it's inception, It looks suspect, false and partly generated by AI.
Just my two cents.
Yeah, I have fun.
Can't take things too seriously in life. It's so fun to take those serious people and talk to them as if I really gave a hoot. They really think I'm serious. Tell them how great and fantastic I am (actually I do have some cool experience, but I really know how to frame it so they think, I think I'm a junior Einstein ).
After all, in 20 years my capacitors will dry out and in two billion years the Sun will go nova.
I'll be happy if I last longer than my caps.
I really miss alt.evil.
-Well, I do take paying taxes seriously. The consequences are too horrid. Do they have Bose systems in tax jail? I also take hardware seriously, it smokes, might burn the house down. Serious business, hardware is.
I told my son I want to be buried with my turntable, records and a preamp. He said they'll cremate me and slip a picture of the audio equipment in the urn. My son, well taught. I'm proud of him... little punk... 🙂
With my luck, my kids will be cheap and not cremate us and buy my wife and I a single plot in Rose Hills. Then I'll die before her and I'll have to spend eternity looking up at her butt. 😕
Like, a guy comes by and says "Oh sorry".... so I reply with a straight, very serious face "Why? did you fart?". You can't imagine the reactions... Eventually I smile and I'll say "Just joking...". Guys can handle that. I once did that to a woman... OMG... Do not do say that to a woman!!!!! 😡
I could have been a bad comedian in the Petaluma Holiday Inn Lounge.
We saw Rodney Dangerfield at Caesar's palace in '86. We were staying at the hotel so they sat us up front, like 15 feet from the stage. The man was brilliant. He got my respect!
Can't take things too seriously in life. It's so fun to take those serious people and talk to them as if I really gave a hoot. They really think I'm serious. Tell them how great and fantastic I am (actually I do have some cool experience, but I really know how to frame it so they think, I think I'm a junior Einstein ).
After all, in 20 years my capacitors will dry out and in two billion years the Sun will go nova.
I'll be happy if I last longer than my caps.
I really miss alt.evil.
-Well, I do take paying taxes seriously. The consequences are too horrid. Do they have Bose systems in tax jail? I also take hardware seriously, it smokes, might burn the house down. Serious business, hardware is.
I told my son I want to be buried with my turntable, records and a preamp. He said they'll cremate me and slip a picture of the audio equipment in the urn. My son, well taught. I'm proud of him... little punk... 🙂
With my luck, my kids will be cheap and not cremate us and buy my wife and I a single plot in Rose Hills. Then I'll die before her and I'll have to spend eternity looking up at her butt. 😕
Like, a guy comes by and says "Oh sorry".... so I reply with a straight, very serious face "Why? did you fart?". You can't imagine the reactions... Eventually I smile and I'll say "Just joking...". Guys can handle that. I once did that to a woman... OMG... Do not do say that to a woman!!!!! 😡
I could have been a bad comedian in the Petaluma Holiday Inn Lounge.
We saw Rodney Dangerfield at Caesar's palace in '86. We were staying at the hotel so they sat us up front, like 15 feet from the stage. The man was brilliant. He got my respect!
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