Generic Business Oriented Website

I didn't make that serious of a post the first time I was in here, so I forgot /dataisbeautiful and /chemicalreactiongifs.

FFFFFFF....Fifty Fifty is going to cause me to see some nightmarish shit. You can't not take the risk.

just saw this on 50/50

yoloapse

Idget Child wrote:dataisbeautiful

are

Admittedly, a lot of the people who post comments there (and some posts) don't seem to do a fantastic job analyzing data or simply find themselves there because they like the colors. Keeping that in mind, of course they'd give it the wrong title.

Idget Child wrote:/dataisbeautiful

Subbed!

james wrote:This thread turned me on to the notion of subreddits - until I saw it, I wasn't aware that you could actually tailor the site to your liking. I had thought that the entire site was basically just a bland version of /b.

Since then though I've completely reversed my anti-reddit stance; specifically because of the ability to subreddit any topic, I'm starting to feel that this site might be better than any other large messageboard system I've ever seen. The combination of heavy general traffic and niche interest focus is pretty fascinating, and I'm stamping on the jame seal of approval (since I know you all sit around waiting to hear what I think about unbelievably well-recognized internet stuff).

It's easy to hate Reddit, and there's metric tons of stupid shit on it (the comments sections are often as bad as anywhere else on the internet), but also a lot of quality content if you customize it to your liking. My subreddits are mostly boring wall of text stuff:

TrueReddit
FoodForThought
InTheNews
Articles
Politics
TrueTrueReddit
Futurology
Offbeat

I'm also really fond of MorbidReality, which is like a highbrow, funeral doom version of Rotten.com and similar sites.

And I'm a pretty regular reader of TumblrInAction as well, although I don't sub to it since I like to keep my feed clean.

storm shadow wrote: It's easy to hate Reddit, and there's metric tons of stupid shit on it (the comments sections are often as bad as anywhere else on the internet),

It's horrible because of the training wheels & feel good nature of the place. The comments there are the absolute worst available. Their popularity-contest system of assessment rewards ingratiating behavior. Democracy if you're feeling optimistic; nauseating populism if you're not. Hell is other people is Reddit.

Necrometer wrote:Democracy if you're feeling optimistic; nauseating populism if you're not

Welcome to the internet.

But yeah, I don't really ever read the comments on anything but comedy subreddits like TumblrInAction (where they're sometimes quite good).

storm shadow wrote:Welcome to the internet.

Not even close. Youtube is near-total chaos (not quite anarchy, but...), Wikipedia is a meritocracy, etc.

And I don't think avoidance of the comments really side-steps the problems - the comment-zone gladhanding trickles up to whatever ends up being seen via upvoting. Maybe? I'll admit that I don't fully understand it.

Necrometer wrote:Wikipedia is a meritocracy, etc.

Please elaborate, seriously. I don't edit Wikipedia so I'm curious to hear your reasoning here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia (irony appreciated)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm
Do I need to say more? Content with merit is valued there. That's all I am saying. Herd mentality overrules this at Reddit, as is the case with the post-Boston-bombing witchhunt or the horseshit pro-tip about shopping for flights online in private mode.

there's a reason most schools don't allow wikipedia as a reference, and all hospitals (as far as i know) block it.

also: r/pcmasterrace

fairly obvious ones that aren't in this thread yet

http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/
http://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Foodforthought/

also check for /r/[yourcity]
for a buncha dummies asking the best place to get icecream or whatever

a world of no wrote:there's a reason most schools don't allow wikipedia as a reference,

do you really think that reason has to do with its veracity as opposed to something more practical like the general problem of citing a fluid online source?

r/artisanvideos
r/AskHistorians
r/brokengifs
r/notinteresting
SFW porn (mindless indulgence)
r/youtubehaiku

Necrometer wrote:

a world of no wrote:there's a reason most schools don't allow wikipedia as a reference,

do you really think that reason has to do with its veracity as opposed to something more practical like the general problem of citing a fluid online source?

possibly? but then i started working in medicine where it was all tons of "nope... shit's not reliable, so it's blocked/forbidden." and then you start to truly wonder about how real world "credible" it is as a definitive reference. for the general populace? sure. then there's the fucks that hack pages and leave all kinds of stupid, yet reasonable, shit on them for fun to consider. main point is that there's no real static quality/fact control with these wikis. you willing to risk your life on information you find there?

I deliberately didn't quote the part about hospitals. I've heard of plenty of medical staff pulling up WebMD in front of their patients, for whatever that's worth. I'll say this: on average, I bet doctors are less reliable than Wikipedia. If these supposed expert doctors are relying on a dubious source (which Wikipedia may have been at some point in time, including now) to the extent that it's getting them in trouble, isn't it kind of retarded to blame the source instead of the lazy, stupid doctor? Blocking Wikipedia sounds like a case of protecting doctors from their own cluelessness.

It's nice to see that you have nothing to back up your "there's a reason..." rhetoric. You've now suggested that there must be a reason, though you've never had an interest in finding out what that reason might have been.

a world of no wrote:main point is that there's no real static quality/fact control with these wikis.

Yes there is; experts read it and if they see a problem they fix it. It's not that complicated. If a particular statement lacks a citation then it should be granted no more credulity than something read anywhere else on the internet. I don't know why you said "static" - the whole point of the thing is to be as dynamic as collective human knowledge.

Necrometer wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia (irony appreciated)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm
Do I need to say more? Content with merit is valued there. That's all I am saying. Herd mentality overrules this at Reddit, as is the case with the post-Boston-bombing witchhunt or the horseshit pro-tip about shopping for flights online in private mode.

But none of this supports the claim that Wikipedia is a meritocracy, and more specifically that it's a greater meritocracy than any other heavily-trafficked website. "Meritocracy" suggests that content is rewarded for more than just accuracy, but for being particularly good and worthy (OED). "Barack Obama is an American" is an accurate observation (despite what some might think), but few would consider it particularly valuable or substantive.

There's a lot of ways to define "good and worthy", but I have a hard time calling a site that features more information on Super Mario than on the concept of due process a meritocracy.

a world of no wrote:you willing to risk your life on information you find there?

This is a good point too. People are willing to put their health and finances in the hands of professionals such as doctors and lawyers because they know there's a rigorous system of vetting that will guarantee them a minimum degree of competence.

The same can't be said of Wikipedia, which is part of the point. It's a mirror of the internet as a whole, where openness/leveling is both the biggest asset and the biggest flaw.

OK, validocracy, then.

I can't make any headway with your argument. We can sit around forever arguing about what is actually good and in whose opinion. Fucking sucks.

If your strongest case against the merit of Wikipedia is that the Mario article is too long... ?

Necrometer wrote:OK, validocracy, then.

I can't make any headway with your argument. We can sit around forever arguing about what is actually good and in whose opinion. Fucking sucks.

If your strongest argument against the merit of Wikipedia is that the Mario article is too long... ?

The Mario thing is just an example, I'm sure I can dig up dozens more. And hey I'm perfectly willing to sit around debating the good and the true, that's what happens when you go to liberal arts college.



I have no problem with retiring the debate. I think what it comes down to is that you're more optimistic about it and I'm more cynical, and that's hardly a bad thing.

you guys are forgetting this is supposed to be about compared to reddit

Necrometer wrote:
It's nice to see that you have nothing to back up your "there's a reason..." rhetoric. You've now suggested that there must be a reason, though you've never had an interest in finding out what that reason might have been.

how about statistics and info i've seen stated on wikipedia have differed enough from medical text/peer review/whatever medical references to make a difference between life and death. every medical institution differs slightly, but it's all strictly reviewed and updated constantly to still fall within the range of safe practice. wikipedia is not, which is why it's not fucking medically viable for patient care.

if anyone should understand this you should, ross. there's a fine line between safe and death in medicine, and you want to debate whether medical information found on wikipedia is viable, reliable information for making life and death based decision?

featherboa wrote:you guys are forgetting this is supposed to be about compared to reddit

I just want to clarify here that I never argued that Reddit was better than anything.

storm shadow wrote:

Necrometer wrote:OK, validocracy, then.

I can't make any headway with your argument. We can sit around forever arguing about what is actually good and in whose opinion. Fucking sucks.

If your strongest argument against the merit of Wikipedia is that the Mario article is too long... ?

The Mario thing is just an example, I'm sure I can dig up dozens more. And hey I'm perfectly willing to sit around debating the good and the true, that's what happens when you go to liberal arts college.



I have no problem with retiring the debate. I think what it comes down to is that you're more optimistic about it and I'm more cynical, and that's hardly a bad thing.

I don't think it's any sort of warning sign that the site allows obsessives to ramble about things they're interested in. Keep in mind that there are few academic texts on such pop culture things so your "problem" is instead acting to normalize the available info in a lot of ways. The due process article doesn't need to be that big because if anyone's really interested they can just take their ass to the library or click over to Amazon for something that will due justice to the topic.

You and Streven keep alluding to these vandals who get away with shit all the time, but the reality (or at least my current sense of it) is that the extremely minor costs associated with such trickery are massively offset by the phenomenal abundance of valid info that's backed up with citations.