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Why is reddit so toxic?

I found r/askphysics and r/philosophy to be moderated well and the quality of comments was good. But r/autism and r/autismuk were not moderated well and there seemed to be a higher proportion of low-quality posts and more bickering - so much so that I eventually deleted my user account and gave up on reddit.

I suspect size of community increases the proportion of low-quality posts.

Also the anonymity probably increases the bickering. Since the late 90s I've been a member of The Well and the quality of discourse there is excellent - it is NOT anonymous.
 
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A bit more about The Well, from What is The Well?

"The WELL is a cherished destination for conversation and discussion. It is widely known as the primordial ooze where the online community movement was born — where Howard Rheingold first coined the term “virtual community.” Since long before the public Internet was unleashed, it has quietly captivated some accomplished and imaginative people. Over the last three decades, it’s been described as “the world’s most influential online community” in a Wired Magazine cover story, and ” the Park Place of email addresses” by John Perry Barlow."

It is owned and run by its members.

Edit: Just so you know, I have not found much on there at all regarding autism.
 
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Tony Ramirez said:
Really. I never purposely go there but whenever I google questions, reddit shows up in the search results with profanity (yes I have safe search turned on) in many of the results which is unnecessary. A few times even found porn on reddit.
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My thought, having formerly been one who was toxic on Reddit (classical music community) is because it's all mostly anonymous, and who wouldn't say anything behind a screen if you name and face isn't attached? My guess too is that most of the population there includes folks who are young, with little to zero real-world experience (as I once was). *shrugs*
 
tazz said:
A bit more about The Well, from What is The Well?

"The WELL is a cherished destination for conversation and discussion. It is widely known as the primordial ooze where the online community movement was born — where Howard Rheingold first coined the term “virtual community.” Since long before the public Internet was unleashed, it has quietly captivated some accomplished and imaginative people. Over the last three decades, it’s been described as “the world’s most influential online community” in a Wired Magazine cover story, and ” the Park Place of email addresses” by John Perry Barlow."

It is owned and run by its members.

Edit: Just so you know, I have not found much on there at all regarding autism.
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there is r/asperger which i find is not that useful. its full of people that carry on about "AsPeRgER is NoT A VaLid DiaGnOsiS" rather than posting useful comments. at least it was that way about a year ago
 
I would never go to reddit autism forum. Not only do they allow profanity but in the title which means it would show up on the URL address something APF can't filter because it would break the link.
 
I used to get rude replies on Wrong Planet a number of years ago. I went there to talk about my ex support workers messing up my life. I told them about a guy who was pretending to know my ex, and he kept on sending me bizarre emails. Unfortunately, they glazed over every detail I said about both him and two women I was ranting about.

It's the same on No More Panic. Somebody said if you smell crap everywhere you go, you need to check your shoes. It's like they don't even care.
 
As much as I hate reddit sometimes I have to use it for tech support when these College grads who studied journalism write stupid solutions to problems like reinstall the app, or clear the cache. Then I get a real answer from reddit but I still only go there as a last resource.
 
I been google phobias and asd questions and I keep getting reddit results with profanity. Then I get annoyed and post my question here.

Really there are common questions and Google should not give me profane results and to make matters worse I keep safe search turned on which suppose to make Google kid friendly which it's not.
 
With all due respect Tony, this is the internet for you. Neither you or I, or anyone else, are getting special passes here - people will be people and people will do people things, more so on the internet where being anonymous lets you get away with doing things that you wouldn't dare do beyond a computer screen.

I'm sure you've noticed already, but people are going to:

be jerks to you and others (it's not just you)
use explicit language (sometimes a LOT)
post explicit content
mention things that might trigger you
do things you don't agree with
break "the rules"

...and more that I can't be bothered to think of right now.

I would strongly suggest that if you go on Reddit that you stick around the better moderated subreddits and avoid the bad ones, continue to use and update whatever filters or plugins you're using, and to avoid topics or subjects that are upsetting for you.
 
Thanks. The profanity filter plug in that I use is constantly updated and if something breaks I contact the developer personally and it's fixed in a few days with a update.

As I said before I only go to reddit for tech support when I keep getting those useless top 10 fixes sites.
 
If it was me I would do it a little differently. Instead of avoiding those unpleasant things I would work on ignoring it and not caring about it. Because it's impossible to avoid these things on this planet. For example swearing, avoiding swearing on planet earth is not possible. So you will annoy yourself and wear yourself out over it again and again. Annoying things we can't change is better handled with thick skin.
 
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That's why I do yoga. It works much better than all the anti depressants crap medication I was on for about two decades that made me gain over 100 pounds.
 
Reddit is especially horrible because of the karma upvote thing they have. The more absurd or outrageous someone is, that's how they tend to get more karma votes. The more karma you have, the more you can use those points to purchase avatars and profile art. It's sad but true.
 
I downvote posts that have profanity. I also only use minor profanity when I am angry like hell and damn. I don't go further than that.
 
I don't feel personal about reddit.

To me it's a variety show.
I don't watch all the acts, so to speak.
 
Dagan said:
Reddit is especially horrible because of the karma upvote thing they have. The more absurd or outrageous someone is, that's how they tend to get more karma votes. The more karma you have, the more you can use those points to purchase avatars and profile art. It's sad but true.
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This isn't true at all.

You don't spend your karma on anything, at most some subreddits may require accounts to have a certain level of karma to post or reply to prevent trolls and spammers, but that's it.

Like I got nearly 50k karma on my primary Reddit account, there's nothing for me to spend it on.

They're just meaningless internet points.
 
I saw where you choose your avatar, colors, skins and such. To get different features, it costs you points. I'll check again, but that's what it looks like because nothing else made sense.

edit - okay, I did a deep dive. I confused karma on reddit for the coins system this whole time. Oops. I stand corrected per the karma use, but I stand by my opinion for how a lot of people try to get karma boosts.
 
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Yeah it's even dumber cause that means you're spending real money on some of this stuff (not all of it since they do offer some avatar customizability for free).

I don't really get it myself, I uploaded my own image as my avatar long before they added that whole 'Reddit mascot avatar thing' and I don't see any reason to change to one of those.
 
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