Users coming from reddit, what made you try Snapzu?
Just curious, as I am a former redditor who barely spends my time on the site anymore.
10 years ago by Outset
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9 comments
Just curious, as I am a former redditor who barely spends my time on the site anymore.
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I am a former redditor who has been part of the site since around 2009. Part of what drove me away were subreddits (basically the equivalent of tribes on Snapzu) such as ShitRedditSays, who are a group of militant feminists and SomethingAwful trolls known for bullying people for posting offensive things on the site.
I do agree with some of the things they've done as a community (i.e. push for the admins to ban sexualized content of minors from the site) but the reality is that SRS manipulates votes and harasses redditors and non-redditors alike who do something they disagree with, both things which are against the reddit rules. Yet the admins won't pull the plug on them...
Anyway, I tried Snapzu becuase it got referred to either in a /r/AskReddit or /r/YouShouldKnow post. Hearing it was very similar to reddit, I decided to make an account and see what the fuss was all about. It seems like others followed suit.
I tried Snapzu because it was the first legitimate alternative that I could find since digg closed down. I still visit reddit once in a while, but overall I find that it's full of assholes trying to get cheap laughs...
I won't lie, Digg became a complete dive long before Kevin Rose killed it with the Version 4 update. Getting a submission frontpaged was near-impossible and the only way to actually get your link to the frontpage was either to game the system through vote manipulation, be a power user with loads of fanboys who vote up your content or pay a power user to submit stuff to Digg.
The site also had far more stringent rules in terms of NSFW stuff, a complete lack of formatting in comments and no self-posts or ability to create further subcategories or subcommunities. Reddit and Snapzu are certainly better alternatives in that regard.
I know exactly what you mean by assholes trying to get cheap laughs though, but that was generally in the large or default subs, which I tend to avoid.
I'm just trying it out.
I don't mind SRS and TiA (i'm in both, FWIW mostly because extremists are often their own worst enemies and it's kinda funny to watch them implode). What I find most annoying on Reddit is the number of upvoted troll posts in subs that are trying to have a serious discussion. Not only will jokes get upvoted to the point of burying a serious discussion, but anything that disagrees with the Borg won't see the light of day. It's not just SRS or TiA, it's Socialists, Libertarians, and Unionists. There's very little in the news section after the first ten minutes that doesn't meet the liking of those groups. Not that they're always wrong, but no opinion that doesn't fit the mold of SRS/Lib/Soc/TiA is going to get read. And even if you clear that one, you're still under about 50 spammy trolls posting jokes.
All the recent crap and drama going on in Reddit right now is really pushing me away. Certain subreddits can't seem to mind their own business. On a site that supposedly upholds free speech, there's bound to be content and subreddits you find offensive. Yet that's the whole point of having separate subreddits; you stick to what you like in your subreddit and never have to see content from other subreddits that may offend you. Yet there's brigading, vote manipulation, doxxing, ect.
Then there's the admins who's actions can't seem to be consistent with the supposed "free speech" ideal of the site. Hypothetically, if they truly supported free speech at it's core, they would ONLY ban and remove illegal content and nothing else; no matter how distasteful the legal content may be; and let the community decide on their acceptance with their up and downvotes. Yet we have at least 2 highly publicized instances and many that went under the radar, of the admins banning content that, although borderline and very distasteful, were still legal in the eyes of the law. What brought about the decisions? Media pressure. If you value free speech, you don't crack under media pressure.
That said, I don't have a problem with Reddit having standards for content on their site. But don't be hypocritical about it. If you're gonna be all about free speech in it's purest form, banning any legal content is hypocritical. If the admins came out tomorrow and "said we support free speech mostly except for the following distasteful content" I would be perfectly fine with it. You can't be about pure free speech and be worried about reputation at the same time. 4chan is truly uncensored and have quite the negative reputation. Reddit is trying to do the impossible and it's starting to implode on themselves.
Honestly, I only tried this site out because Reddit was blocked at my school, and this wasn't . But I've found things to be more formal, and thought out here, and can't wait to see what comes of it.
I like Reddit, but I find my legitimate comments and submissions to get downvoted for no reason. I decided to join and try Snapzu because I liked the design, and I saw a few people vouch for it. Pretty much I joined because I was like "What's dis", and I liked it ... so I decided to stay and contribute a little.
It's a nice site. I wish they'd improve certain things like making your own submissions and comments more easily viewable or preventing the server from redirecting you to your profile page whenever you try to click a Snapzu link to another page the first time you access it in a browser session.
Yup that annoys me too sometimes.