To Reddit: So long, and thanks for all the pics.

Update: I’ve gone back to using Reddit a fair bit now. As a subscribed user you can filter out the political subreddit and add a bunch of other fun ones (like comics). So as a reader you must take this post with a grain of salt. In other words I would delete it but I don’t do that sort of thing.

In the last two months I have become increasingly unhappy about the hot page contents of Reddit. Since I discovered Reddit after coming over from Digg I have enjoyed the variety of stories in a host of different areas about a ton of different events all over the world. I felt like I was getting a good glimpse of relevant and interesting information. Now, however, things have changed.

Todays Reddit is awash with stories about the loss of hope in America with the occasion foreign story that fits into the same veign. Hot topics include the lastest taserings and other “police have gone insane” stories, American government gone facist stories, unfair court cases from middle America, presidential candidate FUD, and much much more. The sum total of all of this is a very depressing experience and I’ve finally had enough. Reading the site has really started to negatively affect my day so I think it is time for me to move on.

I’ve experimented with filtering out certain sub-reddits, especially politics, and adding in others, like programming, which has gotten me through the last few months. Unfortunately this only helps to a certain degree because generally people post things to the main Reddit and so the filters don’t work. Perhaps sub-reddits aren’t the answer and instead they should be categories with no main so filters would have a chance. Recent changes to the Reddit interface have made things nicer but they were only cosmetic and didn’t help with content.

Vogons may not currently be on their way to clear a path for a new Internet backbone but I’m leaving just the same. So in the immortal words of Douglas Adams (with a twist) “So long, and thanks for all the pics.”