Daniel DurransJun 11, 2023

The biggest issue I have with Reddit's new direction, and a user base considering jumping ship, is that Reddit has become an absolute treasure trove of actually useful information. I regularly start searches with “reddit” for tech, DIY, and general life skills.

It cuts out all the dross of AI generated websites, the 20 minute long youtube explanation videos for something that should be a bullet list, and connects you with people who are (probably) experts or have real life experience.

#reddit

Show threadDaniel DurransJun 11, 2023

I am going to take a look at the federated alternatives as I think the forum concept is still vital to the web as we know it. Because that's really all Reddit is - a collection of forums with a crowd-sourced Home & Popular page.

Unlike Mastodon, the ability to search Reddit or an alternative will be vital to its success. It isn't just about the community, it is also about knowledge discovery.

Show threadDaniel DurransJun 11, 2023

Google doesn't want to prioritise knowledge discovery. Over the years the quality of Google's actual search results has diminished to the point where it is almost useless for finding information. All those search results that are either an advert or just complete dross have diminished its ability to be useful.

If Google doesn't want to be the consolidation point for knowledge, someone else needs to step up.

Wikipedia isn't the place either, it's too formal, too structured.

Show threadDaniel DurransJun 11, 2023
I like the idea of everyone having a blog again, possibly with comments turned on, but then there is still the problem of discoverability. Google is not going to prioritise a low traffic niche blog even if it is written by the world expert on that topic. Not only that but if you aren't quite sure what you are searching for you need to be able to browse. Reddit offers information consolidation with browse-ability.
Show threadDaniel Durrans

Perhaps that's the real problem - discoverability.

While you may want discoverability in services such as Mastodon, the 'now' and ‘very recently’ nature of such services means that you can get away without it. You are discovered through a boost or retweet, but those are transient.

For medium term services such as Reddit, discoverability is vital. It isn't about the ‘now’, it is also about the 'then’, and being about to find posts from 5 years ago that answer the question you have.

Jun 11, 2023 at 6:53amWeb
Show threadSkyNTPJun 11, 2023

@danieldurrans #lemmy can be crawled, indexed, and searched just like any other site(s). SEO and rankings might be an issue, but most searches of this nature are going to be very specific anyway. I'm not convinced google is actively trying to make search worse, but they certainly haven't innovated, and we are the end game of indexed search engine gaming, since it is largely spam.

Maybe searching Reddit was a crutch for Google. Let Google revel in irrelevance. It's time for a new search paradigm

Show threadAndy LongshawJun 11, 2023
@danieldurrans I wonder if something graph/network based would work if the weightings on the connections were based on some form of evolving topic areas. So if Sue is the world expert in ‘x’ then lots of links to her would feature ‘x’. A bit like a functional version of LinkedIn.
Show threadDaniel DurransJun 11, 2023
@Andylongshaw isn’t that similar to PageRank but with some form of trusted source weighting?
Show threadAndy LongshawJun 11, 2023
@danieldurrans I don’t know. I’ve not come across PageRank. Just wondering how to solve the “find the definitive info in a sea of stuff” might play out without magic algorithms. Obviously if the organisation providing the service wanted to monetise it then it would gradually become useless however well it started.
Show threadDaniel DurransJun 11, 2023
@Andylongshaw PageRank is Google’s algorithm. It worked originally by looking at who linked to who. The more links to your page, the more important it was. That’s the summary anyway. I am sure it is way more complex than that now.
Show threadAndy LongshawJun 11, 2023
@danieldurrans thank you. It feels like something along those lines but with some additional trust-related info on the links. Or maybe the original PageRank would be good enough without the commercialisation. It’s probably been tried but some equivalent of Wikipedia for search.