I like reddit, almost completely because I've subscribed to several small subreddits that have a good community, high quality content, et al.
But there's a tricky problem. Subreddits like /r/programming dominate, while more focused subreddits like /r/ruby (or whatever) languish. If I have a ruby link and I care at all about karma, I'm going to post it in /r/programming.
Well that's the price for avoiding garbage, you have to do a little more work. It's not impossible to successfully have a branch of an existing sub-reddit. Just take a look at the offshoots of r/gaming: r/gamingnews and r/games; or even the branches off from r/politics like r/progressive and r/libertarian.
In your case, ruby already has a good news site and it doesn't need reddit. Rubyflow is more than sufficient imo
"That's the price for..." implies that this is constant across alternatives, but it's not. One alternative is a hierarchy with subtrees feeding into nodes higher up, so that /r/programming/ruby posts would appear in /r/programming. This has its own set of problems where the price to be paid is not the same as for reddit's completely flat model. I'm not saying this hierarchical model would be better, but it would have different pros and cons.
Call me an optimist, but I can't help but think that there's something better than what's out there now.
> "That's the price for..." implies that this is constant across alternatives, but it's not
Well if there isn't, as I've already mentioned, you can make your own sub-reddit.
> Call me an optimist, but I can't help but think that there's something better than what's out there now.
hmmm you're right... Reddit's sub-reddit's is imo a half-assed implementation of an idea tribe paper that showed up years ago on HN. To this day I can't find it.
Anyways the gist of the idea, is that everyone belongs to an idea tribe / group aimed that making wikipedia better. All of these groups have differences in what they think are accurate, right, cool, etc... However many groups have things that they agree on. The paper talks about how great it would be if we could have something that would highlight those commonalities.
> Well if there isn't, as I've already mentioned, you can make your own sub-reddit.
That doesn't mean anyone's going to use it. It takes a long time to grow a community. I would love for /r/trueskyrim to take off because /r/skyrim has become 99% garbage, 1% content. Unfortunately trueskyrim hasn't had a post in 6 months.
The only reason /r/Games ever took off was because it was started by the mods of /r/gaming and got lots of attention on /r/gaming's front page. Don't get me wrong /r/Games is wonderful, but without the publicity that it got from /r/gaming I doubt anyone would use it.
But there's a tricky problem. Subreddits like /r/programming dominate, while more focused subreddits like /r/ruby (or whatever) languish. If I have a ruby link and I care at all about karma, I'm going to post it in /r/programming.