It’s hard to put my finger on the exact problems but it feels worse than the typical decline of large subs.
This thread posted today in response to the protest shows a lot of what I mean: https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/14cbtjv/who_here_is_in_favor_of_just_replacing_these_shit/
Mob mentality, selfishness, scapegoating, lack of critical thinking… It’s just so toxic compared to where it was even a year ago.
I’m excited at the prospect of building a more positive, welcoming place here to discuss the NBA.
I’m mostly a nobody but it has been clear to me that most people can’t or don’t have any incentive on starting discussions or threads on r/nba. Over the last few years, the only thing that has appeared on the “hot” sorted posts are memes, robot posts, parody posts, etc.
The worst are those posts that are just attempts to garner upvotes, like statistical analysis of weird things like players going to strip clubs.
Then came r/nbadiscussion and even that wasn’t much better.
In the end, I think it’s just a matter of numbers. Having a discussion on r/nba or any other popular subreddit is like having a discussion in a noisy auditorium filled with thousands of kids, teenagers, adults, old people, trolls, etc.
The most enjoyable interactions I had on Reddit were via smaller niche communities where there were only a few thousand posters, max.
I completely agree with you, this place right here has the potential to become what r/nba was a couple of years ago
I think it is just literally the usual decline of a large sub. You always get low effort and drama bubbling to the top as the userbase grows.
It’s because the barrier of entry to accessing Reddit just became lower and lower. Right now you’ll have quality discussions on here because all of us have to go out of our way and be tech literate enough to get on lemmy. I’m a firm believer that the magic of the old internet was because of the technical hurdles you had to cross to get on. It was an effective filter.
I’m a firm believer that the magic of the old internet was because of the technical hurdles you had to cross to get on. It was an effective filter.
Hadn’t really considered that but it’s a great point. And Lemmy definitely provides a hurdle, even if it’s only the perception and not the reality (this really wasn’t that hard)
