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Reddit Politics - Is Reddit Politics good for online debating?

Debate Information

Reddit Politics

sub Reddit is arguably the highest volume site for discussing politics.  Reddit r/Politics site has over 8.3 million subscribers with over 8 thousand online users.

But does it make

Reddit Politics

the best place to discuss and debate politics?

Based on my experience, I will argue against it.
1) It is difficult to have a meaningful debate on

Reddit Politics

, as the sub discussions quickly take you away in many directions. It is not clear what the actual consensus is, as unlike DebateIsland there is no voting on actual options.
2) Chances are you will quickly get insulted and will have to deal with hate, vulgar language, or ignorance.  The reason we want to debate is not to get insulted, but for a civilized political discussion. I hope you have strong self esteem to survive ongoing personal attacks on Reddit Politics
3) Moderators and Reddit Politics spam filters ofter filter comments or postings based on complex rules. Some of the other Reddit Politics sub Reddits like Neutral Politics are much more civilized, but are so extremely moderated that a submission is like passing SATs.
4) From my experience Reddit Politics is decisively anti-Trump. I saw many posts and comments down voted just for expressing a supportive opinion towards anything positive for Trump actions. Similarly, silly anti-Trump comments got many upvotes on Reddit Politics.
aarong
  1. Live Poll

    Reddit Politics - Is Reddit Politics good for online debating?

    10 votes
    1. Yes - Reddit Politics is a good place to debate Politics
      30.00%
    2. No - Reddit Politics is not a good place to debate politics
      70.00%
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  • joecavalryjoecavalry 430 Pts   -  
    No, DebateIsland.com is a much better website for online Debating. Reddit doesn't support polls and is really unorganized.
    George_Horse
    DebateIslander and a DebateIsland.com lover. 
  • WhyTrumpWhyTrump 234 Pts   -  
    Reddit Politics is a decent place to lurk to get a sense of some popular Politics topics.  However, I agree with @joecavalry  that it's not a good option for debating.  While the upvoting and down voting is a good mechanism for discussions, it will make your head spin to follow and is highly disorganized in terms of thought within each posting.  
    I think there is some great content hidden in many of their Reddit Politics posts, but it is often hidden and mixed with many uncivilized and poor-taste comments.
    I use Reddit Politics occasionally, but it can't compare with debating experience of DebateIsland.
    WhyTrump - a good question
  • islander507islander507 194 Pts   -  
    Reddit Politics is a good place to discuss, but mot debate.

    Reddit Politics is a good place to lurk, but not for kids.

    Reddit Politcs is a good place to see trending topics on internet as their volume is hugh. That said, many of the media outlets may offer a better experience on that.
  • love2debatelove2debate 186 Pts   -  
    Reddit Politics  is not a good forum for debating politics, and here is why.

    Reddit Politics - Even the Harry Potter Reddit
    Harry Potter Reddit Decides to Ban Posts Relating to Politics - that was just too much for them to handle.
    thenerdybird  harry-potter-reddit-decides-to-ban-posts-relating-to-politics/

    Reddit Politics, based on how you look at it, is either a glorified bulletin board or an overwhelming tree with discussion branches that take your mind in every possible direction.

    While Reddit Politics have many subforums, all of them have nuances and special rules, it is really frustrating to debate politics there.  
    Either you will be attacked, censored, spammed, or will not get any meaningful political discussion.

    There are some interesting reddit politics sub reddits that you may find useful, but none of them will give simplicity of "just works" that DebateIsland offers.


    reddit politics -  /r/Politics is the sub Reddit for current and explicitly political U.S. news.

    NeutralPolitics - A much more moderated reddit politics sub Reddit, but really strict for each comment
    Uspolitics - this politics sub reddit manually accepts each posting
    CatholicPolitics - this politics sub reddit is dedicated to Catholic politics
    r/WorldPolitics - pretty good sub-reddit for world politics, but has similar issues as reddit politics /politics

    reddit politics puts too much restriction of what you can say, with a fear of being downvoted by other reddit politics users.

    What reddit politics could use is some sort of voting summary integration so each post is forced to actually advocate a specific pre-stated opinion, like DebateIsland vote feature.



  • love2debatelove2debate 186 Pts   -  
    Just to add a bit more flavor on the topic of Reddit politics, IMO

     Reddit Neutral politics 

    Is the best of the Reddit politics sub-reddits.
    reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/

    reddit Neutral politics has very specific rules that result in a much higher quality of discussion. The sources in Reddit Neutral politics have to be very specific, the style and tone has to be just right, and in general Neutral politics Reddit just provides a better  content than its other politics cousins. You will likely not find cursing and other fowl language in that Reddit.
    at times I enjoy reading content on Reddit Neutral politics, to get more in depth opinion on certain topics.
    participating in debates though on Reddit Neutral politics is not too enjoyable for me. Since it is so highly moderated and the rules are so strict, you have to be so careful what to say in Reddit Neutral politics that even if you are lucky enough for the moderators not to kick you out, there is a fear of downvoting by other Reddit Neutral politics users.

    so, DebateIsland is still my favorite and I still don't think that Reddit politics is a good place to debate, but if you feel compelled then I argue that Reddit Neutral politics is the lesser of all evils in the Reddit politics family.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/
  • agsragsr 881 Pts   -  
    @love2debate,
    check out debate specific to Reddit Neutral Politics 

    http://www.debateisland.com/discussion/623/reddit-neutral-politics-r-neutralpolitics-is-extreme-moderation-the-best-answer

    Reddit Politics, and especially neutral politics has too much moderation, that makes it too difficult to use.
    In fact, it is extreme moderation, so while the content there is relatively cleaner than Reddit Politics sub, lots of opinions and creative content is filtered out.  Voat is much better in that sense with not censoring, but gets less users replying to posts.

    Below is the summary of the point from the Reddit Politics Neutral debate


    Reddit Neutral Politics r/NeutralPolitics Extreme moderation
    It is ironic that Reddit, designed for open community view is so highly moderated, with Reddit Neutral Politics being one of the most extreme examples.
    Reddit censorship gave a boost to a competitor Voat, which vows for a much lower level of moderation.
    If reddit Neutral politics users rely on moderators to triple check their work, like college professors, then you get a feeling of high-pressure college essay situation and rely on the moderators to make censorship decisions.  Moderators make a call if tone of the submission is biased or disrespectful in any way, the source is not strong enough, or if any of the other rules are not strictly followed.
    I also argue that heavily moderated content doesn't result in neutral political content, but in many ways biased political content.
    The one key benefit of heavy moderation is that published language is much more respectful than the rest of Reddit, but as we see at DebateIsland.com community self moderation by flagging inappropriate comments works just as well, without making it a Big Brother debate site.

    In general Reddit, and Reddit politics have been heavily criticized in the news.  
    @inc4t  posted a nice debate about cousin to Reddit Politics , The_Donald. 

    http://www.debateisland.com/discussion/644/the-donald-too-censored-or-not-enough

    Many of the same points apply to Reddit Politics.

    Is Reddit discriminating against Trump supporters on The_Donald?

    Reddit defends against accusations of ad fraud and Trump censorship

    reddit.com came under fresh fire today for allegedly discriminating against users of the pro-Trump section of the site called /r/The_Donald. Critics accused Reddit of under-reporting how many "subscribers" the section has while telling advertisers that the section has a much higher number of users. 
    But Reddit tells Fox News that the flap was caused by a simple labelling error that Reddit made when it rolled out a new system for advertisers Thursday.  

    So, just to summarize key points for Reddit Politcs
    1) reddit politics has way too much moderation and in cases extreme censorship
    2) Reddit politics, and Reddit politics related reddits are generally anti-Trump.  So the reason you may see clean content, is that content from Trump supporters is downvoted and moderated out.
    Live Long and Prosper
  • adepadep 3 Pts   -  
    No, DebateIsland.com is much better. It is the only casual debate website that I have found as well. Also, the website has amazing functionality and a great design. 
  • WhyTrumpWhyTrump 234 Pts   -  
    @agsr , I respectfully disagree that Reddit Poltics is anti Trump.
    Some media is twisting reddit as anti-trump, and some even claim that people were getting death threats for supporting Trump
    http://wwlp.com/2016/12/16/pro-trump-electors-receiving-death-threats/

    There are extreme left and extreme right supporters, which is unhealthy on both sides of Reddit Politics, but that is a minority.

    Reddit Politics is a balanced place to discuss politics. Spam is quickly moderated, and sources come from actual media sources.

    WhyTrump - a good question
  • agsragsr 881 Pts   -  
    @WhyTrump ,
    i strongly disagree that Reddit Politics is balanced.  It is fully anti-Trump. Lets look at the facts.
    i just reviewed First page of hot posts on Reddit Politics.
    There was not a single post that was supportive or even implied support for Trump or his policies.  In fact most of them were either exclusively about Trump, or indirectly about one of his policies.  Lets take a quick look at the Reddit Politics facts. I pasted top 7 right out of the Reddit Politics home page ordered by Hot.


    Live Long and Prosper
  • islander507islander507 194 Pts   -  
    @WhyTrump , I agree with Agsr as well that reddit politics is moderated against Trump.  I am not sure if moderators specifically have filters installed to prevent posts sympathetic to Trump to be filtered out, liberal users aggressively downvote Trump sympathetic posts to ensure they never rank high for others to see, or a combination of both.  Either way you can browse hot, top, and other Reddit Politics pages and I challenge you to find anything that supports Trump.  

    I personally tried to post on Reddit Politics, and every time an article is pro-Trump it is nowhere to be found for other Reddit Politics users.
    My articles that would poke fun at one of Trump policies would rise to the top.

    so how can you defend position that Reddit Politics is not anti-Trump.

    I also find it very interesting what happened "by accident" so reddit shows a much smaller subscriber number for The_Donald reddit.  Very typical, and I suspect that the entire Reddit is generally anti-Trump, just like most of the big media.

    even more interesting is that the site that reported that issue got attacked and is now down.  I am not big on conspiracy theories, but the facts speak for themselves.  Reddit Politics is totally anti-Trump, and likely Reddit in general is anti-Trump.
  • islander507islander507 194 Pts   -  
    And just one more point to show just how Anti-Trump Reddit Politics is.
    Take a look at this post 

    Trump supporters left furious after Reddit's biggest pro-Donald forum disappears from the website's most popular page

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4245658/Reddit-blocks-pro-Trump-forum-new-visitors-homepage.html

    Reddit's popular pro-Donald Trump forum will no longer appearing on its visitor's homepage r/popular CEO Steve Huffman announced they were cracking down on 'toxic users and poorly behaving communities' last NovemberHe said the website could no longer tolerate the 'antagonistic' behavior of many of The_Donald usersHe also announced plans to block the subreddit's community announcements from appearing on the website's r/all page - a curated list of popular subredditsHuffman previously admitted to editing abusive posts about him from Trump backers to make it look as though they were criticizing the president Move has angered Trump supporters who say it's an attack on their free speech 
    I don't see Reddit blocking any Dems or Liberal politics reddits. 
    Definitely Reddit is anti-Trump.
  • WhyTrumpWhyTrump 234 Pts   -  
    @agsr and @islander507,
    I still disagree that Reddit Politics is anti-Trump. Examples you showed with hot Reddit Politics post are reflective of political reality that Trump has going on, not Reddit or media-companies discrimination.

    To make my point, actually Reddit Politics protects many right wing activists in private communities dedicated to Trump supporters.  Those reddits go through extreme moderation for anything that implies that Trump is imperfect. In fact, those reddits (like the Donald) remind me of Soviet propaganda from the Cold War days or North Korea dictatorship.  
    A nice little bubble where Trump world can be perfect, and Reddit Politics are "Trump is perfect politics".  

    WhyTrump - a good question
  • agsragsr 881 Pts   -  
    WhyTrump, we both can agree that Reddit Politics censorship model is ineffective. In case of Trump supporters The_Donald sub is way to censored, agreed.
    http://www.debateisland.com/discussion/644/the-donald-too-censored-or-not-enough

    That is a different issue though from saying that in general Reddit Politics is not Anti-Trump.  In fact, I think that the a key reason why TheDonald is so extremely moderated, is to protect Trump supporters from the rest of anti-Trump political Reddit users. 

    Reddit politics is a large community with many sub reddits, each with a variation of moderation rules that mostly don't work well.  The rules are so complex and try to compensate for inefficiency of the underlying model.  Reddit Politics hasn't figure out a moderation model that just works, like DebateIsland. 
    If you think about design of an IPhone, the reason why it became so successful vs Windows devices is because Apple opted for elegance of user experience that just works vs complex features that target DYI users.  A similar apology applies to Reddit Politics, they offer complex moderation rules but ultimately it's over designed and creates lots of issues.  

    As as you pointed out The_Donald is a pink lenses world of Trump is great, and the rest of Reddit Politics is anti-Trump.

    Reddit politics should think about relying more on user self moderation, having Reddit Politics users flag out of line content and having moderators act on these warnings.   Also the issue of relying so much on upvoting to determine best content is too one-sided and creates a bias in cases of one-sided political supporters flood the system.  I am not suggesting that Reddit politics stops relying on user upvoting, but just not as the only measure of relevance.
    Given popularity of Reddit Politica, resolving the issue of dominance by anti-Trump redditors is challenging to solve.  For now Reddit Politics essentially decided to gate off Trump supporters into a gated community of the_Donald and is not willing to do much else about bias against Trump in the other Reddit politics subs.  I hope that changes at some point, but if not DebateIsland is a great place to debate politics.
    Live Long and Prosper
  • snlagsinstsnlagsinst 22 Pts   -  
    No, I switched from there due to DebateIsland's polls, design, functionality and community as well.
  • WhyTrumpWhyTrump 234 Pts   -  
    @snlagsinst , that's a great point.  There are many advantages you mentioned for debating at DebateIsland vs Reddit Politics.  While Reddit Politics has many more users and some great features, it just doesn't click as well as DebateIsland
    WhyTrump - a good question
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