It is clear that the signal to noise ratio of the WWW is getting worse. It’s much harder to find good content when using a good old search engine. And if it’s good it is usually hosted on Reddit or Stackexchange.
So remember, even if it’s easy too Google something (well, it isn’t nowadays), we want to create a fediverse of good content that helps people (I hope). So, it’s always better to write a real answer if you have the time and energy. Please help boost the SNR and reverse the AI fueled information degradation loop.
That’s why when I left reddit I don’t delete my posts (even if those posts suck)
Bonus:
I did, bc reddit locked up my content, and wanted to use it to train a LLM.
Let people ask again, here, in the fediverse.
(already had a feeling that someone will say this)
I won’t delete my posts/comments because I want to be helpful, that’s it.
But if I prefer deleting my posts/comments, I will archive it instead.
I respect what r/ArtFundamentals did, and it should be an example: After reddit’s APIpocalypse, they don’t support reddit and decided to close the subreddit. But the advices from the subreddit wasn’t gone–in fact they actually archive it in their own website:
https://drawabox.com/r/artfundamentals/
That’s assuming we’re able to draw the people with answers here into the fediverse, in the long run.
What gets us there is long term stability.
Grow organically, and they will come.
First, the tech enthusiasts, then tech journos, then normal journos, then normals.
It’s how online spaces grow.
Reddit lost nothing when you deleted your comments, they still exist on their servers and are likely being used to train LLMs now. All that was lost was other peoples ability to readt them
And without my.comment, fewer hits because users cannot see it, which means less people provide training data.
No single drop feels responsible for the flood.
Sure thats correct, but I’m a little uneasy with the idea of “burn down a useful resource for people becuase fewer people helped people results in slower increases of data to Reddit”
That does hurt Reddits usability for users, though, which is bad for business in general.
I can kinda get the sentiment. I left during the protests too and I can see people wanting to damage Reddit, which is also completely deserved. Of course now Reddit is respecting the right to your comments even less and scrapes them for Google’s LLM models.