> any subreddit with a large population seems to have fallen into a pit of lowest common denominator group think from which they'll never return. I don't think it's their architecture that's to blame
You should! Have you ever wondered why subreddits suddenly go to crap when they hit the front page? It's because people upvote without considering the subreddit that it was originally posted in. And that's partly because Reddit's design doesn't make the originating subreddit obvious enough, partly because you don't have to navigate to that subreddit to vote on it, and mostly because the front page hits a large number of unsubscribed folks that don't know the sub rules. So as people are idly scrolling through their feed, they see something funny, they go "heh, upvote." and move on. Whoops, that post was in r/Unexpected, and it wasn't unexpected at all. The top posts of that subreddit slowly become more homogenous with all the other popular subreddits, and we say the subreddit has died.
The most savvy subs will implement a stickied comment system. The top comment in the post will be stickied and allow people to vote on whether the post really belongs to the sub. They're able to filter out highly-upvoted irrelevant content this way, even if the sub hits the front page.
> why are there toxic posts on any of these platforms
People exist, there is no way around this. The best we can do is design around mitigating it, not amplifying it.
You should! Have you ever wondered why subreddits suddenly go to crap when they hit the front page? It's because people upvote without considering the subreddit that it was originally posted in. And that's partly because Reddit's design doesn't make the originating subreddit obvious enough, partly because you don't have to navigate to that subreddit to vote on it, and mostly because the front page hits a large number of unsubscribed folks that don't know the sub rules. So as people are idly scrolling through their feed, they see something funny, they go "heh, upvote." and move on. Whoops, that post was in r/Unexpected, and it wasn't unexpected at all. The top posts of that subreddit slowly become more homogenous with all the other popular subreddits, and we say the subreddit has died.
The most savvy subs will implement a stickied comment system. The top comment in the post will be stickied and allow people to vote on whether the post really belongs to the sub. They're able to filter out highly-upvoted irrelevant content this way, even if the sub hits the front page.
> why are there toxic posts on any of these platforms
People exist, there is no way around this. The best we can do is design around mitigating it, not amplifying it.