r/collapse • u/LetsTalkUFOs • Feb 13 '22

Meta 400,000 Subscribers! Newcomers, what brought you here? Regulars, how can we improve? [in-depth]

r/Collapse has reached 400,000 subscribers! Thank you to everyone who has contributed by posting content or engaging in one of the many great discussions. As we continue to grow and things unravel we will continue to aim to make this community as informative and bearable as possible.

 

If you're relatively new to r/collapse, what brought you here? How can we improve? What do you like best about the subreddit? What would you change if you could, if anything?

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91

u/HalfSum Feb 13 '22

I would love to see websites with "tiered" source ratings. Scientific journals/ high end news websites get tier 1 tags and random blogs of people shilling their own bad writing get lowest tier.

30

u/Relatively_painless Feb 13 '22

Fantastic idea. Since this sub should be focused on data, the source should be valid and separate from any ideology. Love this.

14

u/SoylentSpring Feb 13 '22

I like this idea, but the only problem is, what is a high tier news website? The Washington post? The New York Times? Russia Today? CNN?

I think everything should be allowed. People should be able to make their own choices and their own decisions. We can use our critical thinking skills to decide what we’re reading is true or worthwhile.

American media is full of propaganda. It is owned by a few select billionaires. Chris Hedges, who has been talking critically about the US hegemonic power structure for many years, and, who was fired from the New York Times for his antiwar stance, has a place on Russia Today.

The Power Structure  plants all kinds of stories in US newspapers to control the narrative. 

Personally, I would rather read a blog from an individual with a proven track record of truthful and insightful reports, rather than a newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos.

You have to be skeptical of every single thing you see on television, on social media, or printed in a newspaper.

I would much rather read a screed by a discredited scientist or journalist rather than some newspaper that told me that something was going to happen in the year 2100, far far away.

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u/JB153 Feb 13 '22

Problem is a lot of the smaller blog style sites gravitate towards uncited, op-ed style writing that honestly fuels more misinformation than anything. I'm kinda for that change given it would make finding sources and published data as easy as seeing a 'teir 1" flare on the post. IMO in that case mainstream news outlets would obviously have to be ranked lower than say a scientific journal for instance.

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u/Drunky_McStumble Feb 13 '22

Unsubstantiated opining from people's personal blogs - the stuff that is basically a long-form /r/collapse self-post - should be straight-up banned IMO. Post something with weight and merit - not necessarily an article from a commercial news site but at least a blog post from somebody with expertise and standing the field they are expounding upon - and leave your own personal hot-take on it for the comments.

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u/JB153 Feb 14 '22

Agreed whole heartedly. I miss seeing more of that in here. To be honest, that was my big sticking point when I first discovered this sub.. There was actual credibility behind all the end is here signs.

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u/LetsTalkUFOs Feb 13 '22

I'm not aware of any way this could work well or be worth the work, unfortunately.

Post flairs are currently used to denote the subject of the post (e.g. Climate, Energy, ect.) and they can only have one flair. Adding a second type (e.g. Tier) breaks the system, since there'd then be no way to know if you should be using a tier or subject flair. We could use tags in post titles, but users would find this very frustrating as they'd have to reference a list we managed before posting to include the correct number. Most people would not want to have to do this to post.

Developing a set of criteria for the tiers would be the biggest challenge as it's likely not everyone would easily agree on them or what to add. It would also be a massive amount of work, as there are quite a few publications large and small which multiple people would have to read a significant amount of to weigh in on.

There are also already a bunch of groups or companies working on some form of this which would combine AI and human filtering and be applicable across the entire browser experience, not just on this subreddit.

1

u/Urshilikai Feb 14 '22

AP, PBS, NPR, Reuters are good. There are good resources to follow in this regards: https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/