Is this a good alternative to reddit?

submitted by IamCleaver from self.SaidIt

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[–]send_nasty_stuff 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

If you were a real alternative to reddit you wouldn't have to promote at all. That's why Digg collapsed and reddit saw rocket ship growth. The internet is more akin to a whisper campaign or a small town sewing circle. Many movers and shakers on the internet are from a generation that HATES being marketed too. They only try things when trustworthy people suggest the site. Which means you need to get the 'hipster' type people on your site first and hope that they bring their friends who bring their friends, etc. Guerrilla marketing or no marketing is the way to go.

IMHO saidit has not grown to challenge Reddit because it doesn't actively develop it's platform* and it has not learned how important consistency is for people looking for social media sites. The multiple monthly shut downs have cost saidit growth. I'm glad saidit is still here and I'm glad you are back Magnora7. I've seen a subtle uptick of activity on the site the last few weeks or so so maybe the 'dark winter' in the US will lead to people searching for truth and dissent. That will be a real opportunity for saidit. Hopefully it is not squandered.

*lots of critical pieces like a native image uploader and video uploader are missing. If a small site like Slug can have these features I'm not sure why we can't.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

If you were a real alternative to reddit you wouldn't have to promote at all. That's why Digg collapsed and reddit saw rocket ship growth.

This isn't 2007... the internet has changed a lot. There are shill and botgroups that have to be defended against so they don't poison the online culture. Growth has to outpace shill and bot activity.

Reddit advertised hugely when they started, and were also astroturfing posts and votes to make the place appear more popular, something we didn't do at all.

We're proof that advertising is basically necessary. I had to do all my promoting by hand, that's why 90% of the users that are here now are here, is because I mentioned saidit to them in a reddit thread. Had I not done this constant promotion by myself, literally no one would be here at all.

The fact you think all these users will just materialize out of nowhere is pure fantasy, based on an internet culture that no longer exists.

We've had 5 total days of downtime in 3 years. Our uptime record is actually quite good, so I'm not sure why people keep going on about that like we've failed massively in that regard. Need I remind you almost all the other alternatives completely pulled the plug?

How about you help promote the site to others, and actually help?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

We've had 5 total days of downtime in 3 years.

It's not a criticism, people were worried about the site and your wellbeing. Three outages happened April 22 (?), May 19, and June 21. A month apart roughly, seemed possibly bill related although D3 said it's automatic.

The iron left troll claimed responsibility but nobody believed him. That mostly went away. Skeeter had some ties to them -- or was the entire iron left, that whole thing was weird and I don't know the whole story. Skeeter is a trip though, kinda trolly but he grows on you. He claimed he made 70 accounts, he does go through a lot although these days I don't notice him using more than one at a time. His writing is pretty distinctive, sticks out.

D3 has done an awesome job while you were gone. I hope you like the lack of spam. He sent out mod invitations for days for different subs to a few people who went on a bug hunt to prove their chops.

u/Axxa has done a tremendous job too. I mod to nuke spam but he's good at it. He works to improve his subs. All the guys are doing a great job. The mod queue is generally empty -- except s/whatever goes back 7mos still but soon it should be clear too. Not that it's necessary but it looks nice.

u/Socks was a mod at s/Politics too! He did a really good job. Him and Jason still fight lol, that's like you never left.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head of Saidit news. Glad you're not dead, don't ban me again please.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah it was billing-related, because they shut down our autopay without warning, twice. So we just started pre-paying to prevent that.

D3rr is doing great.