Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well. Hatred and bigotry used to be contained in places like /the_donald and /WhiteRights but those users eventually browse /popular and leave their vitriol there as well.
Having been on reddit for a decade it's sad to see it go from a tech/intellectual community to what it is now. I want real discussion, not arguing with racists. Seems reddit offers less and less of the former each day.
> Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well.
Is this really an issue? Are they going to /r/programming and dominating the conversation? Because I'm just not seeing it.
I think that the quality of a community is inversely related to the size, which explains why reddit "used to be cool". But the reason I still use reddit is because you can subscribe to communities you want - and there are still many good ones.
That said, there is room for improvement on the moderation side. I think a "peer-moderated" community would be awesome. Say for example, when a comment is flagged - a random but deterministic set of peers will make a judgement call. A "deterministic peer-jury" could be a useful mechanism for communities to grant voting/commenting/moderation rights.
The bigger issue in my opinion is controlling the discussion via sock puppets and underhanded moderation.
Yes, it's a HUGE issue. Maybe not in /programming yet, but pretty much any thread dealing with a controversial topic (say, the killings of African-american citizens by police in the US) will be plastered with overt bigotry and hatred.
It simply didn't used to be this way. The discussion used to be what I'd go to reddit for, now it's the part I avoid.
Having been on reddit for a decade it's sad to see it go from a tech/intellectual community to what it is now. I want real discussion, not arguing with racists. Seems reddit offers less and less of the former each day.