I wrote a tongue in cheek humor piece on April fools day last year about ditching Java and switching to .BAT. Earlier this year it hit the front page of Reddit which was very exciting since my little server stood up to the pounding pretty well. Then more recently it hit the front page of Digg (but only briefly). Talk about two totally different experiences!
I received lots of positive feedback from folks who found the story on Reddit and got a good laugh out of it. Fast forward a month to being on Digg where in addition to some very nice feedback I also received lots of negative feedback telling me what an idiot I must be for suggesting people switch to .BAT from Java. This guy even blogged about it! Shortly after going up on Digg’s homepage, the link to my story vanished from the homepage, probably from too many users marking my story as factually innaccurate (which of course it is because it’s a joke) ;-).
I guess it’s not totally surprising given Digg and Reddit’s respective user bases, however, I was still surprised by the marked difference in user response and assumed everyone would realize I was joking!
I’ve found that many retards (esp. java and python fanatics) seem to always congregate at the most popular sites. slashdot, del.icio.us, now digg.com. I mean, read the comments at digg, or what kind of stories make it to the front page (like stupid videos).
I thought it was hilarious, I couldn’t believe it got taken down from digg! So much blatantly wrong crap gets posted on digg, people don’t even take the time to recognize a joke when they see one. My nodigg.net blog is just dedicated to making fun of digg and digg users. I was ecstatic to be able to make a “.BAT shit” joke thanks to your story.
I’ve never heard of reddit before. What are the pros and cons compared to digg?
I remember this story appearing on digg. I will admit I was horrified for about 0.5 seconds before the joke registered. I dugg it ;o)
Digg’s comment content has denigrated to the extent that it largely now consists of peurile 12/yo’s (or those with that mentality) and ‘fanboyz’ with the occasional ‘diamond in the rough’. I have certainly abandoned digg from the community point of view although I still occasionaly visit it for tech links if im bored. Good luck to digg.com though; im sure there is a massive advertising market for young teenage boys that they can leverage.
Reddit is kinda new and is my current forum of choice. Its not just ‘tech’ news like digg.com; expect a large dose of politics/sociology/science as well. The userbase is more mature and reasoned at this point and the reddit crew are still experimenting with their algorithms so it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.
Interesting. I’d completely given up on comments on any tech websites. I’ll have to give reddit a shot. I could use some non-tech news too after all.