reddit is most definitely not a plaza. It's a large website with lots of warrens, each of which is its own echo-chamber.

Reddit most definitely has aspects of both. Some subreddits are niche/echo chambers, but for example the main front page subs have a lot of overlap and fair amount of cross-talk, creating a distinctly plaza-like atmosphere. Heck, a single big public sub probably qualifies as a plaza.

You don't need permission to join almost any subreddit. You can see anything you want to see. So it's a plaza.

but at the same time, subreddits are generally pretty insular. Reddit isn't a flat bazaar like twitter, it's a series of cathedrals. There are a few subreddits (generally the defaults) that are more bazaar-like but they are the exception rather than the rule, and are still constrained by a subject and strict rules.

>Reddit isn't a flat bazaar like twitter, it's a series of cathedrals.

You're mixing metaphors. This discussion is using plaza/warren as defined by GGP's linked block post:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the...

"A warren is a social environment where no participant can see beyond their little corner of a larger maze... A plaza is an environment where you can easily get to a global/big picture view of the whole thing. "

You cannot see any content you would like on facebook; hence it is a warren. You can look at almost any subreddit on Reddit, hence it is a plaza. By the blog post's definition.

Cathedral/bazaar is ESR's metaphor for [F]OSS software development happening either behind closed doors or in the open.

I'm well aware of that - I was referencing the open/closed concept behind the cathedral/bazaar dichotomy to point to the closed nature of most subreddits - the "warren/plaza" metaphor is pretty crap. Sure, they may be publicly visible, but they're closed in the sense of being a social in-group with norms that require acclimatisation. They're like old-school programmer forums - if you just jump in as a non-member and try to engage you may well be told to GTFO or lurk more.

I agree that the distinction between warren and plaza is crap. That's basically my point above: there's not much to say about the distinction seeing as FB and Reddit are both extremely popular and users on Reddit apparently spend more time per day than FB users. So I think we agree on the conclusion, we're just disagreeing on how we get there.

>They're like old-school programmer forums - if you just jump in as a non-member and try to engage you may well be told to GTFO or lurk more.

That's not my experience on any subreddit so I can't agree on this part. But maybe I'm in an echo chamber so I no longer see the distinction. Do you have any tips to see if I'm in an echo chamber? Or does this just involve intentionally crossing norm boundaries and how is it distinct from trolling? /semi-rhetorical

I think a good way to tell if you're in an echo-chamber is to express an opinion that is counter to the group and see if the community engages in active debate or just tries to shun you. Not to the point of trolling, but just expressing an ordinary or commonly-held belief that is in contrast to the accepted group belief. Every group has them - aside from politics, consider e.g. expressing the idea that "Uber as an organisation is not immoral even if it has some bad employees" on HN right now. For the record, I think HN's actually pretty good at debating contrary opinions, a lot more so than most subreddits.