> This is what originally made Reddit awesome but the reversal of which has been slowly killing the fun. Mods have hijacked Reddit and turned all of the popular subreddits into their own pet newspapers which they are the chief editors/owner and only they themselves decide which content the users will enjoy.

That is true and I hate it.

A handful of people should never get to decide what millions can talk about.

But compared to oldschool forums, at least they don't butt into conversations too often and make things awkward.

It's definitely time for the Fourth Age (counting NNTP as the first), that combines the best things about oldschool forums with the best things about Reddit.

> It's definitely time for the Fourth Age

Agreed, do you have an ideas which would help push us forward?... this is clearly a step backwards, pushing us back towards the super-safe bigco communications world like 5-oclock TV news shows with pre-approved talking points.

Obviously developing new Reddit and Twitter alternatives that look like 2000s-era PHP shitholes aren't helping the problem.... or worse clones which merely pander to political extremists on the right or left or fringe groups which then scares off the moderates or politically disinterested.

> Agreed, do you have an ideas which would help push us forward?

I do, as I'm sure most of us do (have ideas).

But even if I manage to make an objectively better alternative, I can't guarantee that I won't become one of those mods :)

A recent post I made to a music community got removed because it was on the "do not post" songs list. I couldn't believe what I was reading. A music community that doesn't allow the users to post specific songs.

Sometimes topics have been done to death and you don't want to talk about it any more. Repeatedly having newcomers reintroducing a topic is quite grating, and often leads to long time community members ceasing to enjoy it. Like teenagers playing stairway to heaven in the guitar shop.

Also, can you share the specific song or banned list?

Political reddits are the worst. I am not aware of a single one that isn't a pure circle jerk. The libertarian one used to be this weird melting pot where you even had the odd Marxist or whatever engaging in actual intelligent discussion with Rothbardians and Randians and anarchists, but then it got taken over by pajama nazis.

Some of the smaller topical subreddits about science, space, and niche areas of tech and engineering are good. The further from politics the better it is.

The Jordan Peterson sub whilst not supposed to be political was good for thoughtful discussion about myth/philosophy/psychology ect for 2017-2018 and is now just political memes. They maintain an open policy at all times, not banning anyone or shutting down posters and as a result there is constant calls for more heavy moderating.

The redditors themselves want the authoritarian hand waved over the subs, because a lot of the time good quality content does not aggregate on reddit. I started an account here looking for the good stuff, hopefully thinkspot or something else will fill in the quality discussion blank on the web atm.

It s impossible to have a meaningful discussion with millions of subscribers. Seek smaller moderated subs.