> t's not HN, but awful is an overstatement.

Agreed. In many ways I find Reddit to be much better and more enjoyable. First, it provides a better UX, especially for posting and revising comments. Second, there is much less pedantry there than on HN ("Well technically... Well technically... Exception in this exceptional case! No it's not. Yes it is! Exotic edge case under theoretical conditions I read about in a book that one time!" etc.). Third, there are less haters. Fourth, there are lots of funny and creative writers there, again, unlike here on HN. There are definitely positives about HN, and both HN and Reddit share some of the same weaknesses (a unimind or Thought Police effect: if you post a view that strays too far from the median you will get downvotes that penalizes your karma, even if your post was thoughtful, well-written, constructive, polite, etc.)

It seems like proggit is dying. I've been subbed to it for a few years and there used to be a lot more submissions. I don't have data to back it up and hopefully I am wrong but if I am not I imagine us programmers prefer to go to sources totally dedicated for programming instead of a mixed bag. It would make sense for proggit to be dying out though because Reddit used to be primarily for tech and has of course now shifted out of tech and into everything.

I stopped following proggit months ago for the simple reason that there's too much not-about-programming posts. Too much of the content was "announcing my iphone app!", "omg industry gossip!" and stackoverflow repost variety. And I was sick of it.

I tried for about 2 months to politely explain to posters why their posts didn't fit the guidelines and then I quit and gave up. Why fight an inevitability?