Suggestions for improving Reddit

I’m thinking you guys should totally add some visual charts to the Reddit homepage:

1. A cool graphic showing user login trends over time—total numbers, broken down by subreddits and specific threads.

2. Something similar to the first one, but for post volume (not just counting posts, but actually looking at word counts too).

3. Deep-dive analytics on how people are interacting with different topics—like who's posting versus who's just lurking and reading.

From a dev standpoint, building these tools and visualizations is pretty straightforward since all this activity data is already sitting right there in the Reddit traffic logs.

4. selling the forum to someone who actually gives a damn about the community itself

steelskipper5 said:I honestly don't see how anything mentioned in the first post would actually make the forum better.

It would improve this potential sale under section 4.😬

...what if we introduced a Verizon user status for forum members who donate $50 toward a new or higher-quality server? Or just to help out the moderators, admins, or supermods when they’re stuck digging through endless posts, or even just helping the average users navigate their own writing.

As a reward, maybe Verizon members could get entered into an annual giveaway worth something like $350—maybe a decent monitor or some other PC component.

I honestly think we’d see plenty of Verizon members if the boss would just come clean about how much cash is actually needed to get the vB script running smoothly without all this constant "stuttering." 🥱

If I were a moderator, I’d probably lose my mind dealing with the impossibility of keeping up with bans or slow response times for regular users, because let’s be real: these aren't exactly professional working conditions. 🍿

You can argue until you're blue in the face, but it won't change a single thing.😁

I just don't see how these kinds of graphics and analytics would actually benefit users... what are we even supposed to do with all this data? 🤷
And frankly, there's zero indication of how this will fix the legendary mess that is this site's functionality...

George Sanders37 said:4. selling the forum to someone who actually cares about its future

I hear you on that, though I don't think we'll see that happening anytime soon, honestly. 🕺

Sam Alvarez4 said:I honestly don't get how those charts and analytics are supposed to help anyone. Like, what are we even meant to do with all that data? 🤷

It’s basically just so when you start losing an argument, you can pivot to an ad hominem attack and go scorched earth on the other person by pointing out how they have a tiny number of crappy, short posts. 🤷
Personally, I'm totally lost on the point of it all too. You see people cranking out 10k posts in just six months in random chat threads.

Jerry Ruiz36 said:---cut--- there are people out there racking up 10k posts in just six months on those chat threads.

On any standard US message board, chat messages don't count toward your thread post total.
But then again, this is a pretty bizarre corner of the internet, isn't it? So I suppose it doesn't really matter. 🤣

I honestly feel like a good chunk of the moderators could stand to learn what an ad hominem attack actually is, along with a few other concepts they constantly throw at users. No offense intended toward the mod team, but some of them seem to be flying blind and making calls without really knowing the rules.

I’m pretty sure the mods are absolutely loving all these new features we've got.

Anyway, just curious—how much have you guys actually chipped in to support everyone's favorite corner of Reddit? 🤣

Jack Cook7 said:I’m pretty sure the mods are loving all these new features.

Anyway, how much have most users actually donated to the favorite forum for Americans? 🤣

Reddit is a private site—it’s a private entity, so we don't really get to see their financials, nor should we necessarily need to. As far as I know, there isn't even a way to donate money directly to support the platform.

Would people even donate money to a forum? Maybe a long time ago, sure, but given the state of things today... I doubt it.

George Sanders37 said:Reddit is a private forum, and as such, we don't have access to its financial records—nor should we, really. As far as I'm aware, there isn't even a mechanism to donate money directly to support the site.

Would people actually donate money to a forum? Once upon a time, maybe. But today? Given the current state of things here? I am absolutely certain the answer is no.

Oh, is that so? 😵

I suppose when I finally hit that massive jackpot in the Powerball and try to offer the owner a fat stack of cash to upgrade the servers, he'll probably just turn me down, won't he? 🤣

Adam Morales45 said:Oh, really? 😵

I guess if I hit the big jackpot in the Powerball and tried to offer the owner cash for a new server, they'd probably turn me down anyway 🤣

It's your money—you can do whatever you want with it, even if it ends up being a bad investment.

The boss is keeping an eye on this thread; if he has anything further to contribute, he’ll step in. In the meantime, I am locking this discussion, as the conversation has drifted quite far off course.
@Uširo, I truly hope you hit it big on your next windfall and decide to invest in a better server, given how much this one seems to be lagging lately. 🙂