Reliance on Random Redditors for Comment

[Rune the Red]

Something that I've noticed lately in some articles is the appearance of quotes lifted from reddit posts. I think these are trying to fill the role of trying to capture the zeitgeist of people who care about any particular issue like the way "Person on the street" style reporting can, but I think these provide limited value particularly with repeated use.

The recent article about Nike has 7 different reddit quotes. At some point if I want to read reddit I can just go to reddit. There is other interesting information in the article, but it's pretty short and all the different quotes from unverified redditors expressing their feelings with various levels of profanity just feel like degradation of the usually high signal to noise ratio of ars content.

Edit:
It occurs to me I may have placed this in the wrong forum. It probably belongs in the editorial round table, but alas it lives here now.

 

[poochyena]

I don't think i seen them do this before, or at least not often, unless it was directly an article about reddit itself.
I agree in that taking quotes from social media is bad journalistic practice. "Person on the street" quotes is fine, but this isn't even that since they aren't asking these people anything, they are just random comments they found.

Its not just that its lazy, its that comments on social media just can't be trusted unless there is some sort of verification that the person is actually real and genuine. People on the street are more likely to be genuine and can be judged otherwise based on tone of voice and etc. Social media posts are just totally void of any context. The quotes could be generated by chatGPT for all the author knows.

 

[Dr Nno]

You can't freely link to Twitter anymore for Random Person On The Street comments, so the journalists need to find another source.

 

[rain shadow]

That is some nice lurking!

 

[Backstop]

You can't freely link to Twitter anymore for Random Person On The Street comments, so the journalists need to find another source.

Plus, with reddit you can quote ones that have a lot of upboats which theoretically are more zeitgeist-y.

 

[whoisit]

Plus, with reddit you can quote ones that have a lot of upboats which theoretically are more zeitgeist-y.

Tasty, tasty, upboats.

 

[poochyena]

You can't freely link to Twitter anymore for Random Person On The Street comments, so the journalists need to find another source.

If only ars technica had access to some other large community of people with a wide range of skills and knowledge that related to tech and science that they could question and take quotes from. Too bad such a community doesn't exist anywhere other than twitter and reddit!

 

[papadage]

Many community members have done freelance work; some later became staff writers. You have not been here long enough to see it.

 

[Aurich]

We used to have a regular feature called Ask Ars, that basically did exactly this. We've talked about bringing it back many times, I think it will happen some day, it's still a good idea.

That doesn't have much relation to the topic at hand though, I didn't see a single person in our comments say they owned the Nikes in question. Ars isn't a resource for something like that.

But in general I'm for it when it's something that fits.

 

[SunRaven01]

We used to have a regular feature called Ask Ars, that basically did exactly this. We've talked about bringing it back many times, I think it will happen some day, it's still a good idea.

Science Mail Bag!

 

[grommit!]

If only ars technica had access to some other large community of people with a wide range of skills and knowledge that related to tech and science that they could question and take quotes from. Too bad such a community doesn't exist anywhere other than twitter and reddit!

I don't think I've ever seen a sneaker head discussion on the forums in the time I've been here. As far as I can tell, reddit and facebook are the places where sneaker heads congregate. A specialist forum does seem to exist (sneakertalk dot com), but the most recent posts were from 2022.

 

[Aurich]

I don't think I've ever seen a sneaker head discussion on the forums in the time I've been here. As far as I can tell, reddit and facebook are the places where sneaker heads congregate. A specialist forum does seem to exist (sneakertalk dot com), but the most recent posts were from 2022.

There is a lot, unsurprisingly, on Instagram too.

I'm a sneakerhead, I said as much in our article comments. I have paid more for a pair of Nikes than those lace up shoes cost.

But I wouldn't really think to share much about it here. This isn't really a great community for that kind of content to be honest about it. There are a lot of people who are actively disdainful about spending money on fashion or emotional purchases. I think that's pretty common in geeky circles that have a lot of more engineer-minded folk, and that's fine. But when I buy a new pair of shoes that make me happy I don't really feel like exposing my good vibes to that kind of energy.

I don't know if reddit being less popular here these days is a factor in this discussion or not. But whether or not people here choose to use reddit it's still a massively popular site with a lot of very active communities.

 

[papadage]

No, we have different hobbies.

Lots of electronics, fountain pens, motorcycles, Lego, board games, etc.

There are some fashion-minded people here, but there is not much common ground in terms of styles. I have custom suits, shirts, and pants made by a tailor I was introduced to by an Arsian, for instance. He is also making jeans now, and I told him I'll have him measure me for some next time he comes by my area.

I use Reddit for particular topics, such as specific software, my current car lease model, some collectibles, and a few focused hobbies. I don't go there for any general or social topics or post politics anywhere but here.

 

[Rune the Red]

I mean, I spend plenty of time on Reddit, and you have to derive opinions from somewhere. To me the fact that the comments here come from Reddit isn't the trouble. The nature of most social media topic forums is a total mix of bots, randos, fans, and haters. If the thread is popular enough, you can find somebody voicing virtually every possible opinion. I'm not a sneakerhead, and I don't know the industry, but I'm certain there are people within that community that hold valued opinions and points of view. I'd like to hear a little more from them and a little less of

One Reddit user who claimed to own multiple pairs of the shoes called the news "hyper bullshit,"...

To be clear, I'm not saying this inclusion is without value or should be excluded. It has a reasonable chance of being true, it's entertaining, and it serves well as "the internet's reaction". I could also see room for some comments expressing different points of view. I just want Ars to do what I can't do by opening a Reddit tab. Find someone to speak to with a little more authority, veracity, and context than a social media poster, particularly when reporting on something a little more outside the usual staples.

Unrelatedly, I like the Ask Ars concept, even as a way to stimulate newsworthy discussion among our own community (that yes, I am a seasoned lurker within).

EDIT: Some sentences... they run on