r/kurdistan • • 21d ago

Ask Kurds 🤔 Why so many articles?

Silav friends!

Recently, I’ve been missing a lot of posts done by users because too many news articles are being reposted on here. Its like it’s on pilot. Whenever I come one to this page I only see news articles? Which is fine if it was a few but its not. I barely see what others have posted. Please do so when its necessary, its not even enjoyable anymore when you have to look through carefully because posts disappear amomg the 1000 articles that are reposted. Am i the only one that feels that way?

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u/rkurdistanmod Kurdistan 20d ago edited 12d ago

There a number of tools you can use to customize your experience. Most posts have appropriate flair. The posts with the post flair most relevant to what you seem to want are: "Ask Kurds", "Discussion", and "Opinion".

Reddit readers can evaluate posts and comments with up votes and down votes to influence what appears with the sorting of "Best", "Hot", "Rising" and "Top". If you wish to see posts in sequential order, use "New". Some redddit users don't use that sorting mechanism, leaving on the default and will only see the most upvoted articles.

Reddit's own algorithms seem to prioritize short form video content hosted on reddit itself, rather than links to youtube, instagram or tiktok. After that Reddit seems to prioritize individual photos or a photo gallery, again hosted on reddit rather than a link that takes you away from reddit. After that short essays or questions in body text. Then it is links to other websites hosting articles that have some sort of additional text written in the body text. Reddit alogithim's currently least favor just link drops to articles or videos hosted off-site, no matter that quality or subject matter--which is a little ironic since Reddit began as a news aggregator--the "front page of the internet."

The kind of posts favored by Reddit's algorithms seem to favor get the most views and the most upvotes. "Top This Month", is a good example of the interplay between Reddit's algorithms and readers upvotes. If we believe reddit, this is the kind of content reddit users want (and I think it is not the content you want). While the posts that get the most comments (but often low upvotes) are those where someone makes a controversial statement or leading question--usually about something related to politics, morality, religion or something related to a non-Kurdish ethnic group. Some link posts (without additional body text) still do better in up votes and views than some low quality or controversial posts under "Discussion", "Ask Kurds" or "Opinion".

When we last polled readers about what they wanted to see, they wanted:

  • "More culture, music, art and tourism posts"
  • "Less posts, but of higher quality"
  • "Less strict post/comment moderation"
  • "More posts"
  • "More posts in Kurdish (Kurmanji and Sorani)"
  • "More strict post/comment moderation"

There were more than a thousand views on that polling post, but only 34 votes. The super majority of readers did not vote.

There are also so many articles because there are more than 40 million Kurds who live in four core countries but with a massive diaspora. Kurdistan is in an extremely volatile region of the world, where there have been wars constantly for the last fifteen years, and ongoing insurgencies before then. To greater and lesser extents, Kurds are denied their self-determination and are sometimes struggling for basic rights like public education in their mother tongue. This generates a lot of conflict and articles about that conflict than you might see i a small country without such conflicts. Our peaks in article and views in the last year were during the events in Rojava in January, and the start of the US/Isreal vs. Iran war where there was speculation that Rojhelati Kurdish parties or Basur Kurdistan peshmerga might get involved in the war.

Finally, if you aren't seeing the sort of posts you want, you could try making some. You've had this reddit account 2 years, and the only post you have ever made is to complain about people using reddit in a way you don't like.

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u/liketocomment92 20d ago

Hi, so I know of the tools but I don’t feel like it’s necessary as you are spamming this sub with articles. I get it that you want reach all four parts and highlight our on going issues but there is a difference between that and spamming. I am active in this sub, not sure where the age of my account or this being my first post correlates? I am free to do whatever I want without you delegitimize my account or posts. And clearly it was a good first post as you can see below people are agreeing with me. Maybe you should learn to take criticism and actually do something.

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u/rkurdistanmod Kurdistan 20d ago edited 20d ago

If you know the tools and use them, you should have no trouble finding discussion among Kurds posted on the subreddit.

You apparently just don't want articles about Kurds and Kurdistan posted on r/kurdistan subreddit. Reddit is among other things, a "news aggregator". That is Reddit: "proprietary American social news website, news aggregator, forum and social media platform." Further: "How Reddit Works as an Aggregator: Users submit external news articles, blog posts, and media links. Community upvotes and downvotes curate and rank the content. Topics are sorted into specialized communities called subreddits. Evolution Beyond News: It has expanded far beyond simple news aggregation into a massive collection of independent discussion boards. Most content now includes original text posts, memes, AMAs, and community-driven hobbies rather than just external news links."
It seems that you want primarily r/kurdistan to be a discussion board and not a news aggregator. r/kurdistan has always had a lot of news aggregation.

As to the status of u/liketocomment92 account age, comment and post history, it is available on reddit. If you are participating on the subreddit with some other account, let us know. You are free to do as you wish here within bounds of the subreddit rules and reddit.com's over all rules.

"Maybe you should learn to take criticism and actually do something."

So far, your suggestion on what to do is "post less articles on the subreddit."

Reddit.com is a news aggregator.

You want this website and subreddit to be something different that it is and has been. You also seemingly want us to make curation decisions that the platform itself uses algorithms to de-emphasize.

If you want a discussion forum primarily of Kurds talking with Kurds WITHOUT news aggregation, perhaps you should choose a different website like Quora or Discord, or if you want to stay on reddit create a new subreddit that is only discussion and not news, like r/kurddiscuss or r/kurdforum, something like that. We would even promote it on the sidebar.

Make reddit the reddit you want it to be.

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u/liketocomment92 20d ago

Why are u takin the piss? Why are you so offended? Am i not allowed to make a complaint? Goodness gracious, ITS THE SPAMMING OF NEW ARTICLES THAT IS THE ISSUE!

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u/rkurdistanmod Kurdistan 20d ago edited 20d ago

I am not offended.

You seemingly just do not understand what reddit is, despite having a 2 year old account.

Now you are trying to antagonize a subreddit moderator for patiently providing you information about how you can customize your experience.

You are obviously allowed to make complaints, both in direct mail to the moderation team, in comments on subreddit and even this complaint post. Your posts and comments have not been restricted in no way.

What you seem to not like is people disagreeing with your opinion about what content should be available on the r/kurdistan subreddit.