It is clear that the signal to noise ratio of the WWW is getting worse. It’s much harder to find good content when using a good old search engine. And if it’s good it is usually hosted on Reddit or Stackexchange.

So remember, even if it’s easy too Google something (well, it isn’t nowadays), we want to create a fediverse of good content that helps people (I hope). So, it’s always better to write a real answer if you have the time and energy. Please help boost the SNR and reverse the AI fueled information degradation loop.

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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    6720 hours ago

    “Google It”

    I google

    finds 1 link

    its a link to a fourm post with the same question

    only 1 answer found

    answer says “Google It”

    🙃

    • DarkThoughts
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      3219 hours ago

      Old Reddit threads where the answer giver deleted their account & all their comments.

      • @[email protected]
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        3519 hours ago

        That’s why when I left reddit I don’t delete my posts (even if those posts suck)

        Bonus:

        a screenshot of deleted reddit comment with a reply thanking the parent commenter

        • @[email protected]
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          1818 hours ago

          I did, bc reddit locked up my content, and wanted to use it to train a LLM.

          Let people ask again, here, in the fediverse.

          • @[email protected]
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            1818 hours ago

            (already had a feeling that someone will say this)

            I won’t delete my posts/comments because I want to be helpful, that’s it.

            But if I prefer deleting my posts/comments, I will archive it instead.

            I respect what r/ArtFundamentals did, and it should be an example: After reddit’s APIpocalypse, they don’t support reddit and decided to close the subreddit. But the advices from the subreddit wasn’t gone–in fact they actually archive it in their own website:

            https://drawabox.com/r/artfundamentals/

            • @Contramuffin
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              312 hours ago

              I wrote a script (well, modified one of my old bots) to copy and archive all of my comments before editing them. I left a note in the comments for how to find me in case they wanted the original comment. I felt like that was a fair compromise

          • @ApollosArrow
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            416 hours ago

            That’s assuming we’re able to draw the people with answers here into the fediverse, in the long run.

            • @[email protected]
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              415 hours ago

              What gets us there is long term stability.

              Grow organically, and they will come.

              First, the tech enthusiasts, then tech journos, then normal journos, then normals.

              It’s how online spaces grow.

            • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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              111 hours ago

              Just search for obscure shitty pocketknife models and my dinkum pictures from here are among the top results, sometimes even #1. I therefore conclude that this is not outside the realm of possibility.

              • @ApollosArrow
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                111 hours ago

                Is it the mantis? I had to use kagi and set it to fediverse for it to pop up for me. On firefox and google it it nowhere to be seen for me.

          • @Womble
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            015 hours ago

            Reddit lost nothing when you deleted your comments, they still exist on their servers and are likely being used to train LLMs now. All that was lost was other peoples ability to readt them

            • queermunist she/her
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              615 hours ago

              That does hurt Reddits usability for users, though, which is bad for business in general.

            • @[email protected]
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              515 hours ago

              And without my.comment, fewer hits because users cannot see it, which means less people provide training data.

              No single drop feels responsible for the flood.

              • @Womble
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                112 hours ago

                Sure thats correct, but I’m a little uneasy with the idea of “burn down a useful resource for people becuase fewer people helped people results in slower increases of data to Reddit”

                • @[email protected]
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                  112 hours ago

                  A trap for people isn’t something I’d consider “useful”.

                  Just like a pedo van offering free food to kids… sure kids get fed, but at what cost?

        • DarkThoughts
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          415 hours ago

          I can kinda get the sentiment. I left during the protests too and I can see people wanting to damage Reddit, which is also completely deserved. Of course now Reddit is respecting the right to your comments even less and scrapes them for Google’s LLM models.

          • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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            211 hours ago

            Eh. I torched all my comments when I left (and posts, too) and I’ve said before and still maintain that I’m not sorry in the slightest.

            If anything wants to know anything I said that was relevant to anything (and not the usual cavalcade of political bickering) they can come here and ask. I’ll gladly retype any of it.

            Fuck reddit. The quicker we can dispose of it and just rip that Band-Aid off, the better.

      • Deebster
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        919 hours ago

        Or scrambled all of their posts after APIgate (or whatever we’re calling it). Perhaps they came here, which means OP is right in saying we can be a new source of useful answers.

        • DarkThoughts
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          115 hours ago

          I’m not sure if Lemmy or other Fediverse posts even get indexed by any of the search engines. I’ve yet to see any in a search result.

          • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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            211 hours ago

            They absolutely do. Not only Lemmy posts in general, but I have found my own content completely unintentionally on searches several times.

            • DarkThoughts
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              111 hours ago

              I guess it’s a matter of lack of good posts that could become the desired search result then. Time will tell if we ever get to that point.

              • Deebster
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                17 hours ago

                The way that all the copies of the content link to the original post should be some kind of SEO hack. I wonder if it’s triggering specific rules in search engines that detect it and downrank it as cheating.

      • @[email protected]
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        18 hours ago

        I don’t feel bad about wiping my account, as almost everything on it was useless.

        Also I was pissed off at the time, and my goal was to make more people dislike going on Reddit.