Suggestion: distinguishing users

Trin
2018-06-03T10:35:12Z

One of the things I dislike about Reddit is how the username is something very easy to gloss over. Unless a user is super prolific, you don't ever remember a person on Reddit. I feel this is a big part of what makes Reddit so unpleasant - you are just one voice among many, a cog in the machine, so every time you post it's not that different to just posting from a throwaway. Generally, I think this really contributes to the feeling that on Reddit, you are just an opinion, not an actual person with thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Additionally, it protects people who post toxic comments, because it's easy to forget their username and so when you encounter them again, you can't easily tell they are the person from before, unless you check their post history.

On smaller subreddits, this problem is partially solved with flairs. The problem with those is that they do not stay the same across Reddit (which I guess is a matter of personal preference, participating in Reddit as a whole vs a bunch of separate communities), and they often serve as a way to add relevant info about the user, so they are just generic groups that a lot of people share.

I think ~ could really benefit from having some kind of way to tell one user from one another better. Either by making the usernames more prominent somehow, by adding flairs, or possibly even avatars (I know, that's so incredibly retro, but it does help see you the other person as a person and not just as an opinion on the internet).

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~tildes/1gh/suggestion_distinguishing_users

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