Doug's Rant #10 Dumb Reddit “Rules”, BlueSky Bots, Tick...Tock & A Couple AI Tips!
I didn’t even realize I had much to rant about, but yep…once I start I usually end up with a couple things to cover.
Dumb Reddit “Rules”
Reddit needs to grow up. Let’s start with that. This may annoy Redditors greatly but don’t hate the player, hate the game. The game is Google loves Reddit. I’m not so sure this was the case a decade ago, but I see plenty of Google search results that just return links to Reddit posts, and I get daily traffic to this blog from Reddit. So of course I’m going to take advantage of that. Why wouldn’t I?
Now in many corners of Reddit it’s FIERCELY frowned upon to post any link to anything YOU may have done. nO sElF pRoMoTiOn!!! Well, I’m sorry but there is too much garbage on Reddit for me to feel compelled to protect the sanctity of the platform. Why should I protect low effort garbage and the anonymity that goes with it? I’m on Reddit as ME - I’m dougcohen10 - for almost 12 years now, and I swear I might be the only one. I don’t have a problem with people knowing who I am. And there is so much low effort crap there - most moderators are asleep at the wheel while users just spam “What’s your favorite song” into every single band subreddit on the platform to get Reddit karma (the Reddit point gamification system).
The answer to why shouldn’t I post something of value I worked really hard on that I might benefit from is usually something like…. Well actually I don’t even know what the answer is. Because it’s not cool? Says who? If the subreddit doesn’t like it let them downvote or ignore it, and move on. You can block any user you like - if you don’t like a blog post I’ve shared downvote it and block me - done. If posting a link to a topical and well-written article on a subject I have knowledge and even expertise on makes me a dick or brings the proceedings down a notch from “Why weren’t Prince and Michael Jackson friends” asked for the 57th time then what are we even doing? When you do post a link Reddit gives you a nice tool to share it into other subreddits - but….no - I should NOT do that then? Then why tell me to do it?
Do you see the text in blue? You know the text that tells me how many communities I’ve shared this post to on Reddit? What about the button with the even bigger blue font below it - can someone tell me what that one says? Oh right - only if it’s NOT something I wrote on my own website. I’m only supposed to share and promote other people’s stuff. Gimme a break. I recently posted this ranking of Joy Division songs in the Joy Division subreddit and I even asked the moderators first - giving them a heads up that I was doing it. They never answered. So I posted it. And then they removed it. Here’s the exchange regarding the post:
Except it didn’t slip through the cracks - it was intercepted and removed before getting the chance to slip through. A knee-jerk reaction to remove something that the moderator must have thought was simply SELF PROMOTION. Listen I’m not ONLY there to post stuff from my website into the feed by any means. I contribute plenty of votes and comments. I post fun things that don’t link anywhere. But as long as the platform is going to reward me for doing so - and it does, I’m going to post things I’ve written that have value. I don’t believe it’s obnoxious that I’m benefitting from traffic on something I worked hard on. I don’t even have e-commerce on this website for crying out loud.
I’m not sorry. And I’m going to keep doing it.
Bluesky Bots
I am still enjoying Bluesky and I am still seeing people joining. Musician Gareth Koch just posted on Facebook the other day that he had joined and I “welcomed” him which was fun. Here’s the exchange stitched together for you:
I’ve written here on the blog and on LinkedIn about Bluesky and how excited I am for it. But now that the platform is truly on the map it’s dealing with big platform problems like BOTS. Lots of them. The Bluesky team is aware and they’re battling them - I hope they get their arms around it. It’s frustrating AF. I liked to watch the Bluesky counter showing the numbers of users climbing and climbing - blasting past the 25 million mark. The counter even shows you how many users are joining per second. It had slowed to less than one per second which bummed me out a little since X is such a train wreck. I can’t understand why so much sports banter is still stuck over on that wretched platform. The toxicity and vitriol - I can’t stay on there for more than a couple minutes when I bother to sneak a peek. So when the Bluesky new user pace jumped back up to 1.7 per second (1.4 as I’m typing this) I got excited until I started seeing an uptick of new followers of my profile - almost all of them bots. GRRRRRRR. %$^&%@#!*& Bots suck. Okay moving on…
Tick Tock….on TikTok?
Not looking good for TikTok at all huh? It could actually go dark in America. The Supreme Court didn’t seem to be buying the argument from TikTok’s attorneys that shutting it down would undermine Americans’ freedom of speech. And I have to tell you - I agree with the court. The argument for social media being THE way you exercise freedom of speech has seemed silly to me each time someone on either side of one of these arguments invokes it. The constitution does provide the right to freedom of speech. The constitution does NOT give you the right to freedom of speech…….on TikTok. It’s not like your freedom of speech will go dark when TikTok goes dark. I’m sure you’ll be able to find another place to speak freely. What did you do BEFORE TikTok? There will likely be a couple more 11th hour twists and turns in this story but TikTok could indeed be done for…. wow.
Okay Now For A Couple Tips for using AI - mainly for blogging
Let’s get away from ranting for a sec and I’ll give you two quick tips that I actually posted on……Reddit! Hehe…
I do NOT use AI to write my blog posts, and I don’t plan on ever doing so.
I HAVE used AI as a tool in the following 2 ways so far when I am blogging though:
1) When I’ve struggled with a TITLE for my blog that I’ve written, I’ve described the piece to Chat GPT and asked for suggestions for a blog title. It usually gives me like 3-5 and it helps me to come up with one I’m happy with. It’s rare that it gives me a perfect one that I use word for word but it does help me distill my piece into a title that works if I’m stuck.
2) In the body of the piece I wrote about Bluesky I wanted to give some context on what a train wreck Twitter/X has been. The piece was about Bluesky - not Twitter, and I didn’t feel like going down the wormhole of researching the history of Twitter’s issues to provide that context. I asked Chat GPT for a summary and then cut and pasted it into the piece that I WROTE - and I disclosed it. I said “Here’s a perfect summary from Chat GPT” and put the summary in quotes. I thought this was kind of a smart way to do it and the ONLY way I’d do something like that.
Okay. I feel better now. Add your thoughts in the comments!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can follow Doug’s band Vintage Playboy at their Facebook page here. You can also visit our other business Detroit Jerky at the website www.DetroitJerkyLLC.com!