Replacement for Reddit

February 27, 2017 11:14 AM

I enjoy lurking on various subreddits because there is often current, active, and decent discussion on things I'm interested, and they're all in one place. However, I haven't commented or contributed in years because of the general toxicity of the site. The admin's reluctance to do anything substantive to remove racism, sexism, white supremacy, alt-right BS makes me want to abandon the site all together. I don't want to support an institution that, at least by inaction, endorses these viewpoints. At the same time, I still want good content and discussions about a number of topics. Could you help me find a replacement/replacements for the content that I currently go there for? Or is there a tool for aggregating a number of forums? (Topics below the fold)

Here are the subreddits I go to for information and discussion about what I like:

HipHopHeads: Hip hop, rap, r&b
Baseball: Major League Baseball news, discussion, stats, sabermetrics, etc.
CFB: College football news, game discussion
Hiking: pictures, tips, ideas
VanDwellers: living life on the road
Bicycling
Various subreddits dedicated to sketching and drawing
Worldbuilding: methods behind worldbuilding, creating maps, societies

posted by holmesian to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total)

There's imzy, although I don't know if it's still invite only and it's not quite as active as Reddit.
posted by arateaa at 11:16 AM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Imzy appears to be a bit of a ghost town. A couple of the areas I follow haven't seen any updates this year.
posted by scruss at 11:25 AM on February 27, 2017

Best answer: Imzy is a ghost town. I wish they'd done something like "voat for people who aren't shitheels," but the interface is deplorable and lacks the simplicity of reddit.

For sketching and drawing, the sketchbook forum at ConceptArt was also quite good when I was a regular a couple of years ago. I don't know if it's still good. The site does specialize in concept art, but people post drawings of everything from pears to posteriors for critique of skill and style.

If you're interested in mapmaking for world building, the Cartographer's Guild sticks out in my mind from a time when I was interested in that stuff.

Sorry, no links because I am on mobile. 😦
posted by xyzzy at 12:00 PM on February 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

SomethingAwful has high quality communities for the majority of those things. SA values humor over being proper or inoffensive, and is certainly not everyone's cup of tea -- but unlike Reddit, it does take an actual ideological stand at the end of the day. From the rules:

Just because the President of the United States says it doesn't mean you should. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and the like will still be punished harshly! If you see this happen, report it!
posted by so fucking future at 12:08 PM on February 27, 2017 [6 favorites]

Have you looked at voat.co? It was created as Reddit alternative and some of the subgroups even have the same names as their Reddit counterparts.
posted by davcoo at 4:19 PM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

davcoo: "Have you looked at voat.co? It was created as Reddit alternative and some of the subgroups even have the same names as their Reddit counterparts."

Oh hell no. Voat is where the dregs of Reddit fled after various crackdowns on the blatant racist subs, /r/fatpeoplehate, etc. Not only is it much less active, but it is way, way more openly sexist, racist, and pro-Trump. Just looking at the front page right now, and half the items could have easily been from The_Donald or 4chan's /pol/ board.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:49 PM on February 27, 2017 [7 favorites]

Best answer: For baseball -- good places are:

-Fangraphs - currently the best

-Baseball Think Factory - used to be better, but still good

-SB Nation has a number of good subsites on specific teams or for things like prospects; depends what you're interested in. Some good ones:
John Sickels - about minor league ball
Fake Teams - about fantasy sports
Beyond the Box Score - general baseball stats site
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:50 PM on February 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: For hiking there's clubtread.com, backpacking.net, and backpackers basecamp, which tend to be more active than the reddit subforums. I also look at a couple other sites like summitpost and trailpeak which are not as active but are good reference reading for certain areas. I have a few blogs and magazines bookmarked, some of the popular ones are backpacker.com andrewskurka.com, and outdoorgearlab.com.
posted by mikek at 8:09 PM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: hip-hop - okayplayer
fantasy maps, n'thing cartographer's guild
bicycling - bikeforums.net
posted by fizzix at 9:53 AM on February 28, 2017