https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/oxeowe/chat_improvements_a_progress_report_on_reddit/
created by BurritoJusticeLeague on 03/08/2021 at 22:33 UTC*
701 upvotes, 145 top-level comments (showing 25)
​
Hi there redditors,
Today we have lots to share—new quick actions on chat, progress on the ongoing effort to improve Reddit search, a few small changes to make your Reddit Daily Digest more fun, and an update and apology on Reddit’s video player.
Over the past year, the chat team has been collecting feedback from the community and two things that consistently come up are (you may have guessed it from the title above)... reducing spam and improving the ways you manage group chats and invitations.
One of the first steps to fighting spam is making it easier for people to mark messages as spam, so our systems can identify and address bad actors more quickly and efficiently. Now, on iOS and Android, you can mark invites as spam, ignore and accept them, or block them from quick action menus that are revealed when you slide left on each invite.
And on the web, in addition to the ignore and an invite, invite screens will now present a third option to mark as spam.
This is just the beginning of many changes in store for chat in the coming months, so head over to the original post in r/changelog[1] to see more details about the updates and hear about slash commands, new filters, and other upgrades coming soon.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/othxkn/quality_of_life_improvements_for_chat/
In April, we made an announcement about our plans to improve Reddit search[2], and last Tuesday the search team was back with an update on their progress[3]. The TL;DR is that new relevance experiments, features, and humans (we’ve brought on an entirely new frontend team) have helped bring about a few significant improvements.
2: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/mharom/whats_up_with_reddit_search/
We’ve run a series of experiments to improve search results by including results with less restrictive matching, considering search intent, and adding spelling suggestions.
Keep an eye out for design changes to better distinguish posts and comments from communities and profiles, and a “Safe Search” toggle that lets you choose whether to show Not Safe for Work (NSFW) results for any given search.
Thanks to those of you who took part in the survey back in March, we’ve prioritized changing how community search on desktop works so that it defaults to searching within a community instead of searching all of Reddit (this change is out now and being tested), and adding more filters.
Check out last Tuesday’s search update[4] to read all the details about how the relevance tests did, see a sneak preview of the design updates, and give more feedback.
Yesterday, in an announcement over in r/changelog[5], we went over the very buggy rollout of the new video player, owned up to our mistakes, explained why we're making changes to the player in the first place, and gave an update on what's next and how we're going to fix it.
5: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/owjcoq/addressing_the_new_video_player/
While trying to make the player better, we made some things worse. And one of the biggest things we dropped the ball on, is making sure commenting and engaging with the comments works for everyone. What we’ve heard from all of you is that the new video player makes it harder to comment and discuss what’s happening. This isn’t good and was never the intention, so we’re going to fix it ASAP.
The following changes to address this launched last week:
Bugs, tests, and rollouts of features we’ve talked about previously.
On all platforms
On Android
6: https://www.reddit.com/r/snoovatars/comments/oh2v6o/share_and_swap_avatar_looks_with_the_reddit/
7: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/o18ct9/creating_new_opportunities_for_future_community/
On iOS
8: https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/o5yylk/new_opportunities_discoveries_and_updates_from/
Phew, thanks for hanging in there. We’ll be sticking around to answer questions and hear feedback. And for the next few updates, we’ll also be asking your thoughts about these updates themselves. Do you find them helpful? Would you like more information about long-term projects or better ways to give feedback? So far people have asked for more information on bug fixes, let us know what else you’d like to see and hear by filling out this quick survey[9].
Comment by boxoffice1 at 03/08/2021 at 22:38 UTC
445 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Can you make the video player not restart 6 times after 3 seconds of playback before finally loading at 480p?
Comment by ecafyelims at 03/08/2021 at 22:52 UTC
218 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Please let us link directly to a video so I can share it without forcing people into the comments.
Comment by Padgeman at 03/08/2021 at 22:39 UTC
312 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Any word on when it will be possible to block followers, or better yet, to turn that off entirely? It's opened whole new avenues for abuse.
Comment by timbomber at 03/08/2021 at 22:38 UTC
841 upvotes, 4 direct replies
I wanna opt out of the broadcast and live stuff
Comment by [deleted] at 03/08/2021 at 22:39 UTC
507 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by natalfoam at 03/08/2021 at 22:50 UTC
157 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Can we have a way to just remove chat altogether?
Comment by tehdang at 04/08/2021 at 04:31 UTC
105 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Tl,dr:
Comment by snorlz at 03/08/2021 at 23:49 UTC
342 upvotes, 7 direct replies
Woah, another update about useless shit no one cares about. It's weird to see you responding to the comments when 95% of them in these threads are about how we dont want these features at all.
Take chat for instance. Never have I ever wanted to chat on reddit and the ONLY chat messages I see are spam. Just disable it.
Yall put so much effort into these avatars. Why? who has even made one? who even looks at other peoples? why would we want to share something so worthless? you guys paid a developer to make that feature, which might get used by like 0.5% of users.
Comment by gimmeafuckinname at 03/08/2021 at 22:47 UTC
151 upvotes, 2 direct replies
On desktop - how do I kill the fucking chat pop up - forever and ever and ever.
Comment by paint3all at 04/08/2021 at 02:41 UTC
171 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Old Reddit with RES is still better.
Messages are better than the new "chats" which don't play nice with 3rd party mobile apps.
Imgur is a better image hosting platform than Reddit and it's much more user friendly.
Google is still better at searching Reddit than Reddit is at searching Reddit.
It's been like this for 9 years. I'd suggest emulating the options 3rd party groups have made that people actively seek out rather than trying to make reddit into a traditional "social media" platform.
Comment by 7LeagueBoots at 03/08/2021 at 22:56 UTC
186 upvotes, 7 direct replies
Bring back the message option and get rid of chat!
I *hate* chat with a passion. The message option was far better.
The stupid chat thing makes Reddit even more like Facebook.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/08/2021 at 22:52 UTC
342 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by reddita51 at 03/08/2021 at 22:34 UTC
279 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Yes but can we opt out?
Comment by [deleted] at 03/08/2021 at 22:36 UTC
1265 upvotes, 11 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by rezaziel at 04/08/2021 at 02:42 UTC
26 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Can you stop making me beta test all the attempts to converge Reddit with the features of other social platforms people are here to avoid? Thank you.
Comment by RazorThought at 03/08/2021 at 22:43 UTC
770 upvotes, 6 direct replies
Can you please do something about mods running many subreddits at once? /u/awkwardtheturtle is not the only problem amongst the mods…
Comment by ThatOneMartian at 04/08/2021 at 01:34 UTC
83 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Any chance you could just admit that new reddit is a terrible mistake and move back to old reddit?
Comment by TheChrisD at 03/08/2021 at 23:04 UTC
114 upvotes, 3 direct replies
We’ve been testing a new way to discover communities on iOS for a while and now it’s Android’s turn. Starting tomorrow, redditors on Android may see a new tab called Discover.
Delete this tab **NOW**. Or at the very least have it take up the space were Chat it. Just give me back my easily accessible community list!
Comment by kaeorin at 03/08/2021 at 22:46 UTC
258 upvotes, 3 direct replies
What about mod harassment? Dealing with serial ban evasion? Blocking followers? Literally any of the things that moderators have been asking for instead of a video player?
Comment by Sonnyboy1990 at 03/08/2021 at 22:55 UTC
72 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The "followers" thing is weird lads. Throw it into the bin there.
Comment by AttackOfTheThumbs at 03/08/2021 at 23:54 UTC
42 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Who the fuck uses the chat feature when PMs are so so much better?
Comment by SobeyHarker at 04/08/2021 at 04:28 UTC
51 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I'm not a fan of the video player in general as you are encouraging freebooting and content theft. You hurt creators by taking their revenue when Reddit was designed from the ground up to SHARE the sources you have found.
An old example now, but one I can use, is a gaming related subreddit /r/rainbow6. At first people could share their content they created without any fuss. Then they changed it so you couldn't post YouTube links (because they have the *potential* to be monetised). People however could take your vids, turn them into gifs, or just rip the entire thing and use the native player.
I've seen videos get tens of thousands of upvotes. Yet the original creator can still end up with only a handful of views. I understand that you want to get in on the video hosting market for whatever reason. It's clearly a top priority for Reddit and this latest change highlights this further.
Though prone for abuse you may want to trial moderators of subs being able to update a video to direct to the real source. The amount of viewbots for example in /r/videos is out of control that will rehost a video that was popular then submit it while spamming it upvotes.
No one reads the comments after all in the grand scheme of things.
So stop killing new and upcoming creators. Let Reddit be what made it great in the first place. Let it be the place for people to SHARE what they find and not just steal it.
Comment by MrValdemar at 04/08/2021 at 00:01 UTC
138 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Here's a suggestion - everything you've done lately? Undo it.
It mostly sucks.
And start policing your mods.
Comment by saninicus at 03/08/2021 at 23:09 UTC*
428 upvotes, 4 direct replies
What's being done for power tripping mods like u/awkardtheturtle? You need to be dealing with more tangible stuff like that right now.
Comment by SquanchMcSquanchFace at 03/08/2021 at 22:57 UTC*
49 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Maybe actually play test new features on different devices before rolling them out? 5 minutes on the recent changes would’ve shown you how untenable they were, especially the video player, and especially on recent iPhone models. There’s a saying about a rhino being a unicorn designed through a committee, and there’s frankly far too many rhinos when it comes to any sort of changes.
Oh also get rid of awkwardtheturtle, that shit is just stupid.
