What is wrong with people on Reddit?
My kind of crowd
Many gamers and tekkies on there.
I wouldn't dismiss it as a place to get your work read, though. There is a place for everything, if you can find the right subreddit. I initially had decided against linking one of my sports stories there from infobarrel, but went ahead and put it in sports subreddit and did well. I submitted a writing guide to fantasy fiction (i think it was), and it has done well there. Very good votes up and feedback. I originally submitted one of my D&D articles on the main reddit page and promptly took my bruised ego to a subreddit (games).
Good luck and thanks for the Goodreads link. I'll check it out.I just went and looked at their first page because I pretty much stay away from sites where people post what they "discover", so I thought I'd look at it. (I don't discover much of anything because I pretty much only write.) Anyway - sorry. That page looks like a big bunch of crap to me. I see no particular signs of "intelligent life" on that first page. It's nice if some of them have a high opinion of themselves, I suppose.
Maybe it's me. 
(probably is; always is, I guess - which is why I pretty much only write)My "issue" with viewing a site like that one (which is, incidentally, apparently supposed to be "skewed toward educated people who favor the sciences") as "superior in some way" is a) that if you go to their first page you see a pile of foolishness (so they're obviously failing at their attempt to "skew") and b)that the people who post whatever they post on there haven't even (if they're sticking to the rules) produced/written their own offerings. So where, exactly, does any "loftiness" come in, or belong, on a site like that???
By the looks of this thread, I thought I'd find the likes of the American Medical Association on there. Hmmm. Lots of uses of the "f word" instead. (I guess that must be a sign of their grand levels of education and great scientific minds.
)
(Although I don't make a habit of backlinking on social sites, I don't think everyone else ought to operate that way by any means; and, in fact, under the right circumstances I wouldn't be above it, myself. It works for people. Who can argue with that..)We have been married 31.5 years. It's always good to hear when marriages last this long. My husband just doesn't understand, but he's a good man so I think I'll keep him.
I pretty much don't backlink to anything other than my own other sites/blogs that I do under this same name. I write "by day as a freelance writer" and "by night as a spare-time/hobby, Internet-writer"; so my stuff online isn't my "serious" writing, but it's still connected to me, the professional writer. So, either way, I don't want anything associated with me (like my Hubs) linked to anything that also then links out to (shall I say) flatulence jokes.
I don't make it a thing to share my online stuff with anyone associated with my "serious" writing, but it's not as if my online writing is being stored in a hat box in my closet. It can be found, and my name is no secret.
So, I figure it's my own best interest to practice a "reverse snobbery" toward a site like Reddit with "the language" and the flatulence-joke links. Whatever their deal is their business, but my "deal" is writing. I don't pretend to be a "big, serious" writer on sites like HubPages (or in my Google profile), because I take a more casual, personal, approach. Still, I don't want to post my Hub links on some of those "iffy looking" sites because right now I'm really happy with both my traffic and my earnings. I know I could have been doing better over the years, but I've always wondered if/when/in what ways that kind of approach may/will fall out of favor and backfire big-time. I may have settled for a "bird in the hand", but I want my writing efforts (even the casual ones) built on something over which I have more control than the "the biggest traffic-getting" thing).
If I were to turn my online writing efforts into a more professional type of writing I still wouldn't use those sites, and for the same kind of reasons.
I followed someone's advice to answer questions on Yahoo and link to my Hubs and I got banned by Yahoo
I don't see anything at all wrong with promoting one's own stuff, and I don't necessarily think someone who approaches the way ChristinS has described is rationalizing.
There have been times when I've planned to do some backlinking on "those kinds" of sites, but the kinds of Hubs I have aren't (if I'm honest) all that "earth-shatteringly helpful" for the most part. I have a few that I think are something that can help people in a meaningful way, and I've set about to promote them. The trouble is there's only so many times the same "really good/helpful" Hub is welcomed on Yahoo Answers, and some of the other sites where some of my stuff might be helpful are too subject-limited and folksy for me to feel comfortable doing the backlinking thing.
Back when I first had high-speed Internet, I discovered Yahoo Answers and found it enjoyable to honestly try to come up with helpful answers. I've "retired" from it since then, but I have thousands of answers on there. There have been times when I've had a Hub that I thought would be good on there, and I've posted a few here or there. Because I know they frown on it I've never felt like it's something to do too freely.
Then, though, because I write a lot of Hubs about parenting and children, I signed up with a couple of "mommy" sites. They felt folksy and very community-like, and "everyone" seemed to be the mommy of young kids. My kids are grown, and I knew the real reason I was on there. I didn't feel like I belonged there, and people were so nice I didn't feel right about my reason for having signed up. I couldn't "get involved for real" because it just wasn't genuine interest for me. It wasn't as if I was all over the Internet finding good stuff aimed at mothers of younger kids all the time. So, the only thing I had to share here or there was my own thing (if I thought it was particularly helpful to someone who raised an issue).
So, it seems to me that the bigger sites for "that type of thing" are quite the enforcers of spammy-type backlinks (or stuff that looks like it), and the smaller/more focused social sites are so welcoming and friendly to people you can feel guilty or phony trying to socialize (when you know you're only there for the backlinking potential).
Then there are the sites that send the message, "Come here and post your stuff, read other people's stuff, and we'll all talk about it." (like poetry sites, for example) Again, I'm not genuinely interested in talking about my own or anyone else's stuff. So, to do what you're supposed to do on any of those sites takes putting in that time/effort into at least acting like you're interested in stuff other than your own backlinks; and I don't want to spend time (or have the time) to get all that involved in pretending. (I can socialize on the forums here because we all have HubPages in common, which is real - and because then whatever discussions show up are at least some version of real, rather than being a matter of everyone's backlinks to other sites.)
I can see operating differently if I had something like a niche and a bunch of Hubs on the same subject (maybe, for example, knitting - "as if"). Then if there were a site that said, "Come share your knitting patterns/challenges here," it would be real (and a real interest for me). I might enjoy get involved on a site like that. I'm not on here for the subject, though. I'm here for the writing and earning from it. I'm only interested in some of my subjects for as long as I'm writing about them, and then I'm through with being all that interested (at least to that degree).
So as always, what's comfortable or right or works best for one Hubber (or even one Hub) can just be very different. I don't think there's usually a one-size-fits-all approach for a lot of Hubbers, and sometimes finding what does/doesn't work for one's individual types of Hubs just takes time. Some people's Hubs fit better with the "everyone-says-you-have-to-do-this" approach than others. It doesn't mean what "everyone says" is necessarily wrong. It does mean, though, that what "everyone says" may not work well for one Hubber or another.
(Having said all that, I loved Jean's "riff-raff" comment. It made me laugh.
I've never thought of people on some of those sites that way - to the contrary; I've felt like the riff-raff at times ) - but I think I'll be seeing at least some of those sites a little differently now that the term, "riff-raff", has been raised. )Psst! Jean! They followed you!
(Sorry, but I can't help but see a little humor in that. )I know (and sorry - no more comments on this thread from me). I know it's easy to see humor in stuff when we're not the ones directly involved. Still (and I don't plan to come back here) I do think this kind of stuff doesn't have to get tedious when it's laughed off. But, nothing more from me.
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