this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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I hate reddit. But it feels like the library of Alexandria burning down (yea I know). All those google search results and educational subreddits that are shutting down forever, and because they are too small reddit won't force open them again.
A lot are in the pushshift archive, but that cuts of at 2022. Also, it doesn't include a lot of the smaller subreddits.
I have had my PC running 24/7 with multiple VPNs to avoid rate limits downloading as much as I can before the API dies, but with some blackouts moving forward a day I have already missed a few.
Like many others, I would often add "reddit" to the end of my searches to get better results, half the websites on web searches now are either AI generated, copies or are completely AD ridden websites that ask you to turn off your AD blocker.
how exaclty does this pushshift work? I downloaded some zsts from it but what do I do with them?
The file you downloaded is a compressed JSON file, it's not something you can really just look at. But it contains all the data needed to build a nice UI around.
I don't know what OS you are on but on linux you can run
zstd -d -c file.zst | jq .and it will print everything in the file. It's not really readable though. Also it doesn't have any of the media content, only the textReddit has answered almost every question I've ever had for years. The potential loss of all the knowledge is my greatest concern.
i getcha, but it was people who did that. it's kind of hard to shut us up, we'll answer more questions wherever we are
most knowledge has a shelf life anyway
I think this is honestly the biggest issue. Web search has been garbage for years, with legit the only saving grace being Reddit users sharing their knowledge. This is gonna have a horrible effect on producing good search results.
It's valuable knowledge with how-to's that made me create an account there. I learned plentiful with the people that cared to share.
Most i implemented into my daily life & conditions have become favorable for me.
It's unfortunate that Reddit Company have refused to collaborate with its users, since years back. Otherwise we would have seen their web & mobile app develop/ innovate in great ways. But they have chosen one limitation after the other. Slowly over the years.
Totally agree. I feel like this is the equivalent, to some degree, of Stack Overflow just suddenly going away. The history needs to be preserved, somehow.
Is there anything in the Fediverse that is like a Stack Overflow clone? Might be time to start working on the backup plan for those big websites that do not show a sign of going away yet to avoid the rush when they inevitably do.
People have been joking lately about productivity suddenly increasing as a result of the Reddit blackout, but honestly? That loss of information is probably going to result in a loss of productivity in some cases.
Because yeah, in the nightmare scenario where both Reddit and Stack Overflow were to disappear, a lot of programmers would be at a complete loss.