Reddit: Jumping the shark as we speak

At the moment, the top nine links at Reddit (plus 2 more in the next 15) are to various articles on the futile grassroots efforts to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Never mind that none of these impeachment proceedings are being carried out by any government bodies with legitimate power and that none [...]

At the moment, the top nine links at Reddit (plus 2 more in the next 15) are to various articles on the futile grassroots efforts to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Never mind that none of these impeachment proceedings are being carried out by any government bodies with legitimate power and that none will result in any sort of Congressional action – a site with 45% of its front page links dedicated to one political story does not amount to displaying “what’s new online;” it’s displaying “what’s new in our community’s agenda.” On any other large social news site (like Netscape or Digg), 8 of the 9 links would be flagged as duplicates and removed so that the front page (the site’s most valuable asset) actually has value to the readers who don’t care about meaningless grassroots impeachment resolutions.

I suppose this kind of gaming is the Reddit’s community prerogative, but I’ll be avoiding Reddit for at least a few weeks until this little impeachment-fest dies down and they’re linking to interesting content again.