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I really wish reddit had a better interface to see the questions and Bill's answers all at once without scrolling through random comments.

Why hasn't reddit's AMA been surpassed by a dedicated AMA site with a user interface designed for AMA?



The same reason craigslist classified haven't been surpassed by a more modern system -- it is much easier for everyone to live with the shortcomings (which really aren't that bad) than it would be to recreate an equivalently large, diverse and vibrant community on another site.

Especially since any focused site that came up to do this would almost certainly put way more barriers to entry into the community than reddit (which still allows you to create a new account virtually instantly, with no email verification) has.


Remember http://formspring.me?

I think there just aren't enough interesting people doing Q&As for a business model based on this to make much sense.

Reddit's AMA format is pretty bad, especially if it's a woman/girl answering questions, though.


voomly is building a business model around Q&A...

voomly.com

Fred Wilson wrote about them here: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/01/voomly.html


I'm curious what someone's sex has to do with their ability to conduct an AMA...


I think what he meant is that if a girl is giving an AMA she gets a lot of off topic "wow you're hot" type posts from the peanut gallery, something that wouldn't happen if the system were more moderated. OTOH, the lack of moderation is part of the charm of AMAs IMO even though it does result in the trolls being trolls.

(The "Woody Harrelson"/Rampart AMAs would be the norm if not for the chaotic nature of reddit).


"Charming", sure. Must be great for women to sift through comments like

    I would like to marry you... or just buy a pair of your
    used undies. It's funny that people actually do that.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/17yd4k/iam_emmy_rossum...

Just hi-larious.


I'm not suggesting they are all charming, some of them are pretty terrible, but that's the price you pay for having relatively free speech. While moderating the questions would eliminate posts like the one you linked, it would also eliminate ones which aren't terrible but are certainly "off the script" of what would be asked if everything were cleanly moderated.


I don't see anything to support that.

And if it's a trade-off where more "impulsive" comments are deleted, then I prefer that to subjecting female respondents to constant come-ons from pubescent, sad human beings.

I think it's clear what Emmy Rossum prefers.


It seems that Emmy Rossum prefered Reddit's version, not the version you prefer.

Emmy Rossum went to reddit for an AMA, and used the site's commenting functionality to ask people not to be rude. She did not cancel her AMA, ask to have the rude comments deleted, etc.


Awesome victim-blaming right there. Good grief.


The offensiveness of a large number of the comments that you have to scroll through while answering legitimate questions.


Haha steady now. He means peoples responses to their AMA.


http://www.reddit.com/user/thisisbillgates

Not the best interface, but it is what you asked for...


I am just viewing his comments page: http://www.reddit.com/user/thisisbillgates/comments/

The context link will show the comment he is replying to.


You will be able to use http://www.topiama.com when the topic will have been crawled.


It takes a while for the scraper to kick in, but this is what you are looking for: http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/


Even though I hate it, install the Reddit Enhancement Suite extension and enable the comment navigator and navigate via submitter. Or ctrl-f for "[s]"


Chicken and the egg problem.


I have the "Reddit Enhancement Suite" extension installed, and it allows me to jump to each comment he responds to. If you are a frequent redditor, I recommend installing it.


Page search for '[s]' to find comments by the submitter.


http://reddit.com/r/tabled, after a few hours.




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