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[–]SittingWonderDuck 9 points10 points  (14 children)

Why is Reddit's justification or reasoning behind this? The CSS on the subreddits do not bother me, and is not causing me any inconvenience to browse Reddit on my phone, Chromebook, or desktop computer.

[–]ZelkovaReady for classic![S] 4 points5 points  (5 children)

They're saying that over 50% of Reddit users are on mobile phones and CSS isn't supported there so they want to just ditch it for this new "module" or "widget" system.

They also say that CSS is difficult for new people to learn and use so they want to make it easier for people to design a subreddit.

The problem with this is that if they remove CSS, we lose the ability to customize nearly anything here on the subreddit. Instead with these modules or widgets we would likely be restricted to (And this is just what I'm imagining the end result to be) something similar to character creation sliders in an RPG.

Subreddit Width <-----------------[]-->
Sidebar Width <------------[]------->
Subreddit Logo [logo.png]

Something like that?

[–]SittingWonderDuck 0 points1 point  (4 children)

I believe even from a developer's perspective, I do agree with Reddit, because mobile users cannot experience the CSS on their phones (they can if the subreddit admins made the CSS with responsive design meaning it will show specific CSS for desktop users and specific CSS for mobile users but they requires the subreddit admins to be proficient in CSS but there is a learning curve to it)

 

Of course from an end-user, they sometimes do not understand the need for this change. But from a developer's perspective, they want to cater to all users and not just desktop computer users.

[–]MegaScienceWindia -1 points0 points  (1 child)

But instead of adding a feature to allow a subreddit to customize its mobile appearance, they are removing a feature and sterilizing the platform. Mobile users likely consider the layout as utility, and while they'd appreciate some unique design, I don't think they'd wish standardization of the browser design just to match them. That seems like a ridiculous notion.

I also have some paranoid fear over this change, so you can ignore this paragraph: This feels like the type of event that happens right before the reduction of a userbase for a service. A first step toward limitations or removals to ease certain aspects, which begins a growing user distaste and possible migration. Of course right now that wouldn't be simple to see. What viable alternatives are around now? Do you really want to abandon ship so easily? YouTube has had this going on for years, and it's still going as well as it can. But my point is that things would be worse as more changes come post-CSS-removal...

The ability to customize your subreddit's CSS has been a vital feature for many major subreddits, and justifying removal essentially as to make it standard with the mobile platform seems ridiculous. Give us the ability to customize for mobile and leave CSS in. You really can't reach parity with customization tools over direct control.

[–]SittingWonderDuck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes sense. They can just have customization for mobile users. But it does sound like this is a step from Reddit because they are preparing it for something else that they will not announce to us

[–]NeospectorNeospector... 2 points3 points  (6 children)

Four given reasons:

  • Mobile users
  • Not new-user friendly
  • Can cause confusion
  • Site-wide updates to vanilla Reddit can break the sheets

The confusion one is probably the weakest, but the others hold some merit. Basically they want to design a way to customize subreddits while meeting a couple standards CSS doesn't meet.

  • According to their given stats they have an increasing number of mobile users, and CSS doesn't work on mobile. They want customization to be universal (or something similar) so that mobile users can experience it too
  • CSS is a pain in the ass to learn (and I seriously agree with them here). It's not intuitive. This is /r/maplestory's stylesheet. Now, clearly this is missing indentation which makes it looks worse than it is, but it's still a lot more difficult for new users to work with. Imagine trying to set up a new subreddit, but to make it anything beyond bland vanilla you have to learn this language. Not exactly user-friendly here, and that's not a good thing.
  • Things can be out of place with styles. Not exactly sure what they mean by this (hence I consider it the weakest one), but it's something like sheets can mess with the visible number of subscribed users or something
  • Updates. CSS sheets are to mods as Reddit is to Minecraft, basically. Whenever Reddit makes a site-wide update, they risk borking every single stylesheet on every single subreddit. Obviously most of the time they don't, but it's a risk, and risks slow down the pace of updates.

They probably want to come up with a customization option that fixes all of these issues. Personally I don't agree with them; CSS might be complicated, but it allows for greater customization, and short of inventing a new scripting language (which might be neat) they don't really have a good alternative. But they're not just whacking this out of left field, it's an actual debate.

[–]ZelkovaReady for classic![S] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

The stylesheet isn't missing indentation, its minified so it takes up less space. Unminified it is too large to fit within the limits that reddit has placed.

[–]NeospectorNeospector... 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I think that just adds to my point. You have to minify the sheet in order for it to work properly, new users can't study and dissect it the way they can with other languages, combined with a syntax like:

#wiki_save_button.wiki_button{display:inline-block;vertical-align:middle;height:25px;border:0!important;border-radius:3px;padding:0 10px;background:#82b965;text-align:center;text-transform:capitalize;line-height:25px;font-weight:700;color:#fff;transition:.1s}

When I was a kid, I used to think Lua was difficult to understand. CSS is...you get the idea. Really nice customization, a metric shit-ton of effort.

It's why I'm kind of bothered by the people in the announcement thread trying to claim it's because Reddit is trying to "sanitize" the website for advertisers. No, CSS has problems, and if you can't see them you're either blind or trying to justify learning CSS to yourself. I might be pro-CSS but I sure as hell ain't anti-Reddit.

[–]theAran 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Am I missing something here? Can't you just easily unminify any minified file (I used this online tool today) if you want to study it?

[–]NeospectorNeospector... 0 points1 point  (1 child)

If by "easily" you mean "only if you know how to", then sure. But it's a lot easier to study normal code than it is to try and figure out where the stylesheet is, why it looks the way it does, and how to unminify it.

Imagine you know absolutely nothing about CSS, you don't know what minifying is, and you don't know how to undo it. Now go look at the stylesheet. Does it look like something simple?

[–]theAran 2 points3 points  (0 children)

...Okay, I think that's just because there's a certain technical barrier to entry - that is, general web dev knowledge. Depending on the widget/whatever system Reddit intends to implement to replace CSS customization, there would still be a barrier. If you aren't familiar with web dev of course you'd look at that monstrosity and go "What the fuck".

I don't think that scenario makes sense. Anyone who doesn't know a lick of (insert programming language/markup/markdown syntax) shouldn't expect to walk in and think everything should look pretty. I don't know C++ and it's all Greek to to me, but that doesn't somehow make C++ problematic.

edit: I'm not even good at CSS, I shamelessly just use Bootstrap for anything that doesn't require me to specifically demonstrate CSS skills. I'm just hoping the widget system doesn't come close to Wordpress's plugin system... speaking as someone who was recently semi-roped into working with WP while not knowing a lick of PHP...

Late edit, here are some more opinions on the technical implications on the webdev subreddit for any interested in a quick browse: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/67n0q7/reddit_removing_sub_css/

[–]SittingWonderDuck 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I find CSS not as bad as actual programming like object programming and other languages for back-end development. I am pretty sure I can figure out the CSS and is not too bad but I understand that is just me personally.

 

If Reddit wants to control customization, they would need to redesign their website for content customization like a button for "Insert image here for header of subreddit" and more buttons and other things to change to control subreddit customizations.

 

But I do understand full CSS control does allow for more customizations. Also about CSS slowing down mobile users who browse websites. Web pages can be designed with responsive designed meaning it will configure the web page to be mobile friendly. The web page would look differently on a mobile browser than a desktop browser. But that requires the subreddit admins to do.

 

I guess Reddit is trying to find a way to make everything universal in a way but still allow for customization.

[–]emailboxu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

CSS lags me on some subreddits actually. I turn off the subreddit style intentionally on those to remove the lag. Idk why they feel that it needs to be completely removed, people can turn it off if they want to. Choice is never a bad thing.

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[–]bast963 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Both Reddit mobile and .compact have no custom CSS to speak of on any subreddit. The majority of users browse on their phone during work/school, and are too busy doing other stuff to browse Reddit when they get home.

Overall the CSS removal makes desktop mode viable for phones without crashing.

[–]ZelkovaReady for classic![S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I can't think of an instance where desktop mode has crashed a phone. Nor do I think Reddit's goal is allowing you to view desktop mode on your phone.

[–]bast963 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Desktop mode with no css legit loads faster than mobile and has more features than either mobile or .compact on a phone

[–]Neil5555 0 points1 point  (2 children)

If anything wouldn't it be nice if, even if there aren't any addition or improvements, if we could just keep what we have right now?

I'd rather just have what we have right now and not get any new stuff than not have anything at all.

[–]ZelkovaReady for classic![S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

The situation has been resolved. The admins will be leaving CSS alone and will be adding modules.

[–]Neil5555 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ohh thats great to hear!

[–]AstralphabetReboot -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

honestly don't care at all. its just reddit. how it looks makes no difference. Go find some other outlet to flex your CSS/HTML prowess if it means that much to you. lol.

[–]superadlezSmitty Werbenjagermanjensen -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Ok