genuinely asking,
what are the advantages and disadvantages (pros and cons) of each forum?
i rarely open reddit
VLR
Pros: Incredibly fast yet sometimes unreliable information
And no matter how it seems VLR is the only place with meaningful criticism and discussion of the E-sports scene (buried under a lot of stuff tho) unlike Reddit where I feel its a lot shallower surface level analysis and discussion done.
Cons: Have to get through so much absolute trash before seeing anything meaningful
Edit: Some reddit pros
If you dont have the time to follow each scene you see posts about legendary Clutches from so and so players and that team in "Insert smaller team" that is playing an interesting comp.
There are also some good statistic posts and there are some decent people who know what they are doing and now are Analysts for teams like Knights and NRG.(lot more Pros, Coaches Org managers and staff too)
vlr is a lot more diverse in both takes and people
vlr is more lax
vlr is also a lot more visibly misogynistic, sexist, racist, transphobic, etc.
reddit has high-quality statistic related posts
easily visible highlights from EU/NA games that you missed
and is generally a good way to find out about news i.e. transfers, competitions, etc. that you've missed
Reddit advantage:
Reddit disadvantage:
VLR advantage:
VLR disadvantage:
Reddit is softer, they're essentially just a circle jerk and compliment teams/players when they do badly and just say better luck next time. VLR chad opinions and based takes, but lots of baiting. The funny thing is every reddit user has a vlr account, and every vlr user has a reddit account. The duality of men i guess...
vlr has a much more wider variety of users and mostly with people who are more invested in the scene understanding the game with better depth. Free speech is also much more prominent (not in a good way)
reddit is much more casual but the advanatges of reddit is that its much better for the casual follower as you dont have scroll through a bunch of bs to actually get decent news.
vlr
-more degenerate and uncivilised. i like it, has its charm.
-quicker stream of information and reactions
-occasionally find some rare gold nuggets of info (roster moves, rumours)
-derke/other pros comment every once in a while
-match threads for almost every game exist even if they're not well-known
-unbiased upvote/downvote system that doesn't hide anything
-less hivemind-y reactions. seems like in vlr anybody can speak their mind and give their opinion, even if it sucks or it's based. i like the freedom of it.
-pickems
reddit
-more civilised
-the average post is more relevant to esports discussions
-occasionally very nice analysis can be found
-comparatively less active
-annoying hivemind sometimes
-live threads
-clips
-journalism posts are easier to find
-(personal opinion) its too NA biased. EU 2nd most talked about and then BR/APAC/KR/JP/LATAM/OCE are barely ever talked about. and the reactions to these regions are so outdated or braindead, like silver 2 takes. i actually think reddit analysts suck compared to certain people on vlr, it's just that people like slowrmaths are really good because they write their analysis on MEDIUM and MEDIUM is actually the best site for analysis posts.