The good places on Reddit, with tight moderation, are few and far between. I can think of r/AskHistorians, but there are not many like it (I can’t think of another, off the top of my head). Maybe you know of other examples?
askhistorians is an extreme example. They basically change the entire nature of the site through very visible moderation. But my understanding is that places like r/physics would be drowning in lazy memes as well. Take any subreddit you like and look at the posting guidelines. Chances are they are there in reaction to significant amounts of people acting contrary to them.
I see what you are talking about, but I don’t think it makes Reddit interesting. It’s kind of like having a bunch of different HOA boards, all fighting over how to mow the lawns or what colors to paint the houses in their respective communities.
The people who make Reddit interesting are, IMO, the content creators and the people who answer questions. The content creators are spending most of their time off-Reddit, working on projects. The people answering questions are browsing /new on a few subreddits, killing time, and watching a mostly unmoderated stream of posts.
The moderation rules for individual subreddits are usually annoying—things like karma minimums, minimum ages, and sometimes a bunch of weird rules about what you can post and how you can post it. Rules against self-promotion.
