By Chris Betterton-Jones, knowledge junkie.
Reddit is a huge group of on-line forums in which registered users from all over the world can talk about almost anything: news, culture, technology, comics, literature, film, knitting, cooking, woodwork, climate change … to the weirdest things in the world.
The site is based in the US.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/what-is-reddit/
https://www.tomsguide.com/uk/reference/what-is-reddit
Reddit is not like Facebook and Twitter, in which the focus seems to be on the individual user – in Reddit, the topic is the focus.
Here’s a comment about Reddit from a long standing JCC member: “It’s the anonymity and versatility that make Reddit so special. Instagram is fake, Snapchat is for kids, and Facebook is the biggest time-waster there is. At least that’s how I see it. Reddit, on the other hand, is in a class of its own. It’s the best social network out there by far, and I’m here…”
The site hosts specialized forums called “subreddits,” which are referred to in the following format:
r/”topic” (example: r/gadgets). There are more than 138,000 active subreddits.
Unregistered users can read most of the subreddits (except those which are private)
… but to
a) Create a “post”: i.e. stories, links, images, and videos.
b) Comment on someone else’s post or comment. Comments provide discussion and often humour.
c) Vote someone’s post or comment up or down. The most interesting content rises to the top.
You need to register and make a (free) personal account
You can create an account by giving an e-mail address or use a Google or Apple ID. You are invited to create a username, i.e. – a Reddit identity and password. You can create more than one identity with the same password if you like. This is useful if you are interested in diverse things or if you want to discuss sensitive issues anonymously.
Like most other social media, you can create a public profile with an avatar etc.
There are general rules of behaviour – and rules which are specific to particular subreddits. To create a post or comment you sometimes need to “join” the subreddit in question and be approved.
If you join a subreddit, it appears in a drop down list on your home page and recent posts from those subreddits appear on your homepage (a bit like a Facebook feed)
To create a new subreddit/community you need to have been active on Reddit for a while , i.e. created posts and comments etc, so they get an idea of what you are.
Reddit is moderated by paid Admins, volunteer “Mods” moderators who keep an eye on their pet subreddits, and algorithms which weed out unsuitable posts. The latter get it wrong sometimes, but there’s an appeal process!.
Admininstrators and Mods take their jobs seriously: e.g. in tackling Covid denialism Reddit did a detailed study of the types of activity on many subreddits, banned one outright and quarantined others, modifying it’s management policy in the process. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/pg006s/covid_denialism_and_policy_clarifications/
Two examples
…for students of Spanish – here’s bit of informative fun on Reddit: Why isn’t Peppa Pig in Spain called Peppa, la cerda or Peppa, la guarra?
.. and for film addicts – here’s a discussion about the advantages of buying films on high definition physical media as oppose to streaming them:
To me, streaming is absolutely dead because of 4K Blu-Ray https://www.reddit.com/r/Bluray/comments/q0gpil/to_me_streaming_is_absolutely_dead_because_of_4k/
… You can pick up lots of background information from such discussions. For example from this one I learned how they distribute movies to cinemas these days..
Enjoy!