Frequently Asked Questions

Basics

What is reddit?

Reddit is a source for what's new and popular on the web.
Users like you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what's good () and what's junk ().
Links that receive community approval bubble up towards #1, so the front page is constantly in motion and (hopefully) filled with fresh, interesting links.

What does the name "reddit" mean?

It's (sort of) a play on words -- i.e., "I read it on reddit."

What is that alien / bug thing?

That adorable and informative creature is the mascot for the reddit community. You can visit redditalien.com for an archive of his past adventures.

Can anyone submit a link?

Yes -- all you need is an account!

How is a submission's score determined?

A submission's score is simply the number of upvotes minus the number of downvotes. If five users like the submission and three users don't it will have a score of 2.

Why does a dot sometimes show up where the score should be?

For the first few hours after a submission is created, the score is not displayed. This is intended to mitigate the bandwagon effect.

I made a mistake in my submission title, how can I edit it?

Submission titles cannot be edited. However, you can simply delete it and resubmit it. The sooner you do this, the less likely you will lose any votes or comments.

What is that number next to usernames? And what is karma?

The number next to a username is called that user's "karma." It reflects how much good the user has done for the reddit community. The best way to gain karma is to submit links that other people like and vote for, though you won't get karma for self posts.

Why should I try to accumulate karma?

Why should you try to score points in a video game? Why should your favorite sports team try to win the championship?

Or, to look at things from a less competitive and more altruistic perspective, read what philosophers have said about the matter -- namely, don't set out to accumulate karma; just set out to be a good person, and let your karma simply be a reminder of your legacy. Note: Reddit makes no guarantees about attaining Nirvana.

Update: A redditor named jumpercable tried to redeem his karma. See how it went (your mileage may vary).

What can I do to get my submissions noticed?

Remember that adage about not judging a book by its cover? No one actually follows it. So choose your title carefully -- make it useful, provide context, and be descriptive. Be careful though, if you're too aggressive it could backfire. Phrases like, "Vote this up to spread the word!" or "AMAZING!" tend to annoy most redditors, who will make sure your post doesn't see the light of day.

Is reddit available in languages other than English?

Yes! In the upper-right corner of the page, there should be a link that says, "English". Click it and you'll get a popup where you can change to another language.

I want to change my username. Do I have to start a new account?

Yes. Once a user account is created, the username cannot be edited. You can create a new user profile but cannot migrate karma or comment karma to the new username.

Will you remove something defamatory about me or "my friend" from reddit?

No. reddit does not remove allegedly defamatory content. US domain sites such as reddit.com are sites regulated only by U.S. law. Given this fact, and pursuant to Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, we do not remove allegedly defamatory material from reddit.com. The only exception to this rule is if the material has been found to be defamatory by a court, as evidenced by a court order.

The Communications Decency Act fundamentally states that Internet services like reddit.com are republishers and not the publisher of that content. Therefore, these sites are not held liable for any allegedly defamatory, offensive or harassing content published on the site.

Please note that reddit does not remove posts for containing insults or negative commentary. While posts that contain such content can be distasteful, reddit is not in a position to arbitrate disputes.

The best way to deal with incorrect information on the Internet is to post the correct information next to it. The reddit community is usually very supportive of such a response, and will likely vote to give the correction greater prominence than the original post. Redditors love a good counterpoint.

Who runs reddit?

In a sense, you do. The site is intended to be as community-managed as possible. However, there is a small team keeping the servers going and working to serve the community. Here are their dossiers:

photo	username	real name	job	prior life
	jedberg	Jeremy Edberg	Entire Systems Administration department	Worked for Sendmail and PayPal's anti-fraud department (no, he can't help you find the guy that stole your money). He often has his head in the clouds. He is also the Batman.
	ketralnis	David King	Programmer	After single-handedly saving Earth from space-pirates, inventing clean, cheap Cold Fusion, conquering Australia, and winning the World's Most Dashing Man contest in eight countries, finally joined reddit and admitted to doctoring his bio.
	hueypriest	Erik Martin	Community manager	Once made a movie called "Lance Ito's Battle Axe of Justice"
	raldi	Mike Schiraldi	Programmer	Fled from Wall Street just before things turned sour (he claims it wasn't his fault)
	Paradox	Jeff Sandberg	Designer	Prior life? What should i put here?
	spladug	Neil Williams	Programmer	???

Which staff member should I write to if I have a problem or question?

• Erik is our community manager, so he's the guy to go to for questions like, "I'm being harassed. What do I do?" or "Can I be a moderator of the roller skating reddit?"
• Jeremy handles media inquiries, ad sales, and merchandising, and is very good at identifying rashes.
• For anything else, see the "Anything we didn't cover?" question.

Who started reddit?

Reddit was originally founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, a pair of then-recent University of Virginia graduates who participated in Y Combinator's first Startup School back in the summer of 2005. The first employee was Chris Slowe, a programmer with a PhD in lasers. Although they've moved on, nobody ever really leaves reddit.

	spez	Steve Huffman
	kn0thing	Alexis Ohanian
	KeyserSosa	Chris Slowe

I want to make something with the reddit alien on it. Whom do I contact?

We have a whole page on licensing.

Commenting

Is there a reference guide for the reddit comment syntax?

Yes -- the commenting help page explains all the details, pitfalls, and workarounds.

What does it mean when an asterisk appears next to a comment?

This just means that the commenter has edited it. (On reddit, you can go back and edit your comments in order to fix mistakes, add new information, or be annoying.)

Individual reddits

What are reddits?

Reddit is made up of hundreds of sub-communities, each focused on a specific topic. There's a reddit for science, a reddit for music, and probably a reddit for your nearest city. By default, new users are subscribed to a selection of the most popular ones, but you'll get a lot more enjoyment out of the site if you take the time to subscribe to ones that appeal to you. After doing so, the front page will change to show a customized listing tailored to your interests.

How can I find and subscribe to reddits?

There are several ways. If you already know what you're looking for, or simply want to browse the list in order of popularity, the reddit search page will be most direct. There are also a number of external, unofficial sites that provide different interfaces, e.g. metareddit.com, subredditfinder.com, subreddits.org. To see new reddits as they're created, subscribe to the subreddit /r/newreddits. Finally, to find a random reddit, visit /r/random.

You can browse a reddit before subscribing to it, and if you decide to join, there's a "+frontpage" link on the right side of every page. If you're already subscribed you can click "-frontpage" to unsubscribe.

Do any reddits have their own FAQs?

Yes -- you can see the list at http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs

Moderators

What is a moderator?

A moderator is just a regular redditor like you except with a few humble duties within a particular community:

• They configure parameters for the community, like what its description should be or whether it should be considered "Over 18".
• They set the custom logo and styling, if any.
• They can mark a link or comment as an official community submission, which just adds an "[M]" and turns their name green.
• They can remove links and comments from their community if they find them objectionable (spam, porn, shock photos, etc).
• They can ban a spammer or other abusive user from submitting to their community (This has no effect elsewhere on the site).
• They can add other users as moderators.

Again, moderators have no special powers outside of the community they moderate.

How do you get to be a moderator?

If you create a reddit, you will automatically become its moderator. If you'd like to become a moderator of an existing reddit, ask! It's mostly a thankless task, though, but that does mean that moderators are usually looking for suckers volunteers.

How can I tell who moderates a given reddit?

While visiting that reddit's front page, there should be a box on the right with the names of all its moderators. If you can't find it, just go to http://reddit.com/r/<name-of-reddit>/about/moderators directly.

Where can I find more information about moderation?

Here.

Spam, Cheating, and the Like

Why isn't my submission / comment showing up?

Submissions can take a few minutes to appear on the New queue. But it's also possible that a moderator deemed your post to be spam -- or the automatic filtering program did. If you feel this was a mistake, try sending a message to a moderator of the reddit in question. If they do not respond after a day or so, post a question in /r/help.

What is the "report" button?

The report button, shown on all links and comments, is a way for the reddit community to send feedback to the moderators that something is spam or otherwise violates the rules -- for example, pornographic content submitted to a non-adult reddit, or a .PDF posted to /r/videos. If your reason for reporting is non-obvious, please leave a reply or send a message to a moderator explaining your reasoning.

You can also report spam by submitting the offending user's overview page to the /r/reportthespammers subreddit, upvoting if an entry already exists.

What happens when something gets reported?

It will be reviewed, either by a person or a program. The more people who report it, the more likely some action will be taken. Reporting spam is the single most important thing a user can do to help keep reddit clean.

What constitutes cheating?

Besides spam, the other big no-no is to try to manipulate voting. We're not going to post an exhaustive list of forbidden tactics (lest we give people ideas), but the two major ones are:

• Don't use shill accounts to multiply your vote

• Don't be part of a "voting clique"

A voting clique is a group of people who send links to their submissions around via message, IM, or any other means, with the expectation of "you guys vote for my stuff and I'll vote for yours."

What constitutes spam?

It's a gray area, but some rules of thumb:

• It's not strictly forbidden to submit a link to a site that you own or otherwise benefit from in some way, but you should sort of consider yourself on thin ice. So please pay careful attention to the rest of these bullet points.

• If you spend more time submitting to reddit than reading it, you're almost certainly a spammer.

• If people historically downvote your links or ones similar to yours, and you feel the need to keep submitting them anyway, they're probably spam.

• If people historically upvote your links or ones like them -- and we're talking about real people here, not sockpuppets or people you asked to go vote for you -- congratulations! It's almost certainly not spam. But we're serious about the "not people you asked to go vote for you" part.

• If nobody's submitted a link like yours before, give it a shot. But don't flood the new queue; submit one or two times and see what happens.

To play it safe, write to the moderators of the community you'd like to submit to. They'll probably appreciate the advance notice. They might also set community-specific rules that supersede the ones above. And that's okay -- that's the whole point of letting people create their own reddit communities and define what's on topic and what's spam.

Nerd Talk

What is reddit written in?

Python.

Seriously? I heard it was written in Lisp.

It was, but we rewrote it. (Here's why.)

So what Python framework do you use?

Pylons. You can see our source code if you want. The data is stored in a PostgreSQL database and served by a combination of haproxy and nginx.

Anything we didn't cover?

If you have a question that isn't answered here, you can get near-instant assistance by posting on the /r/help reddit. We also have a list of press contacts available, and a page for those looking to advertise on reddit. If you're new to reddit and want some more information on interesting reddits, confusing acronyms and so on, try this post.