Life is all about sharing things with others. Don’t you love it when a friend shares an interesting link on Facebook or Twitter? I’ve always been looking for a great source of interesting and useful stuff on the web, and now I’ve got the answer – Reddit!
Reddit is a social news website, where millions of users contribute. Users submit links in relevant categories known as ‘subreddits’. Once something is posted, other Reddit users (also referred to as redditors) can ‘upvote’ or ‘downvote’ that post. Redditors can comment on the post, and individual comments can also be upvoted or downvoted. The popularity of a post is determined by the number of upvotes and the number of upvoted comments. Once you post something and it gets upvoted, your ‘link karma’ goes up, which is essentially a measure that indicates how good a redditor you are. There’s also a ‘comment karma’, which indicates the popularity of your comments on various posts. High link karma indicates that you’re a good redditor, and more people will follow your posts or add you as a friend.
Using Reddit is quite easy. Go to Reddit.com, and the default front page will be displayed. This has various posts from different subreddits (and that’s because you’re not signed in yet). All posts on the front page are under the ‘hot’ category. Posts can be sorted by time, so that you can view the latest ones. Personally, I like to categorise posts by ‘top’, and then set the filter to show me the all-time posts. That’s useful if you want to see a particular subreddit’s best post so far. Usually when you click a post, unless it is a text post, you’ll be redirected to an external web page. If you want to view other redditors’ comments on that post, click ‘view comments’.
You should create an account at this point, and it’s really fast, as providing an e-mail address is optional. Once you do, it’s time to customise the subreddits from which posts will appear on your Reddit front-page. Click the ‘Edit’ button in the top-right corner to subscribe to new subreddits (or unsubscribe from the default ones). Use the search field to look for topics that interest you. As far as I know, virtually everything has been discussed on Reddit! Having an account is a good idea if you want to be a regular redditor (and once you try Reddit, there’s no way you’re not going to create an account). After registering, be sure to read the ‘reddiquette’, which is a handy guide of ethics that every user needs to follow, and things that you need to know before diving into Reddit. Furthermore, you can create your own subreddits.
There’s much more to Reddit than meets the eye. Use the Reddit Enhancement Suite once you get acquainted with Reddit, so that you can customise your Reddit browsing experience even further. Reddit might not look too interesting at first, but it is a really useful resource and a great way to procrastinate.
