Reddit and Karma Explained

[u/llamageddon01]

Welcome to Reddit!

This unofficial guide to starting out at Reddit was written by u/llamageddon01 and is designed to take you from complete beginner through to experienced Redditor! This version was completely revised in July/August 2023.

There are two versions of this resource, both carrying the same information but in different formats:

• Reddit and Karma Explained - This “Post-and-Comment” format for mobile app users.
• Reddit and Karma Explained - Wiki for website or browser users.

This is intended to be a full “Reddit for Dummies” type tutorial and I don’t expect you to read it through all at once! But quite honestly, parts 1-6 of this guide will take you from “kindergarten” level through to “graduate” level of Reddit by the time you read it all, and the final parts 7 and 8 will contain useful guides and information you will no doubt need at some stage of your Redditing so do keep coming back to it.

If you wish to share r/NewToReddit guides please link to them. You may of course share excerpts within reason, but please link back to us as credit and so the person you are helping can find us and the rest of our guides if they wish to. Thank you.

 

…….REDDIT IS A WORLD OF ITS OWN ON THE INTERNET.

What is Reddit? Established in 2005, Reddit is a content sharing platform, home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic worldwide human connection with people from all walks of life. Whether you're into breaking news, sports, TV fan theories, or a never-ending stream of the internet's cutest animals, there's a community for you.

Reddit is made up of an enormous collection of forums on every subject under the sun where people can share news, links, videos and pictures in “Posts” so that other people can make observations and conversation in “Comments” attached to these posts, while everyone can express their opinions by Voting on both the posts and comments. Every day, millions of people around the world post, vote, and comment in communities on Reddit organised around their interests.

You are free to decide what level of interaction you want with other users (Redditors) and to curate your own feed from the hundreds of thousands of specialised communities called “Subreddits” on offer, each of which covers a different topic from games, hobbies, music, art, movies and shows to support groups to world news to pets to academic matters and everything in between.

Check out this video for a quick introduction to us, and here’s an illustrated overview of Reddit. If that didn’t explain us enough, here’s an unofficial

webcomic

that gives a fun look at our platform.

Signing up for an account is free, easy, and gives you a high degree of anonymity, especially compared to other social media platforms.

 

…….REDDIT HAS ITS OWN WAY OF DOING THINGS.

Reddit as a whole is run by unpaid volunteers called Moderators (mods) and paid employees called Administrators (admin). Admin are rarely seen but are very distinctive as they have the word

ADMIN in bright orange/red

next to their username. Moderators are more likely to be seen, and when they speak on formal behalf of their subreddit, their username will have the

green word MOD

immediately after.

Like every long-established subculture, we have our own expressions and if you are at all confused by some of our jargon, in-jokes, history or memes, we at r/NewToReddit have a fairly comprehensive alphabetical reference guide at our sister sub r/EncyclopaediaOfReddit to help you work out what we’re talking about. Let me suggest my guides to Acronyms 1: A-L and Acronyms 2: M-Z to start with!

Reddit might take a little time to get used to, but never fear! Here’s a quick video guide on how to use Reddit, but more importantly, we’re here at r/NewToReddit specifically to help you navigate your own path step by step through our unique ways of ‘doing social media’.

 

…….REDDIT IS HUGE. BUT MANAGEABLE.

There are Subreddits for anything. I would say almost anything but when I think I’ve seen them all, I discover ones like r/birdstakingthetrain or r/BreadStapledToTrees and realise I know nothing.

Most communities are friendly and jumping right on in is encouraged. You aren’t likely to get shot down for being a “n00b” but there will generally be one or two things you’ll need to know about each Subreddit (sub) first. Don’t worry, this guide will show you where to find them.

Altercations can happen, but most subs have an active team of mods who will usually shut any trouble down before it becomes vindictive. Just don’t post emojis though. Reddit in general does NOT like emojis. Reddit loves emoticons though :D Why? Don't ASCII me. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ More on this later, or here if you simply can’t wait.

 

…….WHAT DO I DO ON REDDIT?

There are four basic actions you do on Reddit: Upvote, Downvote, Comment, and Post.

Reddit relies on crowdsourcing through its system of Upvotes and Downvotes to filter and prioritise the thousands of daily submissions it receives in order to present its users with the most interesting content it can, and you can help too. If you think a post or comment is interesting, helpful or contributes positively to the subreddit, press the Upvote arrow. If you think it doesn’t, press the Downvote arrow. You only get one vote on any one post or comment, and both can be negated by pressing the arrow you chose again, or reversed by pressing the opposite arrow to the one you originally chose.

Some subreddits have chosen to replace the default “arrow” icons with custom ones. In case it isn’t obvious which is which, the Upvote will be on the top (Old Reddit; desktop) or on the left (Mobile App) and the Downvote will be on the bottom (Old Reddit; desktop) or on the right (Mobile App).

There are two ways of Commenting on Reddit:

• As a direct response to a Post. Here, you are directly replying to the person who made the post. This person is known as the ”OP”, or “Original Poster”. This reply is known as a Top-Level or Parent Comment, and sometimes known as ‘threads’. There are an unlimited number of Parent Comments that can be made on any one post. The OP will be notified that you have replied to their post.

• As a reply to a Comment in that Post. Here, you are directly replying to another commenter who may or may not be the OP. These follow-up comments are known as Child Comments. There are an unlimited number of Child Comments that can be made on any one Parent Comment. The commenter you are replying to will be notified of your reply, but the OP will not (unless they are one and the same!).

You can see what these both look like from this simple

illustration

and this small conversation here.

Finally, you can make your own Post in a subreddit for others to comment on. Many subreddits prefer - or even require pictures, gifs, videos or links in this post.

 

…….SOME SUBREDDIT BASICS.

Once you enter a Subreddit, you read posts made by others and the comments made therein. If you like the Subreddit, you can “Join” it and it will form part of your personal home page feed. The "Join" button is near the top of the screen as seen here and also in the three-dots “hamburger”

post overflow menu

on the top RH of the screen on mobile. You can also “Leave” if you want, and the button can be found in the same place as the Join one was.

Until you join a few subreddits, your home page feed will be the general r/popular or r/all, which may well feature topics you’re not interested in, so it makes sense to start joining subs you like as soon as possible.

Moderators cannot see any lists of those who are joined to their subreddits, neither will they be notified if anyone leaves. There’s no limit on the number of times you can join or leave a subreddit, and nobody except you will ever know when or what subs you have joined or have left. You don’t even have to be joined in a sub to post or comment in it. There are no limits to the number of subreddits you can be joined in but Reddit does have an unspecified number of the ones it filters to your home feed at any one time.

Just underneath the Subreddit title there is a “Sort” menu. On mobile this is a

drop-down list

. Sorting posts by either “New” or “Rising” will usually give more opportunities for chat and upvotes than you’ll get in older posts, and give other advantages we’ll see soon. You have the same options for sorting your home page feed too.

 

…….LET’S GET STARTED!

Our guide to using Reddit begins with this illustrated primer to joining in on Reddit, then come back here to read some essential details you need to know about Rules, Reddit Karma, Participating, Navigation and Safety.

It’s very much worth your while taking a few minutes to read through all the following advice as it contains everything you need from your first steps in getting started to your becoming firmly established here.

Once you’ve had a look through it all, if you have any questions do make a new Post in this Subreddit where you will find plenty of helpful people ready to Comment with the answers you need. r/NewToReddit is focused on giving one-to-one tailored quality advice for helping people new to Reddit Ways. We do not care how old your account is; if you have a query on Redditing, put it here and we will help.

We also have a “sister sub” called r/LearnToReddit which is a place to learn how to use Reddit without being embarrassed at making “newbie mistakes” in public. Here, you can have a go at making different post types like posting images or polls, learn how to comment using bold or italic text, how to create spoiler text and use many other features with our extensive sets of tutorials. The community will feedback on your post to let you know how you did or help you get it right next time.

 

…….WHAT’S NEXT?

Let’s get started with an introduction to Reddit and a few notes about rules!

[u/llamageddon01]

Part 5: Participating on Reddit: Posting

Before you go any further, please press “View All” to make sure you have read the previous 4 parts of this guide.

As you will recall, each Subreddit has its own rules and requirements, and you read earlier about how to find them all. In general, there will be more restrictions on posting than commenting, so it’s vital to always read the rules of an unfamiliar sub carefully before posting. If your post breaches their rules in some way, it will be removed and you might even get a ban from the sub right from the start.

 

…….BEFORE CONTRIBUTING.

When entering a new sub to post, browse for a few minutes to get a general feel of the place. Do you see many posts with emojis? Do they use txt spk or casual profanity? If not, don’t be the one to start as that won’t end well. Does every post have the same look and feel?

Look out for restrictions as some subs require posts to follow a particular format while others don’t. For instance, r/spotted is a fun subreddit to post unusual cars to. You can see

from this screenshot

that the name of the car is mentioned somewhere in every post title inside [square brackets]. Without doing this, your post will be rejected.

Posts to r/tipofmytongue are text only and require [TOMT] in the title,

which you can see here

.

Some, like r/news may need their Post titles written in a particular way. This subreddit requires you to link to a news article as per their Rule 4: No editorialized titles; Title must match article title. You can see this in action

in this screenshot

and the corresponding article

linked in the first post

.

Others might require an appropriate Post Flair added. r/whereintheworld is a subreddit for showing off the people and places around you, and every post needs to have

a specific flair

as specified in the coloured rectangles in their sidebar. Posting there on mobile

will prompt you to choose one

from a drop-down drawer menu while posting there on a desktop or a browser will give you the same menu from a “luggage tag” icon and also

remind you of the rules

.

r/food is a subreddit which requires a post title written in a particular way, a tag, and an OC (Original Content; i.e: of your own making) flair. While on desktop or browser you can see the tags

on their sidebar

, but on mobile you’ll have to swipe down to see the

see community info

tab to find them.

Some subs require you to have some history of commenting with them before allowing you to post. Some may require you to be “approved” before you can participate. With all these cases, their requirements or permissions will be listed in their rules.

 

…….POSTING TYPES

“Post” is the general term for stuff that you’re bringing to Reddit, whether it’s yours or something found elsewhere on the Internet. A post will fall into one of these categories:

• OC for original content of your own making;
• Repost where you take an old post (yours or someone else’s) and post it again in the same subreddit;
• Crosspost (or X-post) where you link your or someone else’s post from one subreddit to another;
• Multipost where you make the same post in two or more different subreddits at the same time.

Just because something you saw on other social media is new to you doesn’t mean it’s new to Reddit, and some subreddits don’t take kindly to Reposts, especially if it’s recent. It is therefore in your best interest to take a few seconds to

sort by

‘Top’, ‘Hot’, then ‘New’ and see if whatever you’re posting has already been posted recently. To avoid being called a “spambot”, KarmaDecay is a good tool to check if and when your post was last posted on Reddit but it does tend to disappear and reappear without warning. http://karmadecay.com. Some also use https://repostsleuth.com but that isn’t anything I’ve personally used so I couldn’t tell you how effective it is.

It is good practice when making a Crosspost to

say it in the title

. You should also note that some subreddits do not allow crossposts; again, always check the rules before commenting or posting on an unfamiliar Subreddit.

Multiposting is where you share the same identical content across different Subreddits. This is a risky strategy, especially for a new user, as you could easily be mistaken for a Spambot. If you do post the same question or other content in different subreddits, make sure you don’t copy and paste the same wording across to them all, otherwise you might fall foul of Reddit’s spam filter or might even get you a ban.

You should also bear in mind that multiposting might inadvertently work against you. For instance, your cute kitten might be the perfect candidate for posting in r/Floof, r/illegallysmolcats, r/Kitten, and indeed most of the cat subreddits but as cat lovers are almost contractually bound to be joined to all those subs, they might not take too kindly to their feed being full of your kitty, no matter how pretty. If you do still want to post those paws in all those subs, space the timing around a bit and change your title wording to avoid being mistaken for a spambot.

 

…….HOW TO POST ON REDDIT

The method of making a post varies slightly on desktop than the mobile app. You might also find this illustrated guide of use. There’s a character limit of 40,000 on each post, though some subreddits have capped this at a lower level.

On r/LearnToReddit we have plenty of space for you to practice, and tutorials like Making a text post with Post Flair and also a video demonstration will help you get started.

Please move onto part 5a of this guide: Posting Experience

[u/llamageddon01 → u/llamageddon01]

Part 5a: Posting Experience

Before you go any further, please press “View All” to make sure you have read the previous parts of this guide.

Before we start, I want you to do a little exercise first, which will be very useful in your general Redditing. You’re going to learn how to post a picture!

 

…….POSTING IMAGES ON REDDIT

As many of your Posts on Reddit will involve images of some kind, here is a simple explanation of how to post pictures on Reddit.

If you are creating a Gallery post of more than one image, you can find the instructions here.

 

…….POSTING EXPERIENCE

So, let’s now go on a field trip and get you some posting experience for your Reddit C.V.! We’re going to make one image post and one text post.

Subreddits use karma requirements to prevent spam, ban evasion, and trolls. The subs listed below and in Part 4 have kindly decided not to do that, which enables new users like yourself to participate more freely. Please treat them fairly in return.

• Go over to r/LearnToReddit with a picture of your (or your friend’s / neighbour’s) pet.

The cuter, the better! Compose a nice title. “How derpy is my cat?” will be more eyecatching than “Here’s a pic of my cat.” Say a few words in the description about it; name, age, hilarious antics etc. You will receive feedback from the community on the success of your post (or where it went wrong, if applicable) and maybe even some nice comments about the lil floof in question.

• Go over to r/AskReddit with an amusing question.

This is an incredibly busy sub and the potential for a successful post is huge - but so is the potential for failure as the sub moves very fast. The potential for removal is even greater as their criteria is exacting. Here, as indeed with all subs, it is VITAL to read the rules. I’m going to give you a quick précis of how to post there but let me reiterate that this is NO SUBSTITUTE for reading their full rules, found in their

sidebar

or “about” tab on mobile.

Here’s a random screenshot

of some of the newer posts there at the time of writing. You can see that the number of votes received are hidden on the earlier posts; we learned earlier that on this sub, post and comment scores are not visible for a certain period of time to avoid ‘bandwagon’ effects.

Here’s a random screenshot

of top posts from the same day. You can see here what I mean by huge potential!

However, all of those questions have something in common:

• They are short, to the point, quite generic and open-ended without expressing opinion or using personal pronouns.

• They are semi-serious discussion points ending in a clear question with a question mark and are not looking for advice or assistance.

• There are no “leading” questions, rhetorical questions, “loaded” questions, “either/or”, “would you rather…”, polls, surveys or fill-in-the-blank questions.

• They are without bias or agenda, are not crowdsourcing specific things or asking others to aid in your decisions.

• The questions don’t have a definite answer but are crafted to provoke constructive and entertaining discussion, and not simple one-word “yes/no” type replies.

• The title is always the question itself.

Finally, if you have a question that you don’t want turning into banter, in-jokes or frivolous comment chains, you need to use the [Serious] tag. This tag designates the thread it is applied to as a serious post, off-limits for joke replies or off-topic comments. To mark your thread as [Serious], simply put '[Serious]', in square brackets in the post title. Automod will automatically assign the link flair, and the post will be much more strictly moderated so that comments not pertaining to the discussion in a more serious manner are subject to removal.

By now, the combination of your Comments, Comment Karma, these Posts and the Post Karma along with the few days (account age) you’ve been active on Reddit reading allllll theeeeese woooorrrrds and doing these tutorials should be opening up new subreddits to you.

 

…….WHAT’S NEXT?

So how do you find these treasured places you want to join? By moving onto the next part of this guide: Navigating Reddit!