Also remember to join IRC, learn about it here.
Reddit.com
The voice of the Internet, news before it happens.
- Founded By: Alexis Ohanian, Steve Huffman
- Blog: Reddit.com blog
- Twitter: reddit
- Alexa Rank: 157
- Compete Rank: 918
- Known For: Social Networking
Summary
Reddit is a social news sharing and aggregation site. Never has there been a community of such navel-gazers. In fact, the article about reddit posted on EncyclopediaDramatica.com is one of the most re-posted images on the site.
Reddit is known for its frequent and persistent downtime and server issues.
Current status
As crazy as ever. Extremely popular since the demise of digg. Owned by magazine publishing powerhouse Condé Nast. Financially broke and begging for spare change via the "reddit gold" membership scheme.
April Fool's 2011 Scandal
An overly dramatic userbase had a complete and total freakout when famed poweruser I_RAPE_CATS trolled them all into oblivion.
In early March 2011, a reddit user suggested choosing a boring, basic video from youtube and sending it viral through reddit and reddit user cooperation. Someone mentioned that user I_RAPE_CATS should be the one to choose the video. A few days before April Fool's, he posted his video choice and that seemed to be it. The video was a basic, short video of someone putting a 10pound note into a worn black wallet. Hours later it was discovered that the video chosen belonged to another redditor, was uploaded just prior to April Fool's and was an attempt at making some money for I_RAPE_CATS and his friend Boojamon, another reddit user.
This outraged the reddit userbase and was declared a "scam" and a "cash grab". The histrionics were of epic proportions, so massive was the outcry, in fact, that there was even a write up on Salon.com about the drama.
April 21, 2011 Amazon Services Cause Reddit Shutdown
For several hours on April 21 2011, reddit experienced significant downtime, having to go into "emergency read only mode". This emergency mode was caused by Amazon hosting services having rolling downtime and lasted for nearly 36 hours. Eventually reddit started restoring services, but first to a random subset of users. This led many to believe that only those with "reddit gold" accounts were being allowed to post, though it was not true.
AMA Subreddit Troll Breeding Grounds
The AMA or "Ask me Anything" subreddit is incredibly popular, having had visitors such as Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings, various politicians, strippers and 4 year old girls answer questions in the forum. However, the subreddit is plagued with fakers and liars and other people who get their jollies (oddly) by lying to internet strangers en masse and pretending to be something they're not.
On April 24, 2011, the admins of the subreddit posted a message saying that a huge troll ring had been discovered and eliminated. Amongst the AMAs that were found to come from the same person, using a single IP Address:
- A former pickpocket
- A 96-year-old grandma
- A 17 year-old pregnant "scared" teen
- A garbage woman
- A "chick that washes cars for a living"
- A blind guy
- The blind guy's sister
- A deaf girl
- The Teenage daughter of a congressman
- A guy who used to hit women
- A woman who just got out of an abusive relationship with a guy
- A cowgirl
- Someone whose life was changed by Reddit
- A former hobo
- "A stereotypically mean high school cheerleader"
Despite the subreddit having a verification system using green and red marks to indicate confirmed posters, these slipped by along with countless untold others.
Timeline
- March 2011 (begins co-ordinating April Fool's 2011 prank)
- 21 April 2011 (had major downtime due to Amazon)
- 24 April 2011 (breaks news of massive troll findings in AMA subreddit)
Facts
- Social news sharing site.
- Hosted on Amazon services.
- Owned by publishing giant Conde Nast.
- Shares physical offices with Wired.com.
- Pronounced like the past tense of 'read it', so you sound like a fool when you tell someone you "read it on reddit."
Images
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 Reddit founders with Alexis Ohanian. |
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 What Web 2.0 will look like. |
 reddit summarized. |
 redditopoly. |
 A perfect representation of how /b/ and reddit fit together on the Internet. |
 Joel Johnson on reddit. |
 subreddit bingo. |
 How to keep a redditor in suspense philosoraptor. |
 reddit insanity wolf upset about reddit gold. |
 Reddit f5 .gif. |
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 redditors have a tenuous relationship with chans. |
 Reddit welcomes ex-Diggers. TROLLED! |
 Typical user. |
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 Was this necessary? |
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 If you watch it backwards... |
 Reddit in general. |
 pretty much sums it up |
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Videos
Related Pages
External Links
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