Create Your Own Reddit
Reddit has announced a brand new feature that they are currently testing out in closed beta - the ability for users to make their own Reddits. Reddit has long had the “other reddits” featuring ones specializing in programming, science, politics, etc …
Context & Ripple Effects
Reddit arrives at this announcement with a mixed 2007 behind it: Y Combinator-backed through the spring, locked in a head-to-head with Digg since at least March, and burned in May by a hack that injected malicious code into comment threads alongside a malformed-URL submission exploit still listed as not fully fixed.
The open question coming into 2008 was quality control — late-December commentary openly asked why Reddit's and YouTube's comment areas were so bad. Handing creation of new topical Reddits (beyond the existing programming, science, and politics editions) to users is Reddit's structural answer: delegate curation instead of hiring it. TechCrunch carried the same-day announcement, so the beta launch is being read industry-wide.
First-order effects
- Closed-beta users can now spin up their own topical Reddits rather than waiting for Reddit staff to bless a new category, immediately fragmenting attention away from the single default front page.
- Reddit's moderation surface expands from a handful of staff-edited sections to an open-ended set of volunteer-run communities — while the unresolved URL-submission exploit means each new Reddit inherits the same attack surface.
Second-order effects
- Digg, its direct rival since early 2007, is forced to respond on community customization or concede that niche topical depth accumulates on Reddit's side of the fence.
- Volunteer moderators become load-bearing infrastructure overnight, turning moderator tooling and abuse handling from back-office concerns into product requirements.
Third-order effects
- If user-created Reddits hold quality where centralized comment sections did not, the site's center of gravity shifts from one ranked front page to a federation of self-governed communities — scaling governance by delegation rather than staff review, which is precisely the pattern the December criticism implied Reddit needed.
The trend: Social news platforms are ceding the definition of communities to their users, converting editors into platform operators.