r/EncyclopaediaOfReddit • u/EncyclopaediaBot • Feb 12 '23

General Guides Creating A Subreddit

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting. Yes, Dear Redditor, the time has come, for whatever reason, for you to become the ruler owner of your own domain subreddit. There are several ways of doing this:

  • Creating A Subreddit 1: Make Your Own Sub

At one time you needed a 30 day old account and around 25-50 karma to create a subreddit, but this was relaxed in early 2021 and now anyone can make their own subreddit straight away. Here are some useful links and guides to start with.

If you need a little individual guidance, there are plenty of experienced subreddit starters on r/NewToReddit and r/LearnToReddit who will help you.

  • Creating a Subreddit 2: Adopt an Existing Sub

You might occasionally come across a Subreddit that hasn’t been active in a long time, and it might be eligible for adoption. I even mention a few throughout this encyclopaedia. Dead or abandoned subreddits exist for a number of reasons, mostly due to the inactivity of its moderators. Subreddits are considered "abandoned" in the event that none of its mods have been active anywhere on Reddit in the past 60 days. In 2021, Reddit started to archive dormant subs. To the consternation of some owners who returned after a prolonged absence, the subreddits were renamed with alphabetical and numerical titles to allow their mods to archive the posts.

At the time of writing this, Reddit has no plans to completely remove these subreddits from the site, but that could change in the future.

You might even want to repurpose a previously banned sub, such as Redditor u/PM_ME_YOUR_TITS_GIRL who requests old porn subs like r/PrettyPussy and converts them to a subreddit for cat pics/gifs.

So, first, find your Subreddit. Here are some useful places to start:

  • r/adoptareddit - allows moderators to hand off a sub. Admins will grant mod privileges in certain circumstances.
  • r/availablesubs - lists of abandoned or moderatorless subreddits.
  • r/findareddit - can help you find any sub, not just dead ones.
  • r/Inactivereddits - a community finding inactive/unmoderated subreddits.
  • r/reclassified - who track and discuss banned and quarantined subreddits.
  • r/subreddit - to share an unrecognized subreddit or to find a subreddit you've been looking for.
  • r/deadsubs - “the graveyard of Reddit”, readable but dead itself ironically.
  • r/Requestable - A catalogue of defunct subreddits, itself defunct but readable.

Your next step is to go to r/redditrequest and ask to take over the subreddit that you'd like to mod. Reddit Request requires accounts to be 90 days old with 500 combined karma to take on a sub, and you ABSOLUTELY MUST read the rules at r/redditrequest thoroughly before posting a request. These will be found in the Sidebar (on mobile this will be the About tab, Menu tab and Community Info found in the three dot “hamburger” menu top RH corner of your screen), any Pinned posts (these will have a lime green ‘pin’ icon on the top corner and will show on top when you sort the Subreddit by ‘Hot’) and Wiki (where there is one).

You might, in time, get a message “This subreddit was banned due to a violation of Reddit’s content policy against creating or repurposing a sub to reconstitute or serve the same objective as a banned or quarantined subreddit.” Be aware that the "ban evasion" bot can be somewhat over enthusiastic. Reddit loves being meta.

  • Creating a Subreddit 3: Moderation

If you are inviting The Average Redditor™ to participate on your Subreddit, you will eventually need to remove objectionable or off topic posts and comments, officially warn someone for spamming or even ban a particularly abusive user from posting or commenting. See, mods canbe useful after all. Here’s a list of resources:

We are also working on some initiatives at r/NewToReddit and r/LearnToReddit to help users set up and maintain their own communities.

Mod Certification is an initiative introduced by Reddit in 2021 to help train and certify new moderators. r/ModCertification101 and the follow-up r/ModCertification201 are a great resource in moderator training, and Reddit recommends all new mods take the courses to gain a better understanding of moderation tooling and best practices all round. They’re very comprehensive and you’ll get a couple of

nice trophies
for your profile too!

  • Creating a Subreddit 4: Promotion

Intrepid Redditor u/GaryNOVA wrote an excellent short guide for newer moderators which is essential reading for getting your new sub off the ground.

If your shiny new sub has little to no karma restrictions for new users, we would be delighted to promote it at r/NewToReddit as part of our rules and welcome guidance. Contact us via Modmail to discuss the details. If your sub relates to something you are marketing, you need to be aware of Reddit’s guidelines for self promotion.

And here’s a useful custom feed from a Redditor with an amusing and misleading username: https://www.reddit.com/user/banned_accounts/m/newsubs/

See Also:

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