Updating your community’s discoverability settings

=> https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/z7a9kb/updating_your_communitys_discoverability_settings/

created by schrista on 28/11/2022 at 22:08 UTC

193 upvotes, 12 top-level comments (showing 12)

Hello,

Today we are updating the discoverability settings in the discovery menu for communities.

We are adding an additional setting that when turned off does not allow discovery of your community in Reddit’s new user onboarding process.

Up until now, we’ve had a singular setting that controls whether your community shows up in high traffic feeds, trending lists and onboarding. We received feedback that you all prefer having more options when selecting which surfaces your community is discoverable on.

• This new setting will be default on*, meaning that onboarding discoverability will be enabled for your communities. This setting will be only available if you have already chosen to not show-up in high traffic feeds.

Why are we making this change:

• We want to be able to socialize your amazing communities to new users while still allowing you to avoid high traffic feeds. We think having a setting is a good middle ground for mods that want to welcome new users that are interested in their general topic but still want to avoid the influx of users that high traffic feeds can sometimes drive. * Our general recommendation is to have this onboarding discoverability enabled so that new users can find your community.
• More power to mods. Eventually, we want to add even more granular options under the high-traffic feeds setting. We want to allow you to pick and choose which feeds you want to be included in. We will monitor how this new setting is received, and evaluate if we should keep investing in similar work.

When is the change happening: We plan to start rolling this setting out this week. We also are hoping to ramp this up to everyone by the end of next week.

For any community that has the high traffic feed discoverability setting off, there is nothing to do: everything will remain the same. For those communities that have chosen to enable the discoverability setting, by turning off high traffic feeds, you will now find an additional setting to opt out from onboarding as well.

We would like to take a moment to thank the mods who have provided feedback the past couple of months and we will stick around in the comments to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you!

Comments

=> Comment by delta_baryon at 28/11/2022 at 22:13 UTC

98 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I don't have a problem with this in principle, but would advise they be nudged in the general direction of our rules in some way. I'm increasingly finding that new users aren't familiar with forum culture and don't realise subreddits are distinct spaces with rules. Your first interaction with us being a terse post removal won't be a great experience for anyone.

=> Comment by damp_drawers at 28/11/2022 at 22:24 UTC

10 upvotes, 1 direct replies

This new setting will be default on

Will this be the same for NSFW communities?

=> Comment by llamageddon01 at 28/11/2022 at 22:37 UTC

28 upvotes, 2 direct replies

The vast majority of posts in r/NewToReddit are from people who have discovered the hard way that they can’t contribute to subs because of their high karma thresholds. The enthusiasm of newly hatched Redditors is infectious - until they get their first post removed because of the dreaded ‘K’ word. Sometimes I feel like Holden Caulfield in his field of rye catching new Redditors before they start to go over the cliff - and failing.

Does the new-user onboarding process explain anything to them about subs being autonomous communities with their own rules and moderators at all? We are not like other social media (thank goodness) but most of the people who find their way to r/NewToReddit don’t seem to realise just how different we are. We even have to tell them the different ways of finding the rules on a subreddit because they’re all individual; especially if they’re using the app and not a desktop and can’t see the sidebar.

=> Comment by doublevsn at 28/11/2022 at 22:27 UTC*

15 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I'm all for this and any updates that will specifically help smaller/mid level sized subreddits, not major/subreddits at a certain threshold (cough defaults). Organic subreddit growth is incredibly difficult whether from the ground up or through the revival of an old long gone community (of course there are a slew of factors at hand that can help, like outside influence or current IRL trends). Several of my subreddits has been stagnant in overall traffic for years - regardless of the content/effort being put in. Quite the laughter whenever I see a major subreddit get the spotlight in any case - when there are hundreds of smaller subreddits that don't see any progression (might be why so many subreddits die off, again - the disaster that was default subreddits).

=> Comment by paskatulas at 28/11/2022 at 22:38 UTC

7 upvotes, 1 direct replies

When do you plan to add the ability for moderators to pin other people's comments?

=> Comment by [deleted] at 29/11/2022 at 01:13 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Does a subreddit's locality do anything?

I moderate r/witchcraft and setting the board's location to Vatican City is awfully temping, but if it doesn't impact discoverability then I feel like it's no better than clicking a button just to click it.

=> Comment by Yay295 at 29/11/2022 at 05:57 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Is this the "Get recommended to individual redditors: Let Reddit recommend your community to people who have similar interests" setting? That description doesn't sound like onboarding to me. Or has this setting not been added yet?

=> Comment by Shachar2like at 29/11/2022 at 06:16 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

What's onboarding?

I think that the entire mod tools page (desktop version, with settings and all) should have a search function. This way I don't have to remember where each setting is at.

=> Comment by LordZorthan at 28/11/2022 at 22:25 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Excellent, everyone must be aware of special private subs they can't join >:)

=> Comment by cyrilio at 29/11/2022 at 02:53 UTC

-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Will subreddits like r/drugs be discoverable through this new system? Because while I understand that it’s important to ensure people don’t see graphic images or nudity. I can’t understand how a text based subreddit is so hidden. Isn’t there a better way to at least let new redditors know about these kinds of subreddits?

=> Comment by [deleted] at 29/11/2022 at 00:01 UTC

-15 upvotes, 0 direct replies

As mod of /r/familyman, I approve

=> Comment by cyrilio at 19/01/2023 at 23:09 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Can you go in to how the onboarding works for NSFW subreddits and people interested in these?

I feel that these are being neglected.