R/science

r/science

Type of site	Subreddit
Available in	English
Founder(s)	u/spez[1]
URL	www.reddit.com/r/science
Users	33 million members[1]
Launched	October 18, 2006; 18 years ago (2006-10-18)[1]

r/science is an Internet forum on Reddit where the community of participants discuss science topics.^[2] A popular feature of the forum is "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) public discussions.^[2] As of 2014, r/science attracted 30,000–100,000 visitors per day, making it the largest community-managed science forum and an attractive place to host discussions.^[2] It has over 33 million members as of 2024.^[1]

History

Nathan Allen speaks about r/science to the American Chemical Society.

Nathan Allen

Nathan Allen is an American chemist. While working as a chemist at Dow Chemical Company, Allen began to imagine that scientists could use Reddit's "ask me anything" (AMA) interview format to create discussions between scientists and the public.^[2] Allen became a forum moderator there and has since been prominent in guiding the culture of the community there and as a spokesperson for the forum.^[2] Allen has advocated that chemists should be more active in communicating with the public in online forums such as reddit.^[3]

AMA series

As of 2014, r/science attracted 30,000–100,000 visitors per day, making it the largest community-managed science forum and an attractive place to host discussions.^[2] In January 2014 Allen began the r/science AMA series with the goal of raising the visibility of scientists who are producing groundbreaking work in their fields but who are not well known outside of their fields.^[2][4] Outgoing links posted in the forum must go to peer-reviewed science articles published within the last six months.^[5]

The discussion series was instantly a success, and established the world's largest two-way discussion between scientists and the public.^[2] Allen does most of the organization for the talks, including soliciting scientists to participate and training them to communicate in reddit's discussion format.^[2]

In May 2018, the series ended due to a change in Reddit's ranking algorithm making AMA talks less visible and less engaging.^[6][7]

Featured content

r/science has an ongoing content partnership with PLOS.^[8] As an academic journal, PLOS invites authors who are publishing scientific papers to publicly present their work in r/science and to participate in community "ask me anything" discussions in the forum at scheduled times.^[8]

Editorial decisions

Editorial decisions in r/science are made by the moderators who themselves follow rules that they present for the forum.^[5] If new rules are introduced then those are discussed with the community of readers.^[5] Rules for r/science include guidance that contributors keep discussion on-topic and thoughtful.^[5]

Allen led the decision to ban discussion in r/science which gives credibility to climate change denial.^[9][10]

References

1. "/r/science". Reddit. Retrieved November 19, 2024.
2. Owens, Simon (7 October 2014). "The World's Largest 2-Way Dialogue between Scientists and the Public". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 20 August 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
3. Widener, Andrea (20 November 2017). "Head moderator of Reddit's science community says chemists need to be more active online". Chemical & Engineering News. 95 (46): 22–23. Archived from the original on 18 January 2023. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
4. Allen, Nathan (21 January 2014). "Announcing the r/science AMA Series". Reddit.com. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
5. Owens, Simons (14 April 2015). "Should Reddit's powerful mods be reined in?". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 20 April 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
6. Tracy, Philip (23 May 2018). "How Reddit killed one of its most popular AMAs". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 25 September 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
7. nallen (18 May 2018). "r/science will no longer be hosting AMAs". reddit. Archived from the original on 5 December 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
8. Costello, Victoria (15 April 2015). "Ask our authors anything: new PLOS 'AMA' series debuts on redditscience". PLOS. Archived from the original on 13 May 2016. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
9. Allen, Nathan (16 December 2013). "Reddit's science forum banned climate deniers. Why don't all newspapers do the same?". Grist. Archived from the original on 29 April 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
10. Lee, Jane J. (20 December 2013). "Reddit Science's Ban on Climate Change Denial Posts Rears Its Head Again". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2016.

Further reading

• Quartz published a series of journalism articles describing the outcomes of r/science AMAs
• Hasenkopf, Chris (15 January 2017). "Why every scientist should hold an AMA on Reddit and how to do it, step-by-step". Medium.

External links

• Official website