Subreddit Links Drive Community Creation and User Engagement on Reddit

TL;DR

This study investigates how subreddit links on Reddit influence community creation and user engagement, revealing their significant role in activity growth and the evolving structure of the subreddit network.

Contribution

The paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of subreddit links' impact on community dynamics and network structure on Reddit.

Findings

Subreddit links significantly drive new subreddit creation.

Links increase activity in referenced subreddits.

The subreddit link network has become less dense and more treelike over time.

Abstract

On Reddit, individual subreddits are used to organize content and connect users. One mode of interaction is the subreddit link, which occurs when a user makes a direct reference to a subreddit in another community. Based on the ubiquity of these references, we have undertaken a study on subreddit links on Reddit, with the goal of understanding their impact on both the referenced subreddit, and on the subreddit landscape as a whole. By way of an extensive observational study along with several natural experiments using the entire history of Reddit, we were able to determine that (1) subreddit links are a significant driver of new suberddit creation; (2) subreddit links (2a) substantially drive activity in the referenced subreddit, and (2b) are frequently created in response to high levels of activity in the referenced subreddit; and (3) the graph of subreddit links has become less dense and more treelike over time. We conclude with a discussion of how these results confirm, add to, and in some cases conflict with existing theories on information-seeking behavior and self-organizing behavior in online social systems.