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Noob Guide: Reddit

Note: This guide is a little outdated but still true. I plan to update soon with additional details.

So you’re a noob, and you want to get into the Reddit scene. Well, lucky for you I finally spent time on the site realizing there’s more features than I initially brushed off. In this guide I’m going to walk you through getting registered to customizing your news feed to starting to gather up “karma” (explained later).

1) Step 1: Choose a username (Sign up)

This username stays with you and it can not be changed. You don’t need anything fancy here as you’ll see some users just have “name###” or whatever. No one cares about your user name unless it’s funny enough to spawn some useless comments from random people. You’ll find the register link on the top right of any page, or you can click this link.

2) Step 2: Remove unnecessary subreddits.

Sub-reddits are categories for random topics which are maintained by regular people. When you create a new account, Reddit automatically subscribes you to their 22 top subreddits. These subreddits will make up your news feed, and personalize your front page experience so you’re only going to want to subscribe to things you really want to read about. If you’re like me, you’ll remove them all. You can do that and the next step at this link.

3) Find new subreddits.

Subscribing to new subreddits is important if you want to stay in the know and enjoy your experience at Reddit. If there’s any hot topics you find interesting, there’s probably a subreddit for it. For example, I subscribed right away to r/XboxOne, r/Halo, r/DestinyTheGame, and a subreddit for my hometown. The hometown one is great because I can stay on board with what’s going on in my city and local current events.

4) Set up your preferences.

Most of Reddit’s default settings will fit your needs but I want to direct your attention to the third option; “open links in new window”. You’re going to want to check this as titles direct straight to links if it’s not a text post. This can be very confusing to a noob, since clicking “comments” is not something you think about to read the comments (I know). You can view the preferences here.

5) View your front page.

Now that you’ve set up your settings and found some subreddits your front page should be a beautiful piece of agitated news customized to your needs. The front page for you will be reddit.com which is what you should bookmark. This takes all the poplar posts of your subscribed subreddits and puts them in one place. From here, you can also sort by new, rising, and controversial (which means a lot of comments but not a lot of upvotes).

Remember: Be Polite!

Reddit is solely a user-ran community but that doesn’t stop it from having some of the best moderators in all of the internet. If you’re rude or post uneducated nonsense, you’re like to receive warnings, become banned, or even just down-voted to oblivion.

6) Submit content.

Let’s face it. Everyone thinks their special. Some even enough to submit and outdated meme and receive karma. That’s not how Reddit works. Unless it’s something you’ve made, or saw out in the real world; Reddit has seen it. They don’t care. It’s not Facebook so you’re not going to see any “Share If You Love Jesus” type of posts. That nonsense doesn’t fly here.
If you haven’t gathered by know that “karma” is the upvotes/downvotes you receive throughout your time on Reddit. The only way to submit upvote-worthy content is if it’s something justifiably awesome. Which, you’ll find out a lot of things that were submitted aren’t.

7) Don’t become obsessed.

With so many subreddits and so much information it’s easy to get carried away. Reddit is known as the “productivity killer” so use it wisely.

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  1. why do I keep getting messages from admins about flair? flair is stupid, and doesnt do anything for my posts or comments, why do the admins keep bitching about it.

    1. Some communities require it. It really depends what it’s for. I agree with you though and never set it unless I have too. I believe r/Xbox used to require your Gamertag as flair.

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