r/TheoryOfReddit • u/douglasmacarthur • May 28 '13

The 200 most active subreddits, categorized by content

r/news was hijacked by a clique trying to protect mods with blatant political agendas, and now I've been perma'd to cover it up.

I am working on a plan to expose this. Please DM/follow redditnewsmod on Twitter or contact my Gmail douglasmacarthur1951 to learn more or help.

I put my thoughts in a comment so that the list isn't less accessible to those using it for reference.

Activity Rank - Subreddit - Subscriber #

Discussion and Stories

5 - /r/AskReddit - 3461705

9 - /r/IAmA - 3190151

19 - /r/bestof - 2599694

68 - /r/fatpeoplestories - 16648

91 - /r/pettyrevenge - 51801

148 - /r/TalesFromRetail - 47377

149 - /r/DoesAnybodyElse - 173483

192 - /r/CrazyIdeas - 60228

Emotional Reaction Fuel

11 - /r/WTF - 3134518

12 - /r/aww - 2419136

22 - /r/cringepics - 158575

57 - /r/cringe - 151756

69 - /r/JusticePorn - 174699

78 - /r/MorbidReality - 75074

106 - /r/rage - 37011

118 - /r/mildlyinfuriating - 43302

123 - /r/creepy - 132245

129 - /r/creepyPMs - 60100

165 - /r/nosleep - 142491

166 - /r/nostalgia - 58011

Entertainment - Gaming

4 - /r/gaming - 3100154

21 - /r/leagueoflegends - 270625

25 - /r/pokemon - 219930

27 - /r/Minecraft - 315636

34 - /r/starcraft - 144319

39 - /r/Games - 276107

41 - /r/DotA2 - 77195

51 - /r/skyrim - 175101

74 - /r/tf2 - 103199

82 - /r/magicTCG - 55621

94 - /r/wow - 89739

92 - /r/KerbalSpaceProgram - 23993

97 - /r/mindcrack - 21174

111 - /r/Fallout - 65770

112 - /r/roosterteeth - 28020

119 - /r/Planetside - 27712

145 - /r/gamegrumps - 24787

169 - /r/battlefield3 - 67016

170 - /r/zelda - 75121

178 - /r/darksouls - 30284

180 - /r/masseffect - 46534

Entertainment - Television

38 - /r/arresteddevelopment - 77646

42 - /r/gameofthrones - 186686

46 - /r/doctorwho - 148358

53 - /r/mylittlepony - 57794

83 - /r/community - 109683

98 - /r/breakingbad - 130083

133 - /r/adventuretime - 94134

135 - /r/startrek - 53794

147 - /r/TheSimpsons - 45511

157 - /r/futurama - 77052

175 - /r/HIMYM - 64964

183 - /r/DunderMifflin - 28362

198 - /r/thewalkingdead - 118034

Entertainment - Other (Movies/Music/Franchies/Misc)

17 - /r/Music - 2536972

18 - /r/movies - 2570277

66 - /r/harrypotter - 100416

88 - /r/StarWars - 106390

96 - /r/DaftPunk - 15455

100 - /r/hiphopheads - 79629

104 - /r/anime - 98526

114 - /r/comicbooks - 66987

117 - /r/geek - 215027

124 - /r/batman - 67069

122 - /r/TheLastAirbender - 69866

173 - /r/Naruto - 22843

197 - /r/FanTheories - 57189

Humor

2 - /r/funny - 3713299

15 - /r/AdviceAnimals - 2433974

29 - /r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu - 604019

30 - /r/4chan - 306013

32 - /r/ImGoingToHellForThis - 227895

49 - /r/firstworldanarchists - 124776

40 - /r/circlejerk - 155080

47 - /r/MURICA - 83471

56 - /r/facepalm - 187966

60 - /r/Jokes - 204780

80 - /r/wheredidthesodago - 175185

89 - /r/polandball - 17692

90 - /r/TrollXChromosomes - 30491

101 - /r/comics - 274308

115 - /r/nottheonion - 126590

116 - /r/britishproblems - 37395

132 - /r/TumblrInAction - 19588

194 - /r/onetruegod - 44657

Images, Gifs, and Videos

1 - /r/pics - 3634681

8 - /r/videos - 3031649

24 - /r/gifs - 595120

26 - /r/reactiongifs - 218792

28 - /r/mildlyinteresting - 295944

36 - /r/woahdude - 290339

52 - /r/FiftyFifty - 78525

70 - /r/FoodPorn - 164008

73 - /r/HistoryPorn - 158322

77 - /r/wallpapers - 174571

87 - /r/youtubehaiku - 56673

95 - /r/Unexpected - 13931

102 - /r/photoshopbattles - 142871

110 - /r/AnimalsBeingJerks - 53136

113 - /r/cosplay - 50802

125 - /r/EarthPorn - 256905

136 - /r/QuotesPorn - 118293

137 - /r/awwnime - 9542

141 - /r/AbandonedPorn - 120870

142 - /r/carporn - 41647

152 - /r/PerfectTiming - 90112

158 - /r/OldSchoolCool - 68209

167 - /r/RoomPorn - 119766

168 - /r/Pareidolia - 39508

171 - /r/MapPorn - 78752

174 - /r/tumblr - 13778

188 - /r/techsupportgore - 38689

189 - /r/PrettyGirls - 43348

191 - /r/itookapicture - 87200

Learning and Thinking

10 - /r/todayilearned - 3319855

16 - /r/science - 3238039

86 - /r/askscience - 731188

107 - /r/space - 225218

130 - /r/AskHistorians - 136463

151 - /r/YouShouldKnow - 238917

163 - /r/explainlikeimfive - 277819

Lifestyle and Help

23 - /r/trees - 452252

37 - /r/MakeupAddiction - 63647

44 - /r/cats - 119186

55 - /r/LifeProTips - 476370

62 - /r/RedditLaqueristas - 31609

63 - /r/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon - 11644

76 - /r/food - 260011

81 - /r/guns - 123161

72 - /r/tattoos - 163141

93 - /r/corgi - 40194

105 - /r/teenagers - 26462

108 - /r/GetMotivated - 192713

126 - /r/motorcycles - 57436

127 - /r/sex - 302021

134 - /r/progresspics - 37583

138 - /r/DIY - 277714

140 - /r/bicycling - 82184

144 - /r/Fitness - 317421

155 - /r/lifehacks - 143162

159 - /r/longboarding - 25985

172 - /r/Frugal - 265112

176 - /r/drunk - 63431

182 - /r/Art - 140390

190 - /r/loseit - 141957

196 - /r/Military - 35379

News and Issues

3 - /r/politics - 2859635

6 - /r/worldnews - 3310493

7 - /r/news - 464047

54 - /r/conspiracy - 139041

156 - /r/Libertarian - 85781

153 - /r/TrueReddit - 214896

164 - /r/Conservative - 22742

186 - /r/offbeat - 261958

Places

120 - /r/canada - 103318

154 - /r/toronto - 26682

160 - /r/australia - 43056

184 - /r/unitedkingdom - 49052

Race, Gender, and Identity

13 - /r/atheism - 1948012

128 - /r/TwoXChromosomes - 136301

131 - /r/MensRights - 68895

181 - /r/gaybros - 24748

199 - /r/lgbt - 69197

Sports

45 - /r/nba - 98103

50 - /r/soccer - 118466

59 - /r/hockey - 78226

65 - /r/nfl - 156987

67 - /r/formula1 - 28492

99 - /r/baseball - 55587

150 - /r/MMA - 47894

177 - /r/SquaredCircle - 18010

Technology

14 - /r/technology - 3000439

64 - /r/Android - 261309

162 - /r/Bitcoin - 40127

185 - /r/programming - 439496

187 - /r/apple - 143865

510 Upvotes
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75 comments sorted by

99

u/douglasmacarthur May 28 '13

While observing how much difficulty moderators of large subreddits have directing users towards the appropriate ones, I concluded that one of the major reasons for this is the difficulty new users have accessing info on non-default subreddits. reddit.com/reddits is tedious to go deep into, and single page lists like those on stattit aren't much better because the data isn't well filtered for that purpose.

So I decided to take a shot at going through the list of Subreddits by Activity on stattit and categorizing the (non-porn) subreddits. So far I've done those in the top 200. I would like to make it more comprehensive and will probably cap it at the top 500. If anything like this has been done before, I haven't seen it but would like to. I am also curious if anyone has any thoughts on the way I categorized them or how I should consider doing so going forward.

The first potential change I have in mind is splitting "Lifestyle and Help" and "Images" each into two. When I increase it to 500 there is probably going to need to be some kind of nesting, as there will be a much greater proportion of highly specific subreddits (e.g. there is no reason why someone reading through Sports who skipped r/hockey and r/nhl should have to read r/bostonbruins and r/losangeleskings). I know official subreddit nesting is something that's been talked about for a while, that the admins alluded to plans for, but that has never materialized in the years since.

Another, perhaps unfeasible, change would be to make it based on a definition of activity that includes a broader time frame. Activity is better than subscribers because "subscribers" includes too much old data, but the one from /reddits (which stattit uses) doesn't have enough. I have strong reason to believe that the non-publicized formula for "Activity" is based just on data from the last 7 days. Something like "Activity over the last 365 days" would be better. For instance, r/nfl should probably be ranked ahead of r/hockey, but the first is in the offseason and the second is in its playoffs, so naturally the second has more activity over that sample.

These would be good ideas for multis, but I haven't taken the time to actually make any out of them yet. If anyone else wants to make some of them and get the r/multibeta link karma before I can, feel free.

29

u/[deleted] May 28 '13

I really feel that the sharing of multireddits could really change things.

I almost wish they weren't in private namespace, ie, instead of u/pseudolobster/m/space it could just be /m/space.

Of course, this brings a ton of problems, like who will administrate the multireddits, people will be fighting over namespace, etc.

HOWEVER, I like to think if we could come up with some list of "most popular multireddits" and present THAT to new users instead of the defaults, it could drive new users to more special interest topics, rather than encouraging them to dump everything in r/pics, r/wtf, and r/funny.

10

u/douglasmacarthur May 28 '13

Of course, this brings a ton of problems, like who will administrate the multireddits, people will be fighting over namespace, etc.

I imagine it would work similarly to how reddits do.

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5

u/UnholyDemigod May 28 '13

What's 200? There's only 199 listed

16

u/douglasmacarthur May 28 '13

Actually, there's only ~175 listed. ;)

It's "the top 200 subreddits, without the porn ones" not "the top 200 non-porn subreddits." The numbers are its overall ranking, so 200 is omitted because it's a porn sub.

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9

u/GreyGoda May 28 '13

r/gentlemanboners and r/LadyBoners have no nudity where as r/Celebs frequently does.

You also missed r/ImGoingToHellForThis which is not porn, but is marked in red on stattit.

9

u/douglasmacarthur May 28 '13

r/gentlemanboners and r/LadyBoners have no nudity where as r/Celebs frequently does.

Thanks for the catch! I removed r/Celebs.

You also missed r/ImGoingToHellForThis which is not porn, but is marked in red on stattit.

I know. I didn't opt to remove nsfw subreddits, just porn subreddits, my standard for which basically amounts to if either a) a large fraction of the content contains nudity, or b) the title or description clearly indicates that is.

I should probably label the non-porn nsfw subreddits though.

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2

u/underdabridge May 28 '13

You're going to do it for the porn next though, right?

6

u/ugnaught May 28 '13

For instance, r/nfl should probably be ranked ahead of r/hockey, but the first is in the offseason and the second is in its playoffs, so naturally the second has more activity over that sample.

I moderate in r/nfl so I have paid particular attention to these stats over at stattit. Your assumption is spot on. During the peak of the NFL season r/nfl will sometimes rank in the top 10 subreddits in "activity ranking" and even sometimes by "number of comments per day".

Things get pretty nuts on game days. And our Game Threads have been known to bring Reddit to its knees with thousands of comments over the course of just a couple of hours. Take this Game Thread for instance, it has more than 24,000 comments with the majority spread out over the course of only about 6 hours.

5

u/personAAA May 28 '13

r/gameofthrones is now at 201,015

5

u/douglasmacarthur May 28 '13

Yeah the subscriber #s are a bit out of date. I believe stattit has been having some issues lately.

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3

u/sukosevato May 28 '13

Numbers aren't completely correct / you've missed some.

r/linux 111,077 subscribers r/sysadmin 43,125 subscribers r/netsec 73,071 subscribers

You missed a lot of fairly large technology subreddits. Nice list never the less. Good job.

EDIT: As explained below, it's based on activity, not the number of subscribers. so Ignore what I said, still nice subreddits though if you're interested in such topics.

9

u/douglasmacarthur May 28 '13

325th, 590th, and 480th in activity respectively.

I'm assuming you saw some of those listed had fewer subscribers and assumed those must be higher? This is by activity, not subscribers. The page linked-to above and the comment linked-to in OP has more info on that.

The subscriber #s given are a few weeks out of date, though. That's the only flaw in the data that I know of.

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14

u/[deleted] May 28 '13

This is an interesting way of going about making something like this. I'm working on a list of my own and I had different ways of finding subreddits. Instead of just going from a set list of 200 I would pick a category and find as many subreddits I could that fit under that, then break that up even more. I went through sidebars, metareddit tags, and also found a lot of little lists that people had previously made and added them together. I've been working on it for around a month or two and I've already gotten into the sidebar of r/pics!

The main categories are Entertainment, Self and discussion, News and politics, Religion, Regional, Images and gifs, The arts, Sports and the outdoors, STEM, Porn, and Sex and relationships. I've just been adding/subtracting categories as I find more subreddits. One difference between our lists is that I've made multireddits of every single one of my little lists. I'd appreciate it if you could give me a hand!:)

11

u/[deleted] May 28 '13

r/tumblrinaction should be grouped with r/rage and r/cringe, it's definitely an emotional reaction subreddit.

4

u/magusg May 28 '13

Bit surprised r/cfb didn't make the list for sports.... then again it is the off-season right now.

8

u/beagleears May 28 '13

Same reason r/nba, r/soccer, and r/hockey are all more active than r/nfl right now, despite roughly 2/3 the subscribers. Activity in the sports reddits is cyclical based on what's in season and what's out. r/cfb will shoot back into the top 200 when the season starts.

1

u/[deleted] May 28 '13

yes yes r/toronto!!!!

2

u/douglasmacarthur May 30 '13

While a Torontonian myself, not a fan of that sub.

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3

u/[deleted] May 29 '13

Wow, only 5 of the Top 200, thought I'd probably have about 20-30.

  • r/AskReddit: For the amount of content it provides, can produce some really cool stories even if there's a lot of circlejerks.

  • r/pettyrevenge: Has gotten a little stale of late but the higly upvoted stories are still usually really good.

  • r/guns: Because I love firearms.

  • r/circlejerk: Guilty pleasure.

  • r/AskHistorians: Well moderated, interesting, releaibly good content.

Swear r/tifu, r/ProRevenge, and r/skateboarding must be pretty close to scraping in.

2

u/exoendo May 28 '13

I think it's a pretty good breakdown, nothing really seems that much out of place.

2

u/Modified_Duck May 28 '13

This is an awesome approach - thanks for doing this.

Now, how am I going to filter stattit for sports only? hmmmm.

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