Data memo for October 26

The following are screen captures of some parts of MR, and a key explaining them.

A. The current logo for MR. By default, all subreddits' logo is the Reddit logo (a white and orange smiling alien), but this can be changed (and often is) by moderators. Currently, this one calls for acceptance of gay males' rights.

B. All subreddits default to the first tab, what's hot, which are based on user votes and popularity. The other tabs indicate other ways to filter the submissions. For example, controversial will lead to discussions that have been severely "downvoted," likely due to a controversial topic or stance that the submitter took.

C. This sidebar is customizable. Usually moderators will include a link to the FAQ, external links of interest related to the subreddit, and any other information they might find beneficial to the reader.

D. The arrows allow a registered user to "upvote" or "downvote" a submission. Their vote counts only once. The number between the arrows reflects the total number of upvotes.

E. A submitted link. The blue URL is the title that the submitter gave. The text in the grey is the referring site.

A screen capture of an expanded conversation. Clicking on "comments" under any submitted link on the main page will take one to the discussion section of the link.

Here, the top-voted commentator is also the original poster (OP) of the submission. You can easily see who is the OP of a topic by the blue highlighting around their username. At the end of his author line, one can see that he received 25 upvotes, and 2 downvotes for this comment. This adds to a person's "comment karma," an arbitrary system of measuring one's contributions (and assuming their popularity/wittiness/etc) to the site.

The OP quotes parts of the articles (indicated by the blue stripes alongside segments of text), then immediately follows the quotes with his own comments.

Data memo for October 19

I've decided to view the community on Reddit called /r/MensRights. It's often compared to the smaller subreddit "OneY" (which is the male response to TwoXChromosomes [2XC], a female-centric subreddit). MensRights (hereinafter referred to as MR) gets a lot of criticism from those who are outside of the community, because MR is seen as being highly misogynistic, anti-feminist, and extremely inclusive. I chose that one, because I often participate in 2XC, and the general feeling within that community toward MR is negative. The same goes for OneY -- OneY is a male-centric discussion forum, but open to women, and looks down upon misogynistic attitudes. I find MR to be unsettling and biased, but I think it would be a good opportunity for me to excuse myself from my comfort zone and explore something I don't like (or perhaps, don't understand..)

For a brief explanation: subreddits can be created by anyone, and whoever creates it can authorize moderators (mods) whose powers are restricted only to that subreddit. Administrators (admins) are all-powerful arbiters throughout the entirety of Reddit, and there are few of them. Admins are appointed by a higher authority, and can flex their powers over any subreddit. So, subreddit mods' powers are limited within their own space, and have the ability to do things such as design the subreddit, moderate posts, and ban users. Admins can further that, and even shut down a subreddit, should it be too controversial or damaging to Reddit's overall reputation.

Subreddits are open for anyone to participate in. You can "frontpage" a subreddit, which means that top-voted submissions to that particular subreddit will show up on your homepage at reddit.com. However, it is up to the discretion of a mod to ban you from participating and viewing a specific subreddit (an action that can surely be reversed by an admin). I should also note that you don't have to "frontpage" a subreddit to participate; no extra registration is required beyond using a site-universal account.

As of 10/18, at 8pm, MR has 26,793 "frontpagers;" however, that doesn't necessarily mean that nearly 27,000 people are participating and actively conversing on the subreddit. MR has been active for over three years, which is proven by their subreddit slogan: "Earning scorn from feminists since 2008." Its creator, and one of only three moderators, kloo2yoo, has the following stated on the sidebar (the sidebar is a place where FAQ, links and other important information is linked on the main subreddit page): 

kloo2yoo believes that there is an international, feminist, antimale conspiracy, and encourages peaceful, but direct, action against it.

One of the issues many people have with MR is perceiving it to be a very militant, anti-female subreddit that exists to create arguments between the genders, and invalidate feminist theory. Whether MR presents itself as that as a response to aggression taken against it by those who are equally militant (and therefore, striking a fight with MR for no apparent reason), is a question desiring exploration. The general assumption of MR is that MR finds any sort of feminist to be anti-male, and that any male who does not act masculine enough is submitting himself to the militant, anti-male, feminist agenda.

I hope through my exploration of discussion that I will find evidence one way or another, which will be represented by the participating members of MR. While I initially perceive this subreddit to be hate-mongering and misogynistic, I hope I will be able to find important discussions directly related to what is its supposed primary concerns -- the rights of men and fathers, the acknowledgment of men also being victims of sexual assault and unwilling intercourse, and supporting men worldwide.

Description of the site

Even though I posted potential sites, implying I was going to look at multiple possibilities, I pretty much already knew (and decided upon) that I would use Reddit.

According to the data collected by Alexa, Reddit ranks as the #116 most visited site in the world, and 43rd in the United States. Almost half of the traffic comes from the US, but the site is also extremely popular in India, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, and Canada, to name a few.

Statistically, a large portion of Reddit's population are 18- to 34-year-old men, many of whom are unmarried and are without children (surprise..). Redditors also employed their own survey, located here. The top most popular subreddits include topics regarding memes, marijuana, atheism, ask science (where verified specialists answer science questions), and Star Craft. Pollsters also reported that one of the top favorite cheeses is cheddar. Another Redditor graphed some of the information.

I will participate by registering a new account, so that I can establish myself in a new subreddit without having any conflicting ties with my current post history. I will select a subreddit I don't already participate in.

I like this site, because it has greatly increased in traffic and exposure over the past year, and is an Internet cultural touchstone. It attracts millions of unique page views a month, and has tens of thousands of registered users. Internet memes, video games, different languages, politics and world news are prolific on subreddits. It can only yield a goldmine of data! (I hope..)