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r/science
Type of site
Subreddit
Available inEnglish
Founder(s)u/spez[1]
URLwww.reddit.com/r/science
Users30.4 million members[1]
LaunchedOctober 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 almost 30.4 million members as of 2023.[1]

History

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

Nathan Allen

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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

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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

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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

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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

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  1. ^ a b c d "/r/science". Reddit. Retrieved June 17, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ a b c d 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. ^ a b 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

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