Studying rule trajectories in reddit communities

Online platforms that allow users to create communities for engaging in discussion have varying forms of governance. The focus of our work is Reddit, which has communities dedicated to specific topics, known as subreddits. Subreddits have moderators to control the content and behavior in the community and may formulate formal rules that the users of the community have to follow. Unwanted behavior by users on a subreddit can lead to formulation of new rules to curb such behavior. As part of this work, we try to trace the trajectory of rule making in subreddits by looking at the historical snapshots of the subreddits. Specifically, we look at when subreddits add their first rules, and how often they change rules. We group the subreddits into cohorts based on their year of creation. The key questions that we tried to answer with the dataset of historical rules and rule changes in subreddits include (1) how early do subreddits in each cohort add their first rules and does it have any correlation with their popularity, (2) does the number of rule changes decrease with the subreddit’s age, and (3) what type of rules are first added to a subreddit and what type of rules are added eventually with time. At least half of the first rule additions happened in less than one year for all cohorts, showing the adoption of the formal rules widget by subreddits. We note that while rule additions occurring decrease with age in most cohorts, rule modifications do not follow such a clear pattern. The most common rules added in majority of subreddits in the first rule addition are those related to being civil and respectful. We also notice that rules that prohibit certain types of content from being posted are added across time, indicating that subreddits start prohibiting certain types of content with time to maintain the quality of content. Looking at how rules in a subreddit have changed over time can provide us insights about the life-cycles of subreddits, what type of rules are added when and if there is any pattern in the process of creation of rules.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Reddy, Harita

Contributors dc:contributor

• Chandrasekharan, Eshwar

• Reddit
• Online Communities
• Rules
• Moderation
• Online Governance

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Harita Reddy

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120385

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120385