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I really like Reddit and I really like Stack Exchange.

Reddit provides a great environment for community building, link sharing, and discussion. It does provide some support for questions and answers; however, it is very different from the aims of Stack Exchange. It's much less structured, and it is more pitched around helping the individual case rather creating an internet artefact for the future.

As a fan of both sites, I'd like to expose those on Reddit who might be interested to our site (and I guess expose those reading this to Reddit). That said, I'm highly mindful of the importance of being respectful to the various Reddit communities. This is because I like Reddit, and I don't like the idea of rubbish being posted there; and it is because I like Cogsci.se and I don't want the reputation of cogsci.se sullied in the Reddit community through disrespectful link sharing.

So far, there have been a few attempts at sharing links with different Subreddits. You can see these attempts here. In general, sharing the site link has only really been successful in the academic psychology Subreddit. Sharing well selected links that are relevant and of interest to the target community has been much more successful (e.g., here).

There is a large number of Subreddits that may have an interest in the content of our site. However, I think it is critical when sharing a link to really think: Is this a link that the community would enjoy reading? Is the title phrased in a way that respects community norms?

Questions

  • What subreddits might be interested in the content on our site?
  • What kind of links does the subreddit enjoy or not enjoy?
  • What other tips do you have for respectfully sharing links on Reddit?

Preliminary list of subreddits

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    What I've done so far is just casually share questions/answers of interest. Any post that implies "try this site, you'll like it!" doesn't do well. Provide content in it's natural form. As a first impression, people care about content, not sites or companies.
    – Ben Brocka
    Feb 7, 2012 at 22:40

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The key is to share interesting, high quality and relevant content. Rather than sharing the site or how the site works, share specific answered questions that are fun or interesting and of particular quality. Good questions to share are generally our highest voted questions.

Sharing content helps the new users see what's good about this site and hopefully entice them to stay. Ultimately the reason most people use a site is content, especially if they don't plan to participate themselves; according to the 90-9-1 rule very few users are likely to be active participators.

Sharing unanswered questions could have a "cliff hanger" effect or even drive some to attempt to answer a question, but generally people are interested in answers, not questions, so I would generally recommend against sharing unanswered questions unless the community is specifically likely to have an answer.

In addition, engage the other community in their medium. On Reddit, don't post a link and run. Most people will feel more comfortable commenting on the story via Reddit rather than our site. Engage the users that comment on the other site and hint them towards other content if they might be interested.

By doing sharing content and engaging the community directly we can add value to their community and ours, rather than looking spammy or trying to siphon off users from their community.

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