Type of site | Subreddit |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Founder(s) | u/spez [1] |
URL |
www |
Users | 30.4 million members [1] |
Launched | October 18, 2006[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]
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]
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]
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 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]