Thursday, December 22, 2011

Happy Holidays, You Glorious Bastards!


Happy Holidays from all of us at reddit!

We hope everyone is having a safe and stress-free time with friends and family, or at the very least enjoying some quiet redditing.





































Gold members, if you peruse your user page, you'll notice a little stocking stuffer feature. Thanks, for your continued support, fine ladies and gents!

Peace on Earth & The Eleven Dimensional Multiverse,

Alienth
Bsimpson
Chromakode
5days
Hueypriest
Intortus
Jenakalif
Kemitche
Kickme444
Kirbyrules
Krispykrackers
Pixelina
Rram
Snoo
Spladug

Friday, December 16, 2011

Over 37,000 reddit Secret Santas in 110 countries are sending gifts to spread happiness and set a world record!

Have you checked out the redditgifts gift gallery lately? Many of the over 37,000 participants in 110 countries have already received their gifts and are capturing the joy using photos and videos to let the world know just how excited and thankful they are.
Can't keep up with the gallery? We pour over all the gifts every day and give awards to some of the best gifts there are (you can also keep up with the awards on the redditgifts facebook page). There have already been some highlights including a video (and other gifts) from Bear Grylls, an extra cool gift from Wil Wheaton, some cool gifts from Pee-Wee Herman, a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas, a new laptop and more happy stories than you could possibly shake a stick at!

As we mentioned a few months ago, we are also working with Guinness in order to set a world record. This process is moving along as expected and we're adding to what will be the final record number with every gift posted to the gallery (so please post your gift).
Secret Santa 2011 has of course received some nice press from the likes of The New York Times, USA Today and was featured on ABC Radio and RightThisMinute!

This has become a wonderful tradition in our great community here on reddit. Lets everyone give each other a hand on another successful secret santa!

Stay tuned for the biggest book exchange the world has seen early in 2012 where we will be supporting some great causes and having massive amounts of fun!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Future of Fundraising and Altruism on reddit

The reddit community has rallied around some amazing causes over the years. Way back in 2007, we named the infamous Mr. Splashy Pants. Since then, redditors raised money for Donors Choose in 2010, and Haiti relief in 2010. Recently, there has been a growing trend of subreddits creating their own fundraisers and donation drives in their community with impressive success. The biggest example of this is the "irreverent" folks over at /r/atheism raising almost $200,000 for Doctors Without Borders, but there have also been recent fundraisers at /r/christianity, /r/guitar, /r/islam, /r/twoxchromosomes, and yes even /r/starcraft (add any we've forgotten to the list at help/altruism).

In the past, we've helped organize and promote these various fundraisers with blog posts, ads, and coordination with some of the non-profits involved. The fact that these recent campaigns have been so successful and completely independently run by reddit communities makes them all the more impressive and exciting. We love that subreddits have taken the initiative to organize and promote fundraisers, blood drives, and other volunteering, not to mention all of the random acts of kindness subreddits.

The reddit community has now grown and evolved to a point where reddit Inc. is not necessarily needed for promotion and organization. However, we are committed to supporting the reddit community's charitable efforts in any way possible. So, we'd like to propose a question to you: what can we at reddit do to help fuel these type of fundraisers and other organic altruistic activity? How can we make subreddit campaigns more powerful, easier to manage, or easier to join?


On a tangentially related note, we'd like to thank all 90,000 plus of you who signed our Stop SOPA petition and took other action to help save the internet. This bill is an existential threat to reddit and the internet as we know it. Thanks for making your voices heard, and thanks for having our backs on this.

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Embracing the Darkness

Last Tuesday, Elizabeth Tobey of 2K Games invited 8 San Francisco redditors up to their studio to preview their upcoming game, "The Darkness II." We had no idea what was in store for us, but we were ready to get going.


The studio is up in Novato, about 45 minutes away from reddit HQ, so 2K kindly sent someone to pick us up — in style. As redditors, we reserved the right to go a little "Socially Awkward Penguin" for the first few minutes of the ride, but eventually our excitement got the better of us.


2K Games treated us like Jarls — er, wrong game. Kings! They treated us like kings!


We got some hands-on time with the game, including a chance to try out some of the JUST announced coop campaign. It was tons of fun! Controlling two guns and two snake-arms simultaneous was a bit overwhelming at first, but quickly became a great romp. No pansy "hide in cover for a few seconds to regen your health" either — we had to feed on the hearts of our fallen enemies to stay alive. No pictures were allowed (pictures of screens wouldn't do it justice), but you can see the trailer video here. 2K Games also hooked us up with some limited edition "darkling" statues and other swag.



Finally, we got to chat up some of the dev and community team for the game over dinner. Topics ranged from character development and narrative to how to avoid taking an arrow to the knee.


Everyone had a great time, and I think we all came away intrigued about the game. If you want to know more about it, Elizabeth and Seth are running an IAMA right now (Full disclosure: 2K Games does advertise with us).

Friday, December 02, 2011

3 Year Old Lucas Inspires reddit

There are countless reasons to be cynical and pessimistic about the world these days, and even jaded about the "power of the internet" to make a real impact. But then there are stories like Lucas's that can inspire others and even renew our faith in the general awesomeness of people.

If you are not already familiar with the story, two days ago, ironyx posted in /r/assistance asking for help with his girlfriend's sister's son, whose family needed financial assistance to take their 3-year-old son, Lucas, to Duke University for an operation for a "1 in 1 million" immune system disease. Other subreddits including /r/trees & /r/atheism got behind the cause, and in less than 12 hours redditors raised over $30,000 and helped the family reach their fundraising goal! Lucas's dad (and soon to be proud owner of a reddit tattoo) did an IAMA last night, and said, "Thank you all again for your incredible kindness. I can't even begin to convey our gratitude."

But, reddit let's not stop there. There are other kids and adults who need bone marrow transplants, just like Lucas does. You can help by registering with National Marrow Donor Foundation at BeTheMatch.org and becoming a potential bone marrow donor. Register to be a Marrow Donor today.

In addition to a history of some noteworthy altruism, reddit has an amazing collection of altruistic subreddits like /r/assistance including /r/RandomActsofChristmas, /r/RandomActsofKindness, /r/RandomActsofCookies, /r/RandomActsofCoffee, /r/Random_Acts_of_Pizza, /r/RandomActsOfGaming, /r/HelpIt, /r/Free, /r/TodayIgave, /r/Favors, /r/HomeworkHelp, and /r/iNeedaFavor. The moderators of these subreddits do an amazing amount of work and have a very difficult job dealing with verification, trolls, scams, etc. They deserve the credit for making both big and small acts of kindness like this even possible. The community also deserves a lot of credit for helping with responsible verification. So be careful, be skeptical, but also don't forget how much good is possible. To quote Lucas's dad "I guess the biggest surprise or thing I didnt realize was what a strong sense of community there is on reddit. I consider it a place now, rather than just a website." reddit, you truly are an amazing place.

Thank you, reddit, for rallying around this family's story, thank you mods for facilitating, and thank you, Lucas, for being a "gloriously radiant beam of light." When you are old enough, your reddit Platinum™ account will be waiting for you.