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How to Create a Reddit Community (Subreddit) and Required Prerequisites

by Vaibhav

Reddit communities or subreddits, as they are called, are a great way to connect to people with similar interests. Think of any topic under the sun and most likely there is a subreddit for it. Whether you wish to discuss DC comics or fly an FPV drone, a subreddit provides you an environment to learn and grow. However, there is still a possibility of not being able to find the subreddit you’re looking for. If that’s the case, here is how to create a Reddit community or subreddit in a few easy steps!

Create a Reddit Subreddit Community

Simply put, each subreddit has a main focal point and all the posts revolve around it. Community members can post, comment, and upvote/downvote the posts. In addition, you also have one or more moderators to keep spam off the community, make rules and enforce rules, keep an eye on the users, etc. So without wasting more time, let’s look at some things you must know to create a subreddit.

1. Prerequisites for Creating Subreddit

In order to create a subreddit, there are some prerequisites a user needs to fulfill. First, your user account should be 30 days or old. Second, a user needs to have a minimum amount of karma which Reddit hasn’t clearly specified (to stop spammers from creating new subreddits).

If you are unable to create a subreddit, make sure you join other communities, participate in those subreddits, and also post/comment frequently. That’s the only way to gain karma points and unlock ‘create community’ feature.

2. How to Create a Subreddit

1. Open Reddit and tap on the profile icon on the top left corner. Now, select Create a community option from the sidebar.

How to create a Reddit community

2. On the community topic page, select the topic of your subreddit. There is a long list of topics that you can choose from, for example, Activism, Anime, Art, etc. If you still cannot find the topic you’re looking for, scroll down and select None of these topics.

choosing topic of your subreddit

3. We’ll now give a name to our subreddit. Remember, it should be unique and clarify the topic. A title can have a maximum of 21 letters. To assign a name, simply type the name of your subreddit and tap on Next on the top right corner.

If your title isn’t unique, Reddit will show you an error prompt saying ‘That subreddit already exists’.

Reddit's community name option

4. The first thing anyone notices who stumbles upon a subreddit is the description page. It’s a great way to attract users to join your community by explaining what the subreddit, and by that extension, the community, is all about.

If you are proactive and already have a description ready, use the Describe your community page to tell about it. There’s a limit of 500 letters as of now. So I recommended you to take time while filling it. Moreover, descriptions can be changed and edited anytime so you do not have to worry too much. Once done, hit Next from the top right corner.

adding subreddit description

5. Reddit provides three privacy levels for any subreddit that is Pubic, Restricted, and Private. If your subreddit is likely to contain content that is not suitable for users below 18 years, you can toggle the 18+ community option as well.

  • Public – anyone can post, view, or comment
  • Restricted – can be viewed by anyone but only approved users can post
  • Private – only approved users can view or post
Choose community type on Reddit

6. The last step is optional (Skip on the top right) but recommended where you assign an avatar or profile picture for your subreddit. There are plenty of templates you can choose from. Apart from that, you can upload a photo from your phone as well.

On the next page, tap on Create a community. This also gives you a preview of the name, description, and avatar of the subreddit.

preview subreddit before creating it on reddit

7. This is not exactly a step, so all you have to do is relax. Reddit will take a few seconds and redirect to the subreddit’s homepage.

subreddit homepage after creating it

3. Request Inactive Subreddit

You have successfully created a subreddit community but still feel like tweaking the name a bit? Well, you cannot. Reddit puts a restriction on not only the name but you have no option to delete your subreddit as well. So if mods of a subreddit haven’t been active for more than 60 days, it’ll be considered abandoned. You can submit a Request for a defunct or spam subreddit.

Request a defunt subreddit

If you’ve decided that you no longer want to use the subreddit you created, you can put it up on Adopt-a-Reddit. On the other hand, if your subreddit is facing a lot of spam issues or need more moderators, Need a Mod or Mod Search are great subreddits to post and find talent.

4. Enhance Your Subreddit

Now that you have made a subreddit, there are several things you should take care of in order to make it look clean along with community-relevant info. Here are a few tips you can start with. If you get stuck at any point, do not hesitate to post to Reddit’s mod help community.

Closing Remarks: Create a Subreddit Community

I hope you were able to easily create a Reddit community. Always keep in mind that you cannot change the name of the subreddit so be very sure before you name it. Also, if you don’t see the ‘create community’ option, spend more time interacting with subreddits and posts to improve your karma points.

Also Read: 8 Best Subreddits for Memes in 2020

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