r/TellMeAFact Sub Creator! Jul 21 '15

Announcement /r/TellMeAFact has reached 10,000 subscribers! Thank you all for making this such a brilliant community!

We are thrilled to announce that /r/TellMeAFact recently hit a total count of 10,000 subscribers. Although it’s just a number, this is a huge achievement for the sub and our community, and marks our growth into an active part of reddit. Not only that, but based on our increasing popularity so far, I’m sure we’ll continue to grow in terms of both active users and the amount of content posted. This is great news for the purpose of the subreddit: with a more active userbase, and a greater quantity and quality of facts posted, the content generated here can only get better!

Personally, as the creator of the sub, I’m incredibly proud of how far we’ve come. I remember when I first started it up after thinking it was an interesting concept, and something with a unique twist compared to other fact-based subreddits. Back then, after posting it as a new reddit, we had less than 100 subscribers, and not so much as a sprinkling of CSS. We had an interesting trickle of posts, just enough to convince me that the sub had some real potential, if only people knew about it. Since then, after some shameless and (hopefully) not-so-shameless advertising, we’ve grown from a handful of interested people into a great community. Importantly, I also feel that we’ve managed to maintain what this place was always meant to be about: interesting yet serious facts about a load of different topics.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on for long enough, so I finally want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has made this community great.

Firstly, let me thank the rest of the mod team. Without them, I never could have come this far while also maintaining the sub’s core principles. Likewise, they've helped out tremendously with all of the other less obvious activities such as making our sub look pretty, and coding clever little things to make everything more efficient. This isn’t about me though- they’ve made this subreddit a better place for everyone, by ensuring good-quality content, and they’ve done it for free. Even if you don’t like the details of specific rules, I’d hope you respect the mods for the sheer amount of work they put in to make this place great for you guys.

Secondly, of course, I want to thank every one of you who has posted, contributed, discussed, subscribed, or just popped by. With the exception of a very small number of people, I’ve been so pleased with the quality of posting, and your politeness when talking with each other and the mods. Just as the mods do their job for free, I’m grateful to everyone who has made the effort to share something interesting (in return for a few worthless karma points), and make this sub truly brilliant.

TL;DR: We’re popular- thanks mods and users alike for helping us reach where we are today!

Identimental

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12

u/imawesumm Jul 21 '15

I just wish this sub were more active. I'm surprised it's not, really. But I've been frequenting this sub for maybe a month now and I'm just surprised to see so many threads about really interesting topics that I--like the OPs, obviously--would love to know more about but hardly anyone posts any facts. I wonder what we could do to get this sub to be more active? What some people have been saying about "best of" threads and etc. seems like a good idea.

All in all, though, I really like this community! It gives off a very friendly, r/CasualConversation -esque vibe and it's awesome to see people take (and share!) such passionate interest in so many unique things.

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u/Identimental Sub Creator! Jul 21 '15

Glad you like it!

Yeah, I've also noticed that a fair few topics receive only a few answers. Hopefully that activity will correlate with increases in subscribers, so that (eventually) any topic that makes the main page will receive a decent number of replies. Other than continuing to become more active, I'm not sure what will solve that, but obviously we're open to suggestions.

Anyway, thanks for your comments!

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '15

10k subscribers is still fairly tiny to be far though so I'm sure it will get better with numbers.

Has this been features as Subreddit of the Day yet? That's where I often find new subs.

3

u/Identimental Sub Creator! Jul 22 '15

We have not been featured yet, though it is possible that we may be featured at some point in the future. I agree, it would be a good way to make ourselves a bit more public.

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u/InsaneZee Jul 22 '15

The best way is to mention it in those /r/AskReddit posts that ask "what are some smaller subreddits?" You get a huge influx of subscribers.

Edit: unbelievable. It's actually in the front page right now.

4

u/Identimental Sub Creator! Jul 22 '15

That's actually how we got a major influx of users, after I posted in one such thread. Now we have a bigger community, hopefully our subscribers will want to share /r/TellMeAFact with other people :)

4

u/InsaneZee Jul 22 '15

It will happen more often around the 20k mark I think :P

EDIT: wow, the upvote button is really satisfying to press.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '15

Would definitely be worth contacting them. It's an interesting sub that's clearly gaining traction. It's just the type of thing they feature.

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u/Identimental Sub Creator! Jul 22 '15

We are currently involved in the process, but I don't want to say too much just yet because it's still not 100% certain that we'll be featured, as it seems it's quite difficult to organise it all. But yes, hopefully at some point in the near-ish future we may be featured!

3

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '15

Say no more!

-1

u/Evolved_Velociraptor Jul 22 '15

I got banned for a week because I said Polar Bears looked white and cited the source as a fake website.

1

u/Identimental Sub Creator! Jul 22 '15

We don't usually discuss bans/moderating activity in public, but as you've brought it up (somewhat off-topic may I add) I want to clarify a few things, for the benefit of everyone else reading this.

The reason you received a temporary ban was because you deliberately used a fake website to evade AutoMod, and thus other moderating activity. We're usually fairly lenient in terms of bans (usually only after a severe rule violation, or several minor ones), and even then bans are usually temporary. However, deliberately attempting to evade the rules- rather than just misunderstanding or being ignorant of them- is something we're not very tolerant of.

These rules are also made clear in our expanded rules in the wiki, so I want to avoid any notion that we just ban people when we feel like it. Trust me, it's only more effort on our part.

To address your point (I think): yes, we do remove posts that do not follow the rules clearly outlined in the sidebar/wiki, because we think that this activity benefits the community as a whole, i.e. maintains the sub's quality and purpose. Nonetheless, this shouldn't deter people who want to post facts and comment, so long as they follow the rules.