Reddit has just announced that they are changing up the default subreddits – the ones you see on the front page when you’re logged out or if you’ve never taken the time to customize your own list. It’s been nearly two years since reddit has made significant changes to the default subreddits, so it’s a pretty big deal.
The changes involve 5 news additions and 2 removals, the latter of which will please a great deal of redditors who have complained about those particular subreddits for quite some time. It’ll probably piss off a good number of users as well – thus is the nature of big changes. You can’t please all the people all the time, right?
Anyway, r/atheism and r/politics are now gone from default subreddits list. Here’s reddit’s no-BS reason for the removal:
“We could give you a canned corporate answer or a diplomatic answer that is carefully crafted for the situation. But since this is reddit, we’re going to try things a bit differently and give you the real answer: they just weren’t up to snuff. Now, don’t get us wrong, there still ARE good parts about them. Overall, they just haven’t continued to grow and evolve like the other subreddits we’ve decided to add.”
The new additions are r/books, r/earthporn, r/explainlikeimfive, r/gifs, and r/television. These were picked based on a combination of traffic, rate of subscriber increase, and increase in submissions.
“We’ve tried our best to make sure that the new additions are fairly “general,” and a few of the new additions are also there to help cover some areas that have never had a home on the front page. With these updates, we hope there will be an appropriate default for many of the most popular topics,” says reddit.
Of course, these changes only apply to new users – for the most part. Anyone who spends any time at all on reddit is likely to create their own account and customize what they see. Or, if you’re a glutton for punishment, you can just browse r/all.