I could sit here for hours talking about all the issues that plague Reddit, but if you use the website yourself, then you’re probably already painfully familiar with them. The good news is that Reddit is also familiar with these issues, but rather than address them directly and risk changing Reddit so much that it loses its appeal, the company has decided to try out a little experiment. Known as Upvoted, this experiment is actually a new website that’s expected to launch later today, and contrary to what its name would have you believe, users can’t actually vote on posts, or comment on them. The website’s content will also be curated by Reddit’s own editorial team, which will sift through Reddit’s most popular posts and make sure that there’s no editorial spin on them and that all the facts are straight before posting them to Upvoted.
Reddit, the self-proclaimed ‘front page of the internet’, will launch a news site today called Upvoted that will serve up the best content from its community. Upvoted will feature stories, infographics, illustrations, videos, and podcasts on everything from news to sports to lifestyle. However, it won’t allow users to comment or even vote on posts. A dedicated team of around ten members, led by journalist and former Myspace editorial director Vickie Chang, will create stories for the site. Wired reports that Upvoted will be an experiment for Reddit to see if it can regain the traffic it loses when other sites spin stories created by its users into their own content. To combat this, the editorial team will scour Reddit for interesting stories, verify the details and interview the original content creators for Upvoted articles. Each post will also guide readers to the original Reddit post. When asked about whether Upvoted address controversial stories from the Reddit universe, such as those criticizing the company’s leadership team, Chang says that nothing is “off the table.” “I don’t have any hard steadfast rules. If it’s a topic of discussion, the community is always going to be our first priority,” she added. In order to monetize the new site, Upvoted will feature sponsored content written by the editorial team.
