Question Evolution!: Reddit shoves its atheism sub-reddit into the closet where it belongs!

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Reddit shoves its atheism sub-reddit into the closet where it belongs!

Questions:

1. Did Reddit shove its atheism sub-reddit into the Reddit closet?

2. Did Reddit say its atheism sub-reddit was not "up to snuff". Since Reddit atheism is probably the world's largest internet atheism community, does this mean that global atheism is not up to snuff?

3. Will Reddit's popularity probably increase or decrease after this move?

4. Is the decision to remove the atheism sub-reddit off its main page a good decision for Reddit. If so, why?

5. Did the atheist Hemant Mehta who writes the blog The Friendly Atheist say about Reddit's decision: "Honestly, it’s probably a smart move by the Reddit admins even though it hampers getting atheist stories to larger audiences (and means less traffic for me personally)." Is this yet another sign that 2013 is going to be a BAD year for atheism?

Reddit dumped its atheism sub-reddit of its main page

Reddit will no longer have its atheism sub-reddit on its front page. It has decided to put its atheism sub-reddit in the closet where it belongs! See: Reddit's frontpage: goodbye atheism and politics

Recently, CNN featured an article on the "6 types of atheism" but there are at least 7 types of atheism as "closet atheism" was not included. In 2007, Dr. Sam Harris, a founder of the New Atheism movement, said about the label of atheist, "It's right next to child molester as a designation."

Reddit's Alexa ranking on 7/17/2013 - the day it booted its atheism sub-reddit from its main page

The decision to remove its atheism sub-reddit from its main page seems to have been made on 7/17/2013 (See: Reddit announcement and ( r/Atheism Gets Kicked off Reddit’s Default Front Page ).

Alexa's global market reach from 7/12/2013 to the end of 7/17/2013 according to Alexa:

Reddit's Alexa global ranking from 7/12/2013 to the end of 7/17/2013:

Reddit's global market share in 2012 and 2013 according to Alexa

Reddit said its atheism sub-reddit was not up to snuff and so it was removed from its default setting

On 7/17/2013, Reddit declared in a blog post:

We know many of you will wonder what happened to /r/politics and /r/atheism and why they were removed from the default set. 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.

Imagine that! The leading internet atheism community on the internet not being up to snuff!

Why did Reddit make a sound short term and long term decision?

Global atheism is on the decline in terms of adherent and internet atheism is also on the decline. On the other hand, global Christianity is seeing rapid growth in its number of adherents. See: Decline of global atheism and rise of global Christianity and Decline of internet atheism

Recently, Mashable declared that reddit atheism had developed a reputation for "low brow" material.

See:

Mashable admits one of the internet's largest atheist communities, reddit atheism, has developed a reputation of being "low brow" over the years by "some" (translation: by people who are not "low brow")

Most of the fans of the sub-reddit atheism were upset by recent changes which attempted to make the sub-reddit less low brow. But no matter how you slice it, atheism will always be errant and illogical and any attempts to make it intellectually feasible is like putting lipstick on a pig. Christianity has an abundant amount of evidence and atheists/evolutionists have developed a reputation of cowardice as far as publicly defending their worldview in debate. See: Evidence for Christianity and 21st century atheism is well-known for its foolishness and cowardice

My guess is that marketing department of Reddit saw low brow Reddit atheists increasingly leave their website. Furthermore, they may have done some split-testing to see how the decision would affect them as far as removing the atheism sub-reddit from their main page as far as a default setting.

In addition, given the decline of global atheism and internet atheism and the reputation of atheists, their move of the atheism sub-reddit off the main page of their website was a good long term decision for them. Furthermore, given rising internet use among countries that have a lot of religious conservatives and the widespread use of the English language around the world, the move makes long term sense as well.

Atheist Hermant Mehta on Reddit's decision and its implications for internet atheism. And yes, 2013 is going to still be a bad year for atheism - just like we predicted!

Hemant Mehta the atheist who writes the blog The Friendly Atheist said about Reddit's decision:

That meant popular atheism-related stories were seen by who-knows-how-many people who would never have clicked on or cared about those stories otherwise. It also meant that anyone who signed up for a free Reddit account would be automatically subscribed to r/atheism. They would have to click “unsubscribe” to not see those stories.

That default option led r/atheism to become one of the most popular subreddits on the site with more than 2,000,000 members, most of whom (I suspect) aren’t even atheists.

Today, Reddit announced that r/atheism would no longer be a default subreddit for new members and casual visitors (and neither will r/politics...

Honestly, it’s probably a smart move by the Reddit admins even though it hampers getting atheist stories to larger audiences (and means less traffic for me personally).

There you have it. Reddit's decision will probably hamper internet atheism. Atheists, didn't we repeatedly tell you that 2013 was going to be a bad year for atheism? It's happening! Just like we predicted!

Making 2013 be the WORST year in the history of Darwinism.

Making 2013 be the WORST year in the history of Darwinism. - Part 2

Reddit atheism and cowardice

In May of 2013, Policymic published an article on Reddit atheism entitled Reddit Users: Why Atheist Redditors Are Stuck On the Internet which declared that Reddit atheists are reluctant to proclaim their atheism off the internet. See: Reddit Users: Why Atheist Redditors Are Stuck On the Internet

The Policymic article declared:

Are we to make cowards out of Reddit’s atheists for the discrepancy between the prevalence of real life and internet proclamations of godlessness? Maybe, as the world’s loudest atheist, Richard Dawkins, first bemoaned in his TED talk, “Atheists do not want to be impolite … Can we stop being so damned polite?” Or, as R/atheist stalwart with the username “blackstar9000” explained in a very thoughtful post on the state of the atheist subreddit, “Many of the users are just recently converted, who fear being ostracized by people the religious people who make up their support system.