Social status: Reddit's qgyh2 is a dominant force
Reddit is often praised for its tightknit community and unique content promotion algorithm, although it's not necessarily the most popular social news site in town.
Considering there are a multitude of other venues to haunt, Web Scout chatted with Reddit's undisputed No. 1 submitter, qgyh2, to find out why Reddit is worth his time — a lot of his time.
The five seemingly random characters that make up his screen name — they don't correspond to his real initials — are instantly recognizable within the Reddit community. But not always for the most favorable reasons.
One user by the name of Red Reddit published a blog post equating qgyh2's rise to fame and promotion to site moderator as a catalyst for the collapse of Reddit.
"The rise of qgyh2 and the fall of reddit," he proclaimed, perhaps laced with less-than-subtle spite for having his account banned from the site.
Reddit's developers parodied the grievances on their blog Monday with some assertions of their own. Was qgyh2's activity on Reddit indirectly involved in the fluctuating price of gold, or the fall of the home loan mortgage company Fannie Mae? The evidence is damning, to say the least.
Qgyh2 asked to remain anonymous for the story because it allows him to post any story he chooses without it being linked to his real-world identity.
But he did share a few specifics on his "secret identity:" He's a 29-year-old living in Midland, Mich., and is currently unemployed — or "taking a break," as he said in our instant message interview. But he does maintain a rarely updated blog, called Enlight Me.
His history on the social medium dates back to July 2007, and he now spends four to five hours a day periodically reading, submitting and commenting on stories. "I just love to browse Reddit. It is addictive," he said in our instant message conversation.
Since getting started, he has accumulated more than 183,000 "karma" points, a system which counts the total number of positive votes (called "up-mods") for a link submission minus the number of negatives ("down-mods"). He also has more than 15,000 comment karma.
Because of his dominance, he has to adjust his actions so as not to overly sway voting.
qgyh2: one little confession I must make.. I do not downmod anything. (comments or posts)
I do upmod comments and posts I like
LA Times: Why is that?
qgyh2: well I'm on reddit quite a bit.. so if I downmod things it would probably be unfair to others..
Qgyh2 says he chose Reddit over other social news websites, like Digg, because its users are not swayed by a select few power users — perhaps not the most convincing argument, coming from the preeminent Reddit user.
qgyh2: users are mostly equal here.. I can't say digg is run by power users but they definitely do have an advantage
for a story to get to the front page of digg, it needs 250+ votes approx -
due to the huge amount of stories submitted, people need to have at least 200 friends who (plus around 50 random upvotes)
reddit on the other hand doesnt use friends so much
so, anyone can submit something and people will vote it up if its good
Despite his preference for Digg's competitor, Reddit's top user considers Digg's top guy, MrBabyMan, a friend. Qgyh2 also keeps in touch with a few other top Diggers and one Reddit user, noname99 — "a teenager and an awesome redditor," qgyh2 wrote.
A mutual relationship of sharing stories exists between the two social news sites' users, qgyh2 said in an instant message. "I occasionally grab some of the stuff mrbabyman submits to digg. as he seems to just know what people would be interested in," he wrote.
For now, Reddit's top submitter plans to continue posting on his favorite topics, like health, human rights, funny images and offbeat news. Qgyh2 first created the offbeat section — a topic page on the site built by a user is called a "subreddit" — and he is interested in utilizing a new feature added to the site Tuesday that provides customization to those pages, like redesigning the layout or changing the Web address.
"I've already made some funny logos.. gonna try a custom domain too sometime," qgyh2 wrote in an e-mail. "hope it will give birth to some fun new reddits."
Reddit user pudquick has an idea for one.
"Quick, start the 'qgyh2' subreddit, qgyh2," he wrote on the site's comments. "You know we love you."
-- Mark Milian
