From Mic Drop to Positive Pineapple, the newest addition to Reddit Coins is as varied as the communities on the forum-based social media platform itself. Announced on July 24, Reddit Community Awards are custom awards within each community that help recognize top comments and posts.
Expanding on the Reddit Silver, Gold, and Platinum Awards, the Community Awards highlight posts to put them in front of more users. But unlike Reddit’s existing rewards program, the Community Awards are exclusive to each community. In the r/DunderMiffin subreddit dedicated to The Office, for example, the “Classic” Award is indicated by a stapler in jello, an infamous practical joke from the popular TV series.
Community moderators create the awards that are exclusive to each community, including how many coins they require. Along with promoting a particular post, the awards also give some of those coins to the community. Moderators are also welcome to ask the community to offer thoughts on the awards before finalizing them.
The new awards follow a similar process to the existing awards, which require users to buy coins or subscribe to Reddit Premium in order to build up a coin stash to give out the awards. The custom community awards — if the community has created any — show up underneath the Reddit awards after clicking on the “give award” option. Users have the option to make the award anonymous and to add a message. Communities can create up to six custom awards, ranging in price from 500 to 40,000 coins.
Reddit says the new Community Awards allow for a wider range of expression than the original Silver, Gold and Platinum awards, encouraging awards that are created based on the inside jokes or culture of that particular community. The new feature is the result of months of testing, the company says, as well as feedback from early access communities.
The Community Awards are rolling out to some communities beginning July 24, and will come to other eligible communities over the next few weeks. Some of the communities that tested the feature and are already rolling out the new awards include r/Wellthatsucks, r/worldpolitics, r/tooafraidtoask, r/murderedbywords, r/amitheasshole, and r/casualconversation.
