Reddit’s new site does away with all user comments

The often poisonous population of Reddit has led to the site’s owners launching a new portal that eradicates its central principle – user comments.

Wired reports that Reddit will tomorrow launch Upvoted. It will still source its content from Reddit, and thus will offer a mix of what many of us have become accustomed to – videos, headlines, GIFs, infographics and the like.

The content will be curated by a small team led by former Myspace editorial director Vickie Chang.

Between 10-20 stories per day will be shared at launch, with a view to increasing this to around 40 in the future. Said Chang: Everything will have a direct tie back to Reddit. I want to find the tiny thread that connects it back to Reddit.”

However, it will not offer readers the ability to comment, nor – despite the name – the ability to upvote. There will be an r/upvote thread on Reddit, however, where commentators can knock themselves out.

Upvoted will also be used to test out new ad revenue models, and as a result will not serve traditional banner ads or pop-ups. Sponsored content has been confirmed, and it will be written by the same team that produces the curated editorial too. Chang promises that such content is going to be just as interesting as actual content” that will just happen to be sponsored”.

Historically Reddit’s founders have seemed quite comfortable with the hate speech that can be found on so many of its threads. However, recent bad publicity and the departure of key female executives is understood to have hit its advertising revenues, prompting the company into action.