Last month i battled Reddit toxicity and won BIG.
I was posting an article as usual, when the first comments started rolling in.
“Random schmuck advertising their substack. One comment in 10 minutes, but six upvotes. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”
I was deeply hurt being called a random schmuck by a random someone. And the post was getting downvoted at an alarming rate. Someone even started a debate on the legitimacy of self-promotion with proponents on both sides arguing. I had to cook something up.
I politely explained how i was not a random someone and illustrated how i help the Python community IN REAL LIFE.
This turned the tide, burying the comment, with up-votes returning again.
They were still some salty comments like “Yeah so they do a lot of pretty standard stuff, in other words” and “Could’ve just written “be a professional”“, but by that time the post was doing great and i was tackling comments with thoughtful replies.
Sometimes some comments of mine did get down-voted for no reason at all, but i did not care.
People did not mind it was me ‘advertising’ my post as the content seemed to be good.
The post got me the Top 1% poster badge on a top 1% subreddit.
So, yes, content is king, even on Reddit.