Subreddit communities. Particularly the small to mid-size ones. I honestly think knowing how to use subreddits as a resource is essential to being a functional user of the Internet. It's a crowd-curated feed of all things relevant to any particular topic, presented in a way that is consistent and meaningful.

For example, I'm debating between Android and iPhone for my next upgrade. I really only want to use iOS if it's jailbroken. So what's the latest jailbreak news? There are probably some forums or tech blog primers that could give me the answers I need, but the easiest way to get that info, is to go to r/jailbreak. Chances are, the sidebar will have everything I need.

You want to get your dad a nice shaving kit for father's day? r/wicked_edge. Interested in owning a noisy keyboard? r/mechanicalkeyboards. Why doesn't the guy next to you wash his jeans? r/rawdenim. Just experience your first panic attack? r/anxiety. What are the essential hip-hop albums I should listen to? r/hiphopheads. Classical? r/classicalmusic. Jazz? You guessed it, r/jazz.

There are thousands of medium-sized subreddits that cater specifically to one thing, and the content of those subreddits has all been curated, critiqued, and discussed by an organic, self-motivated user base. I may only be interested in the subject-matter for a short time and narrow purpose, but the community of that subreddit is interested in that subject-matter all the time, and they've done all the leg-work for me. I know the information I get will have undergone more review and rigor than almost any other source on the Internet. As a bonus, the organization of that information is always presented in the same familiar way, so I don't have to learn a new UI or workflow.

And that's just for using subreddits as one-time information repositories. You've also got the power of reddit as a newsfeed. Again, I can follow a subreddit for daily updates on whatever topic I want. This is so incredibly advantageous to those following sports, TV shows, or news events. ESPN is fine if I want general sports news, but what if I only want news about my local NFL team (the Seahawks)? I could follow a Seahawks blog, but then that's just a few people generating content. Instead, I can go to r/seahawks. There I've got all the content distilled, updated, and sorted for me: blogs, Twitter posts, articles from beat journalists, plus all the user discussion in response to this content.

The thing is though, for every topic I know anything about, the corresponding reddit communities are OK but certainly not the most authoritative place go to ask questions or read the latest news. The most knowledgeable communities still tend to be based around traditional phbBB bulletin boards or other types of conventionally structured forums.

I use reddit a lot for asking questions because it's a really low-friction way to find a community that knows quite a bit about a certain topic. But once you really start researching a topic thoroughly, reddit's structure and voting system doesn't seem well suited for most discussions, and as a result the communities that form always seem to have a certain casual quality to me.

I think reddit offers tremendous value, but more because of the potential for easy discovery of new communities and the potential for community cross-pollination that results.

I think you are right in terms of forum-based communities having more in-depth discussions due to the way that in a forum, new replies bring threads back to the front page, whereas on reddit, after a few days, no one is posting on old threads. For this reason, I think reddit really shines for communities where there is time sensitive discussion around news and for getting a perspective on the latest happenings. So it really just depends on the topic area...

Are you creating new threads asking questions in those niche subs or are you using the search function for old threads?

Neither really. If I do either it's very rare (and if I'm searching I'm probably using Google). Most of the time the information I need can be found quickly through the sidebar.

> I go on reddit every once in a while to read a few silly posts

I don't find reddit "silly" in the slightest, but it probably depends on the sub-reedits you follow. I'm following arduino, raspberry_pi, python, R, Prolog, MachineLearning, Clojure, board gaming, gamedesign ... you get the picture. I find the information posted to be extremely useful and illuminating, but it depends on the sub-reedits you follow.

As an aside, I also follow /r/minecraft and my kids love to look at minecraft screenshots and imagine the things we could do in-game. This is probably my most invaluable use of reddit, identifying and commuting with my children :)

I don't use Reddit because I'm scared of adding another potential timesink. However some of those subreddits might interest me.

Can you compare the board gaming one to say BGG? What's the Prolog one like in general? I have an AI background and use Prolog (less so these days) and wouldn't mind a "what's happening these days" kind of subreddit.

Maybe I should give Reddit a try. In the past I've mostly used irc and specialty forums.

The Prolog subreddit is really not very active, but for someone just learning it (like me) it's worth checking in once in awhile. And the boardgaming subreddit is not quite as useful as BGG, but it's also worth checking out once in awhile. There are some subreddits that are much more active (like /r/machinelearning) that I checkout daily. It depends on the subject of course ;)

As some of the others have said, it's important to note that I select subreddits well.

Reddit is a vital product in two main ways:

- Information on topics that interest me (e.g. fitness, startups - I use it like hacker news, or twitter)

- Information on problems (I treat reddit like the "stack overflow, for life". I often google "xyz reddit", because I seek a reddit page of answers, where I know the users are more similar to me than many other sites, and also where I can see which answers have the most votes. For example - "replacement desert boots laces reddit" Or, "best comedy movies reddit". Both recent google searches of mine)

I follow a bunch of niche interest groups, such as r/nycbike which keep me up to date on major news that may affect my daily commute. Just from that subreddit, I've learned a few better routes to bike, been warned when the police are changing tactics, gotten some tips on winter biking in the city, and kept up to date on the latest injury and accident statistics.

It's the new message board for many people. You can go join subreddits for any hobby you can think of. You can use subreddits to research new interests and meet others that share your interests. Once you get off the front page, there is a lot of great content.

Not op but I had potential legal problems with an health insurance company so I described the situation on a legal subreddit and was told to research ERISA lawyers. I would have never found this important advice buy just googling.

Also was given good advice on determining nosing notes (what I was smelling) for a bottle of The Macallan scotch.