Reddit brings back its old award system — ‘we messed up’

Reddit is re-introducing a revised version of the awards system it phased out last year after acknowledging the golden upvote system had “missed the mark.”

“We tried something new, it wasn’t great (you called it),” Reddit said in its announcement post on Wednesday. “So we’re (re)launching awards, not-so-new but definitely improved. Rollout starts today on reddit.com and Reddit’s iOS and Android apps.”

Most of the previous award system mechanisms will remain the same, according to Reddit, with a few tweaks — such as an award button placed under eligible posts, an updated UI to minimize clutter, and an awards leaderboard that displays the top gold and awards earned for a comment or post. New safety features have been introduced to keep awards off sensitive or NSFW subreddits, and allow users to report when awards are being misused. The platform has also created new awards and updated some of the old award designs.

And then there’s coins — the tokens Reddit users previously needed to purchase with real money to buy awards. Reddit acknowledges it “did not adequately communicate” to users why coins were being phased out. As such, the platform is compensating users who had their coin balance removed with a “number of exclusive awards” that they can give out for free.

Notably, coins aren’t technically returning. Instead, users will now need to purchase gold, which starts at $1.79 (or $1.99 via mobile) for 100 gold, and was introduced as part of Reddit’s Contributor Program to award other users with “golden upvotes.” Reddit said the golden upvote “wasn’t as fun or expressive as legacy awards,” and will sunset the system now that the old awards program is back, though eligible creators can still use gold to earn money via its Contributor Program. 

Unlike golden upvotes, Reddit says its Contributor Program has attracted plenty of interest and is now being expanded to cover 35 countries. The company acknowledged user concerns about the potential for the program to be abused for spam, fraud, and karma farming, but says it hasn’t seen an increase in such behavior since the system was introduced six months ago.

Reddit’s apologetic attempt to placate its users may have only created further tension. Some commenters on the announcement post have expressed confusion about how the revamped awards program functions, and many are displeased that some of its most beloved features — like the ability to “gild” posts by donating a Reddit Premium subscription — are not returning.