We may be able to use this paper to help us develop strategies to better execute our ongoing expansion to Reddit with the recent opening of /r/bluelight.
For sure you could!!
“On Bluelight, the only reason to register an account is to participate in illicit drugs discussion. On reddit however, people register accounts to follow a broad range of topics and may thus be exposed to illicit drugs content accidentally, e.g. via the front page or a ‘cross-post’ from another subreddit. Reddit has also implemented a number of platform features which makes it easy and convenient to participate passively (‘lurking’), e.g. the option to subscribe to a subreddit to receive content updates and the voting system which is a type of participation that does not require any substantial contribution or effort. These and other factors may attract a higher number of participants to illicit drug discussions, but are also likely to also result in a higher prevalence of casual participation – i.e. participating in fewer discussion, posting fewer comments and being active for shorter periods of time – than on a platform like Bluelight. This means that the illicit drugs discussions on reddit has the potential to impact a greater number of people, but it also means that notion of community on reddit is likely be more diffuse as the participants do not necessarily “share a concern or passion” (Wenger, 2004, p. 4) or have an “intrinsic desire to communicate” (Eysenbach et al., 2004, p. 3) to the same degree. The great numbers of users in some illicit drugs subreddits may also contribute to this diffusion or dilution of the community notion.
Bluelight explicitly promotes an agenda of harm reduction and drug education, which is likely to be reflected in the discussions on the Bluelight forums. On reddit there is no such site-wide agenda, as subreddits are fully autonomous. Thus, a higher degree of variation can be expected with respect to the norms and values, and consequently practices, characterising individual subreddits (Massanari, 2016).”
Just to add this in regards to community which I feel is important for harm reduction.
“The community is “the group of people for whom the domain is relevant, the quality of the relationships among members, and the definition of the boundary between the inside and the outside” (Wenger, 2004, p. 3). This encompasses not only the individual members, but also the structure of their social interactions and relationships. The community dimension is what situates the development of knowledges and practices within a social environment, as the community members participate in sustained, mutual engagement with the domain and “develop a shared understanding of their domain and an approach to their practice” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 34-35). The literature stresses the importance of a high level of regular and continuous mutual engagement for the development of community bonds (Murillo, 2008; Wenger, 1998). In a successful community of practice, these community bonds are characterised by voluntary participation, reciprocity, community-wide participation and trust (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 36-37). With this type of community structure, all members can contribute equally to the fluid development and dissemination of practices, although there may be a group of ‘core’ members who are foundational in defining the activities of the community and bringing the remaining users together (Murillo, 2008).”