Is it possible to revive a dead/old subreddit?

[u/sheriff_100]

I'm currently trying to revive a subreddit that i joined a while ago as a moderator but it became dead is it worth reviving it?

[u/Chtorrr]

It's possible but sometimes can take a bit of time to get going again. I got r/FreeEBOOKS in r/redditrequest 11 years ago - I had to post stuff in there myself for a good while to keep it rolling.

[u/sheriff_100 → u/Chtorrr]

Thanks

[u/Digging-in-the-Dank]

It is possible, but persuading people to add stuff may be difficult.

[u/sheriff_100 → u/Digging-in-the-Dank]

Thanks

[u/SprintsAC]

It's possible. It's worth looking up tips & essentially following the strategy a new subreddit would.

[u/sheriff_100 → u/SprintsAC]

Thanks

[u/SprintsAC → u/sheriff_100]

Happy to do it! My team's got a few subreddits we're revitalising.

Utilise crossposts (where possible) & invites may be useful also. 😊

[u/new2bay → u/SprintsAC]

Careful with invites. You can get dinged for spamming.

Yes, I just said you can get banned for using a tool provided by Reddit for its intended purpose. There are instances documented on this sub, if you search for them.

[u/Rasikko]

Mine was "dead" because the original mods up and left for an unknown reason and set the sub to private(basically no one could comment or post) so I requested it, got the sub, and people came back. It's not gonna be that easy depending on the content the sub covers though.

[u/Unique-Public-8594]

We grew a dead sub (277 members, 2 posts a year) to now 80k and ~20 posts a day. It can be done. Did it in less than 2 years.  (Crazy of me to invest so much of my time…)

It took extraordinary dedication and great co-mods.

[u/TheOpusCroakus → u/Unique-Public-8594]

Learning this does not surprise me. =)

[u/Unique-Public-8594 → u/TheOpusCroakus]

:D

[u/sheriff_100 → u/Unique-Public-8594]

Thanks

[u/Tarnisher]

I keep trying to try.

[u/sheriff_100 → u/Tarnisher]

Thanks

[u/laeiryn]

Yes but it takes a lot of hard work AND a truly compelling topic that people are going to organically seek out on their own

[u/Tchelows]

This will not be easy, but not impossible. Taking back a dead subreddit requires a available time to rebuild, remake, preserve what is good and if possible after finish the frontpage of the sub, asking for partnership promoting at others related or closely related subs. That's what I'm making with a sub i've got. Requires time and perseverance, but you can get it.

REMEMBER: Use all the sub features wisely.

[u/iKR8]

We took a 12 year old dead sub with 10 members in Sep 2020, turned it around and now it's sitting at 1.4m members and one of most active subs of our region.

[u/sheriff_100 → u/iKR8]

Hey wow do you have any tips?

[u/iKR8 → u/sheriff_100]

Being consistent worked, and sticking to the rules without deviating did slowly build up the credibility.

You can see our journey here.

[u/SlowedCash]

no chance. Especially if the subreddit is on a topic that's dead in the water.

[u/sheriff_100 → u/SlowedCash]

Can you give an example of "dead in the water"

[u/SlowedCash → u/sheriff_100]

well I run a careers subreddit for a gig application.

If the company fold, or shut the programme, all of us will have no reason to stay on the subreddit any further.

It will also be impossible to revive due to the subreddit topic not existing.

You'll probably be fine. Id like to know what other moderators did to revive a sub and what the topic was