One of the subreddit's moderators, u/PHealthy, took some time out of their day to tell Bored Panda about the latest r/DataIsBeautiful news. "Obviously, these days COVID is a very popular topic, and [our posts] frequently make r/all but really anything topical/trending tends to do well," they explained.

"So for instance, a Nobel prize or school shooting post would probably do well. But a soundly made novel DataViz always tends to do well, e.g. Tyler's recent post. But meta posts can do very well, too. So really it's all about balancing DataViz presentation with the topic being relatable, all the better if it's Reddit-related."

Let's pause and think for a moment. 16 million people is a huge audience. (And I'm not even talking about making it to Reddit's front page). One that many publishers would be proud of. Reaching such a number with just organic growth is proof that people really value r/DataIsBeautiful.

As my colleague Jonas pointed out in his text, the moderator team is purposefully left as a small group of professionals who focus on data visualization at some part of their lives.

Plus, the subreddit treats its original content creators as "first-class citizens," constantly engaging them and making sure they're credited and acknowledged for their work. As always, we provide a link to each post that we feature as well (you can find it under the pictures), so if you're interested in some particular visualization, follow it to its roots — there's usually an interesting discussion in the comments, too.

"We bring a data-centric view of the world to millions of people every day—from important information about the COVID-19 pandemic all the way to a random dude's daily bowel movements—and our community prides itself in that fact. For example, we had community members posting analyses and projections of COVID-19 trends back in January and February 2020—well before anyone in the U.S. was taking the pandemic seriously. r/DataIsBeautiful is THE place to go when you want to see the signal through the noise of hectic daily life,” one of the moderators explained in the earlier Bored Panda piece.

Even with so many members, u/PHealthy believes that r/DataIsBeautiful retains a certain character, "unique to this corner of Reddit in regards to churning out decent DataViz posts. Of course, the creators take center stage with their amazing original content but (not to pat my own back) fairly strict moderation is a big part of keeping the community unique and also keeps the sub from turning into just another garbage re-posting karma farm like a lot of subs on Reddit."

The human brain processes visual information better than it processes text — so the charts, graphs, and other elements found on r/DataIsBeautiful can be very powerful — you understand exactly what they're telling you. Something tells me this isn't the last time we'll feature this awesome subreddit.