Top Commenters
See who writes the most-upvoted comments in your subreddit.
Top Commenters gives every subreddit a live leaderboard of its most helpful contributors — the people writing the comments your community upvotes most. Install it once and a weekly + all-time ranking appears automatically, updating every 5 minutes as votes come in.
What it does
- Tracks comment karma earned in your subreddit. Every new comment is registered when posted; its score is re-checked automatically as it ages, and the contribution flows into the author's leaderboard total.
- Shows a Top Contributors post in the sub. A single custom post (created by the app) displays the top 10 users for "this week" and "all time" with a drill-down of each user's most-upvoted comments.
- Auto-posts a weekly recap. Every Sunday at 00:00 UTC, the app posts a sticky-worthy summary of the previous week's top commenters.
- Respects user deletions. Deleted posts, deleted comments, and deleted accounts are scrubbed from the app's data in accordance with Reddit's developer policies.
How moderators use it
A fresh install auto-populates the leaderboard by scanning the sub's recent activity. After that, mods rarely need to touch it — but four menu items are available on the subreddit's three-dot menu:
| Menu item |
When to use |
| 🏆 Open leaderboard |
Everyday — opens the Top Contributors post |
| 🔄 Refresh scores now |
Skip the 5-minute cron and re-score tracked comments immediately |
| 🌱 Backfill from existing comments |
Scan recent hot posts for comments the tracker hasn't seen yet (safe to re-run) |
| ⚠️ Reset all leaderboard data |
Destructive — wipe everything and start over (optional auto-backfill in the form) |
Subreddit settings
All configurable per-install under the app's settings:
- Days to keep tracking a comment's score — default 7. Older comments are frozen and no longer re-fetched.
- Top N users shown on leaderboard — default 10.
- Max tracked comments kept per user — default 10. Caps drill-down depth and bounds storage.
How scores work
- When a comment is posted, its initial score (1, from the author's auto-upvote) is credited to the author's leaderboard total.
- Every 5 minutes, the tracker re-fetches each active comment and applies the score delta. Downvotes subtract; upvotes add.
- Each comment's score contribution is tracked in the user's drill-down so the "sum of top comments" always equals the user's leaderboard total.
- Refresh frequency decays as comments age (10 min → 30 min → 2h → 12h → 24h) to stay within API budgets while keeping fresh content current.
What it does not do
- No vote manipulation. The app does not cast votes or encourage users to vote in any particular direction. Leaderboards reflect your community's organic voting.
- No mass messaging. The app does not DM users or automate notifications.
- No mod actions. The app does not ban, remove, filter, or approve any content.
Privacy & data handling
Top Commenters stores a minimal amount of data per comment for ranking purposes: commenter username, post ID, a 200-character body snippet, the Reddit permalink, score history, and created-at timestamp. All user-content fields auto-expire after 30 days of inactivity. When Reddit fires a comment-delete, post-delete, or account-delete signal, the corresponding data is immediately scrubbed from the app's storage. A daily sweep catches any stragglers.
Support
Found a bug or want to request a feature? Message u/Lambda7Tech or open an issue in the app's repository.
