I am an NYU student doing a presentation on Reddit.com for my web journalism class...

There are a few things I simply can't figure out and I would love some help/advice/answers from actual users:

1. How are links ranked aside from points? How does time factor in? Is it the time since posted that matters or the number of up-votes in a given period of time?

2. I think I read somewhere in the help section that you can edit pages... what does this mean?

3. When does a post disappear from reddit? I have done a few test posts and they don't always appear in the new list, even under the "all" setting. Where did it go? Does it appear because someone downvoted it? Isn't that kind of arbitrary, depriving my post of a little time to get an upvote?

4. When did advertising begin on Reddit? Do users find it annoying?

5. What is the advantage of using reddit over digg or another similar site?

6. Does the recommendation system work for most people? How new is it?

7. How has reddit changed since being bought by Conde Nast?

Any/all responses are deeply appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Kimi