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I don't think you can purposely replace an existing social media site like Reddit. Barring the problems of this probably being considered an 'extremist' site in the eyes of a lot people, the networking effects of something like Reddit are just too hard to overcome. I think what you can do is make this its own place that evolves over time to fill its own niche -- namely a place with strong moderation rules and wide allowance of acceptable topics.
The trouble as we've all known since back on the CWT on the SSC sub is that this type of forum attracts those who desire open discussion but can't have the discussions they want on any mainstream site. Those who want to engage in that discussion from the other end of the political spectrum might find it enjoyable to engage, but they'll almost always be overrun because they have lots of other places they can go talk, but the smart righties don't have those options so they stick around longer. You probably end up with lots of people like me who fall into the center-left (in the old definition) neoliberal types that don't comment, and instead just read because we like the variety of opinions that we normally don't see, but we also don't want to get into genteel fights with angry extremists.
I think it could theoretically be possible to broaden this space. I don't really post in CW threads but I might post in other threads. The problem is that the people who are here are here because of the culture war stuff. There are other dedicated spaces to talk about gardening that are full of knowledgeable people. The only real reason to talk about a topic like that here is because you've come to know the others on the forum and it brings more personality and history to the discussion. What you need is some reason for an outsider to come and join in a non-CW thread, but that doesn't really exist at the moment.
Of course it's easier to critique than to build solutions. I don't know what the solution would be. Is there some CW tangential topic that this community has an advantage in talking about that would provide value to an outsider? That's where I would start.
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