Talk.lol is similar to Reddit and has an active community:
https://www.talk.lol/
I am not sure, but I think it uses the code here:
https://github.com/voat/voat
But I think the strongest way forward would be to help with the coding of Plebbit, if you have the skills. Plebbit is Free Software designed to provide the same experience as Reddit but without the centralization / censorship. It is a distributed platform. The maintainer is Esteban Abaroa.
The project uses cool IPFS (Inter Planetary File System) and ENS (Ethereum Name System) technology, if you are interested in that. There is a token too, Plebbit. One thing you might encounter early on is Plebbit's use of CAPTCHAs. These are chosen by the Sub's moderator and help protect the system from vandalism. The chat on the Telegram is mostly from people interested in the token. If you try posting, check that the node/Sub/community is online by seeing if the light is green or red. Probably best to stick with /p/test sub/ or /p/pol/ if you just want to try. There is a client you can try and download too.
https://github.com/plebbit
https://plebbitapp.eth.limo/#/