---
title: "Appendix A: Terminology"
description: "“Subreddits” are roughly equivalent to forums on message boards and are based around a subject (such as /r/politics) or the process used to discuss a variety of subjects (such as /r/AskAnAmerican or /r/explainlikeimfive). Users visiting a subreddit see a list of submissions. Any user can create a subreddit, and the creator assigns users to “moderate” […]"
date: "2016-02-25"
authors:
  - name: "Michael Barthel"
    job_title: "Former Senior Researcher"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/michael-barthel/"
  - name: "Galen Stocking"
    job_title: "Associate Director, Research"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/galen-stocking/"
  - name: "Jesse Holcomb"
    job_title: "Former Associate Director"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/jesse-holcomb/"
  - name: "Amy Mitchell"
    job_title: "Former Director, Journalism Research"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/amy-mitchell/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2016/02/25/terminology/"
categories:
  - "Digital News Landscape"
  - "Election 2016"
  - "Election News"
  - "Election News"
  - "News Content Analysis"
  - "News Coverage"
  - "News Platforms & Sources"
  - "Social Media"
  - "Social Media & the News"
---

# Appendix A: Terminology

[]**“Subreddits”** are roughly equivalent to forums on message boards and are based around a subject (such as [/r/politics](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics)) or the process used to discuss a variety of subjects (such as [/r/AskAnAmerican](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican) or [/r/explainlikeimfive](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive)). Users visiting a subreddit see a list of submissions. Any user can create a subreddit, and the creator assigns users to “moderate” the subreddit; these users can delete content, ban users and set subreddit rules.[]

**“Submissions” or “Posts”** are items submitted by users, roughly equivalent to a “post” on a blog. Submissions are made to a specific subreddit (e.g., a submission to /r/politics about voting results in South Carolina). They can be original content (e.g., a user’s thoughts on one candidate’s health care proposals), links to outside content (e.g., a link to a news story about one candidate’s fortunes or a video of a candidate’s speech) or a combination of the two. (In this report, the term “post” is generally used in reference to submissions.)[]

**“Comments”** are responses, reactions, additions or questions left by Reddit users to a post and/or to other comments.[]

**“Discussion threads”** are all the comments left in response to a single post and/or to other comments under that post.[]

**“Authors”** are Reddit users who submit a comment or a post.[]

**“Upvoting” and “Downvoting”** are ways for users to indicate their opinion of a post or comment they’ve read. Users can “vote” on a comment (or post) by clicking an up arrow (to “upvote”) or down arrow (to “downvote”). When there are more downvotes than upvotes, a comment is said to be “downvoted” and, depending on a user’s settings, may not be visible in the discussion.

For more information, please consult [Reddit’s FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq).

---

**Next:** [Appendix B: Detailed tables](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2016/02/25/reddit-detailed-tables.md)