r/politics vs r/PoliticalDiscussion

Side-by-side using public descriptions, members, growth and rule titles from SubMouse. Missing fields show as n/a. Adult communities are excluded.

Swap sides New comparison Related to r/politics Related to r/PoliticalDiscussion

Politics news room vs political discussion room

r/politics is a large political news and commentary community. r/PoliticalDiscussion emphasizes political discussion quality.

In our directory, politics is larger (about 9.3M, rank #84) than PoliticalDiscussion (about 2.2M, rank #502). Activity samples show politics posting more often (~292 posts/day vs ~28). politics’s sample is mix of link; PoliticalDiscussion’s is mostly text. politics flairs include No Paywall, Possible Paywall, Non-approved domain, Karma gated submission, New User Restricted Domains List; PoliticalDiscussion shows US Elections, US Politics, Political Theory, International Politics, Non-US Politics.

Rule titles: politics: General: No hateful speech; General: No novelty accounts or bots; General: No spam or solicitation; Comments: No incivility or personal attacks towards users; Comments: No flaming, baiting, or trolling; Comments: No witch hunts or personal information; Comments: Follow AMA specific rules; Posts: Submissions must be explicitly about US politics. PoliticalDiscussion: Keep it Civil.; Meta; Low investment; Submissions should be an impartial discussion prompt + questions.; Provide some background and context. Offer substantive avenues for discussion.; Everything in the post should be directly related to a political issue.; Formatting and housekeeping things:.

Choose r/politics for high-volume political news under its submission rules.
Choose r/PoliticalDiscussion for slower deliberative threads under its civility-focused rules.
politics is much larger and sits in the Top 100 cut.

Written comparison based on public descriptions and rule titles · updated 2026-11-07.

r/politics

Politics

/r/Politics is for news and discussion about U.S. politics.

Members: 9.3M
7-day growth: +5.1K
Posts/day: 291.6
Directory rank: #84
Created: Aug 6, 2007
Submissions: Link posts

Sample mix: links 93%, videos 4%, text posts 3%

Topics: Politics

Rule titles (short names we collected)

General: No hateful speech
General: No novelty accounts or bots
General: No spam or solicitation
Comments: No incivility or personal attacks towards users
Comments: No flaming, baiting, or trolling
Comments: No witch hunts or personal information
Comments: Follow AMA specific rules
Posts: Submissions must be explicitly about US politics
Posts: Submissions must be published within the last 7 days
Posts: Submissions must be from the Approved Domain List
Posts: Titles must be the exact headline from the article.
Posts: Do not flood the new queue

Open r/politics on SubMouse

r/PoliticalDiscussion

Political Discussion

This is a subreddit for substantive and civil discussion on political topics. If you have a political prompt for discussion, ask it here!

Members: 2.2M
7-day growth: +367
Posts/day: 27.5
Directory rank: #502
Created: Apr 14, 2011
Submissions: Text posts

Sample mix: text posts 100%

Topics: Politics

Rule titles (short names we collected)

Keep it Civil.
Meta
Low investment
Submissions should be an impartial discussion prompt + questions.
Provide some background and context. Offer substantive avenues for discussion.
Everything in the post should be directly related to a political issue.
Formatting and housekeeping things:

Open r/PoliticalDiscussion on SubMouse

Supported differences

Aspect	r/politics	r/PoliticalDiscussion
Public focus (from each community’s public description)	/r/Politics is for news and discussion about U.S. politics.	This is a subreddit for substantive and civil discussion on political topics. If you have a political prompt for discussion, ask it here!
Size r/politics is larger in our directory (about 4.2×).	9.3M members	2.2M members
Posting activity (our sample)	291.6/day	27.5/day
Common post types in our sample	links 93%, videos 4%, text posts 3%	text posts 100%
Allowed submission type (meta)	Link posts	Text posts
Selected rule titles (short names we collected)	General: No hateful speech; General: No novelty accounts or bots; General: No spam or solicitation; Comments: No incivility or personal attacks towards users; Comments: No flaming, baiting, or trolling	Keep it Civil.; Meta; Low investment; Submissions should be an impartial discussion prompt + questions.; Provide some background and context. Offer substantive avenues for discussion.

What they share

Shared SubMouse topics: Politics

Rules and posting patterns we can verify

politics short titles include: General: No hateful speech; General: No novelty accounts or bots; General: No spam or solicitation; Comments: No incivility or personal attacks towards users; Comments: No flaming, baiting, or trolling; Comments: No witch hunts or personal information; Comments: Follow AMA specific rules; Posts: Submissions must be explicitly about US politics.

PoliticalDiscussion: Keep it Civil.; Meta; Low investment; Submissions should be an impartial discussion prompt + questions.; Provide some background and context. Offer substantive avenues for discussion.; Everything in the post should be directly related to a political issue.; Formatting and housekeeping things:.

Where this comparison comes from

Public descriptions and member counts from SubMouse’s safe-for-work directory. Short rule titles and activity samples SubMouse collected. Short titles only.

Members and public descriptions come from SubMouse's safe-for-work directory (as of 2026-11-02 UTC); 7-day growth measured from 2026-10-26. Posts/day and post-type mixes appear when we have an activity sample. Rule lines are short titles, not the full sidebar. Directory rank is listing order — communities outside the current Top 100 open in the info tool instead of a full community page.