[PSA] meta is not what most of this community thinks it is
Writing this once so it can be linked instead of retyped: meta is not what most of this community thinks it is.
Funding and links, in full, because the question deserves a straight answer.
Sponsor units are labelled as sponsored. Each vendor source page carries one outbound link to that supplier’s own storefront, marked nofollow and sponsored, so you can read their account of themselves against the record on the page. Nothing is received for those links, no supplier pays for a directory position, and no rating is for sale.
No referral or affiliate links are permitted anywhere on the site, from anybody, including in the pricing threads where the temptation is highest. That rule is the reason those threads are worth reading, and it is enforced without exception. The full version of all of this is on the about page and it is deliberately boring.
The ranking functions are published: the hot ordering combines score magnitude with age, and the controversial ordering weights total volume by the balance between up and down votes. Both are reproducible from the numbers on each submission.
Feed position is a function of early votes and time. That structurally favours agreeable early answers over correct late ones, which is why sorting by controversial occasionally is worth the effort.
Research-use-only material is not approved for human use and nothing here should be read as a recommendation to use it.
best — the order this archive was captured in
The evidence standard on the vendor boards requires a document, a date or a named service behind any claim about a supplier. It is what makes those threads worth reading years later.
The evidence standard on the vendor boards requires a document, a date or a named service behind any claim about a supplier.
Disagreeing with this bit: making individual cases public by default is worse for the person being moderated.
Have you taken this to modmail first?
Small fix — archiving happens at a year, not at six months. It is in the published policy.
What is the concrete wording you would replace it with?
[deleted]
no referral links, no affiliate links, not once
Argued against the strict evidence rule for a year. Then read a supplier thread on another site and stopped arguing.
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