[Meta] the moderation rule is doing its job and people should stop complaining
the moderation rule is doing its job and people should stop complaining. Nothing about this affects the ranking maths, before anyone asks.
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.
Checked the sponsor disclosure because I assumed it would be vague. It was extremely specific and slightly boring.
How a rule actually changes here, since people assume it is arbitrary.
Somebody posts a proposal with replacement wording — not a complaint, actual text. It gets argued about, usually for a week or two. If it survives, it goes in with whatever amendments came out of the argument, and the change is announced with the reasoning attached.
The reason wording is required is that it is the only thing that can be evaluated. "The vendor evidence rules are too strict" cannot be adopted, rejected or amended. A proposed sentence can. Several rules on this site started as a comment in a thread like this one, which is the strongest argument for the process.
Tell me where this is wrong. That is the useful part of posting 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.
Adopted with an amendment, announced with the reasoning. Thank you for writing actual text.
Complained about a rule without proposing anything and was politely pointed at this page. Fair.
Same view — strict evidence rules make this board slower and make the archive worth reading in three years.
Argued against the strict evidence rule for a year. Then read a supplier thread on another site and stopped arguing.
I would not archive earlier. The old threads are the most-searched thing on the site.
Agreed. Publishing the ranking formula is the difference between a feed and a black box, and it costs nothing to do.
the wiki is editable by anybody with standing on the site
evidence rules are strict here on purpose
the disclosure is boring because it has to be
Moderation of individual cases happens in modmail rather than in threads, because a public discussion of one person’s removal is worse for that person than a private one.
sponsor disclosure is on the about page in full
rule-change proposals need a concrete wording, not a complaint
Right, and the storefront links on source pages are marked and disclosed, which is the honest way to do it.
Is this about a policy or about an individual removal?
Correcting my own comment above: the proposal was adopted with an amendment, not as written.
no referral links, no affiliate links, not once
ranked feeds mean the top comment is not the best answer
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.
- 1The evidence standard on the vendor boards requires a document, a date or a…9 comments in this branch · started by u/enzo_fonseca
- 2Moderation of individual cases happens in modmail rather than in threads,…7 comments in this branch · started by u/copay_card_cc