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Announcements Oct 17, 2015 at 5:32 PM

CEO Steve here to answer more questions.

Posted by spez

It's been a little while since we've done this. Since we last talked, we've released a handful of [improvements for moderators](https://www.listnook.com/r/modnews); released a few [updates to AlienBlue](https://www.listnook.com/user/alien-blue); continue to work on the bigger mod/community tools (updates next week, I believe); hired a bunch of people, including two new [community](https://www.listnook.com/user/redtaboo) [managers](https://www.listnook.com/user/sodypop); and continue to make progress on our new mobile apps. There is a lot going on around here. Our most pressing priority is hiring, particularly engineers. If you're an engineer of any shape or size, please considering joining us. Email jobs@listnook.com if you're interested! update: I'm outta here. Thanks for the questions!
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Plorp Oct 17, 2015 +2544
Is there any chance you guys are ever going to take a look at the [10% rule for self promotion](https://www.listnook.com/wiki/selfpromotion) and revise it a bit to make it more fair to creative people who legitimately have something to share to the listnook community? I ask because I know that rule is turning a lot of creative people away from listnook because recently any posts about what they're currently working on tend to get deleted. There's a difference between spamming 100 links to a blog nobody cares about full of ads, and say, an indie game developer who makes 1 game every couple of years and wants to tell people about it and answer questions, but doesnt necessarily want to have to post 10 advice animals in the mean time? This isn't my main account, its just the one I post on the most because I don't really want listnook posts on my other account showing up in google searches for my name. SO I just use the other one to talk about stuff I'm working on (not spam, one post once in a while and when they don't get deleted for self promotion they get upvoted a lot and people seem to enjoy them and I answer questions and participate in the discussions). Or I used to at least. It's been difficult lately. At least there seems to be quite a double standard where anyone SUPER FAMOUS AND POPULAR already gets a free pass for promoting their works on listnook (celebrity AMAs and people like JimKB), whereas all the little guys who can't afford massive marketing campaigns for their works get shunned away and basically told that listnook doesn't value their work. I'm [not the only one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv5UjfCZUzg) who thinks this. If you want specific complaints about the 10% rule its: - comments don't count - posts from many years ago before this rule was strict count against it - posts in sublistnooks that WANT original content and posts from creators (like /r/gamedev) count against you in all other sublistnooks - posts on alternate accounts don't count (I like keeping my "business" account separated since I don't want people to easily see like, my political opinions and stuff) - the rule just encourages people to either spam up advice animals, or lie about being the author ("my friend just made..."), or use sockpuppet accounts. All of these seem less valuable to me than letting authors be honest about it, and it makes listnook a worse place as a result. - A spambot or true spammer can get around a rule like "90% of posts must not be self promotion" with bots and scripts and proxies and sockpuppets really easily, so this rule just ends up targeting honest creatives who are proud of what they made and want to share it with a site they visit every day.
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +2175
It just came up yesterday. We all agreed it was dumb. Stay tuned.
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honestbleeps Oct 17, 2015 +155
Thing is, there are creative people who absolutely "use" listnook mostly / solely to their benefit. Even if they're independents, it doesn't really seem fair when they could be buying inexpensive ads and supporting the site that way. Take, for example (sorry, I forget her name) the "hot girl who makes horror-themed desserts"... her participation on listnook is near-exclusively posting her own content via watermarked pictures, etc... she does participate in threads, which is cool, but it's basically all advertisements for her work (which have gotten her work, jobs, etc) that she participates in via comments... is that acceptable? Then there's regional sublistnooks where comedians, etc are posting their events *every single week* and barely post anything else on listnook... On one hand, I feel for them - I want them to be able to promote their stuff... on the other hand, the sub starts to look like one of those flyer boards / pillars on a college campus if you don't start to curb that stuff... it becomes every trivia night, comedy night, random bar event and every other event and not any actual substantive content... So, I hope your thoughts go deeper than "screw it, let 'em all self promote!" because I don't like that direction, either.
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kenman Oct 17, 2015 +40
> Take, for example (sorry, I forget her name) the "hot girl who makes horror-themed desserts"... her participation on listnook is near-exclusively posting her own content via watermarked pictures, etc... Are you referring to /u/ChristineHMcConnell? If so, her comment activity actually looks pretty close to a 50/50 split between her own submissions and other people's submissions. Anyways, she interacts a hell of a lot more than most of the IAMA guests, who often go overboard with promoting but hey, that's /r/IAMA, the rules are different there.
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ChristineHMcConnell Oct 18, 2015 +52
To be honest; The reason I post my work to listnook is I enjoy the opinions and comments. Sometimes I'll hear a criticism I needed or a compliment that makes my day. I don't think the majority of people who create art, are in it for the money.
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julesries Oct 18, 2015 +13
I was gonna respond to /u/honestbleeps but I might as well respond to you, since you're the source: I really enjoy what you do and wouldn't care if you used Listnook solely as a vehicle for distributing your work. The same goes for anyone trying to share their creativity. I want people to post it both for their sake and mine, because it might make my life better. This part isn't really directed at you, but in general: If other people don't think something that's been self-submitted is valuable, they can down vote it. The reason I prefer Listnook, Behance, and Dribble over, say, Instagram is because each has a rating system that's self-policing. It takes guts to venture creative work to begin with. Throttling people's submissions on top of it is stupid and harmful. As a side note, how do you find the time to be so good at so much stuff? Jeez.
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Ihmhi Oct 17, 2015 +20
Conversely, what about sublistnooks dedicated to a single person? Let's say a YouTuber posts special content just for his sublistnook by himself. Even though that's content *just for that community*, it would be against the 1:10 rules if he didn't post stuff that didn't involve him (which would be *really* difficult in this hypothetical situation since the *sublistnook is about him*.) Leave it up to the mods & community IMO, the rule is dumb.
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MargretTatchersParty Oct 18, 2015 +13
In that context and I believe that Honest would agree: Posting it in his own sublistnook related to that product would not be spam. It would be "relevant content."
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Plorp Oct 17, 2015 +56
Let people self promote, ban people who SPAM. There is a difference and it's usually pretty obvious from the tone of the post / if the author sticks around / past posts.
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atomic1fire Oct 17, 2015 +4
I'm okay with someone saying "This is a thing I made as part of my livelyhood and I'm sharing it with listnook." Part of posting to listnook is not just advertising but getting people to either love or hate your content, so as long as the person is being honest about what they're marketing, I don't see the big deal. AMA's are all about self promotion. Being on listnook is like exposing yourself to open waters. Sometimes you get dolphins and sometimes you get sharks. Ad money is great, but I think it shows more effort when they actually do care to get involved and take feedback. Ideally people trying to get their name out do both ads and post good content. Plus Listnookors have proven more then willing to buy gold on behalf of good contributions. I'm not sure but I think Snoop Dogg might have been gifted 1 or 2 years worth of listnook gold, based on all of the gilded comments he has.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +589
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +97
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jb2386 Oct 18, 2015 +6
This says to me your mods are understaffed and/or don't have a clear definition of racism (which can be hard). When big events happen, it can be hard to keep up, especially when the mob mentality gets going. I know when any of our posts hot r/all its all hands on deck and even then the tirade of abuse, spam, racism and trolling gets overwhelming.
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ZugNachPankow Oct 17, 2015 +28
Time to open an alternative sub, then.
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Gaget Oct 17, 2015 +7
Moderators already do this. We don't report photographers for spam in /r/EarthPorn and the rest of the SFWporn network as long as they're engaging with the community.
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Plorp Oct 17, 2015 +158
Thank you for this. It's getting harder and harder to get noticed as an independent creative and I'm glad you're looking into ways to make it easier.
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Ballllll Oct 17, 2015 +11
How do you think we can help strike the balance between promotion in good faith and spam? One issue I've seen pop up on subs like /r/fantasyfootball or /r/asoiaf is people making posts on Listnook that are simply a portal to their website. For example in this post on /r/fantasyfootball https://www.listnook.com/r/fantasyfootball/comments/3oga0m/week_6_waiver_wire_pickups/ , the user didn't provide any information in their post, but instead simply linked to their off site content. I'm surprised the mods over there are allowing it, but I imagine its not an issue at the moment because it is not being abused. But what happens when every post in the sub is someone advertising their stuff? At that point the sub becomes an ad and people will avoid it because they know there is nothing but people promoting their own content. I'm not sure how to uniformly enforce rules so that promotion doesn't turn into spam, but I must say I am not a fan of people using Listnook as an advertising platform for their website. If you have a video, or a drawing, or an article that you want to post on Listnook so it gets more eyeballs and creates discussion, that's fine. But if you're making a post that forces me to leave Listnook to get to your content then I'm not as cool with that idea. Would love to hear your thoughts on thus issue as an independent creative.
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mizay7 Oct 17, 2015 +3
What's the difference between making a self post with content and linking a blog/video with the same content. If it's a shitty link with c*** ads its one thing, but what's wrong with someone trying to establish some sort of reputation with their content. I typically prefer to post the content in a self post with a link to clean blog post that has (in my opinion) more readable formatting.
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relic2279 Oct 17, 2015 +3
> but what's wrong with someone trying to establish some sort of reputation with their content. Have you ever known groups of people to self-regulate? All it takes is one bad actor to abuse it and then everyone else needs to abuse it just to compete. And when there's a monetary incentive to abuse the system, it's inevitable that people *will*. There have been plenty of sublistnooks that have allowed self-promotion without much regulation and none of them achieved any sort of popularity or success. They've all tanked in some fashion, usually due to a lack of quality and user participation because the sublistnook in question became a gutter. Basically, the answer to your question is that nothing is inherently wrong with it, but there needs to be rules in place to off-set abuse and people looking to do nefarious things. That's what the 1:10 (10%) rule is - an objective way, *a fair way* to measure and regulate excessive self-promotion. And when you're dealing with millions of people as is the case with default sublistnooks, I think the playing field should be fair for everyone... content creators and regular users alike.
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Rebelius Oct 17, 2015 +2988
Why is the front page so slow to update now? I used to come here for breaking news, now a shooting doesn't show up on the front page until the next day.
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +1915
We need to update constants in the hot algorithm, but after the the mistake we made a couple months ago (We were fixing another bug and unintentionally affected the front page. It's since been reverted, but that's what got this conversation started.), we want to make sure we test things better. In order to do that, we need to rebuild the testing infrastructure for the front page, which is nearly finished. Longer-term, we've outgrown the current algorithm and need to devise a new one. We've got a lot of ideas here. It's just a matter of time / engineers.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +2494
Honestly I'm not too confident in where the front page direction is going. The kind of content that stays on the front page is next level lame now, it's just like the same internet 2 seconds of gratification that aunts and uncles and grandmas post on facebook are now stuck on the front page all day. The terrible ELI5 posts stick around all day, I can't help but feel like Listnook as a whole is actually trying to really control what gets on the front page and stays there. Celebrity AMA's are there ALL DAY long. I'll reserve my thoughts on the new algorithm until its actually in place, but I really don't have much hope that it'll depart much from what we're at now. When I first started listnooking not only was the content what brought me here but how valuable it was to me as a RESOURCE. Much like Twitter, when something live is going on I can search twitter to see more angles on something, things like shootings/earthquakes/etc. used to make it to listnooks front page immediately where comment sections would then likely have useful information from people involved, responders, or people on scene who are live updating their post. I'm scrolling past so many of the front page posts now because it's just subpar meaningless entertainment posts that stick around. Really starting to look like a facebook news feed out here.
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Deimorz Oct 17, 2015 +879
> Celebrity AMA's are there ALL DAY long. This kind of thing does happen, but it's because they're so much more popular than everything else that it wouldn't really make sense to have the other posts surpass them. Use the Michael Dorn one from yesterday as an example, look at /r/IAmA/new to see what the alternatives were that hypothetically could have replaced it: https://www.listnook.com/r/iama/new Here are all the posts from the 24 hours after it: * **[Michael Dorn - ~5000 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p0kwy/i_am_michael_dorn_worf_from_star_trek_the_next/)** * [PROF - posted almost at the same time (13 minutes later), and only got to 124 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p0mwj/im_prof_minneapolis_rapper_bad_boy_aka_bernie/) * [Max Barry crosspost - 0 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p0t9a/max_barry_author_of_lexicon_jennifer_government/) * [Kris Constable - 19 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p17po/i_am_canadian_green_party_candidate_and_privacy/) * [Cinnabon worker - 0 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p1bnv/i_am_a_cinnabon_bakery_worker_ama/) * [RHYMEFEST - 8 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p1fcd/i_am_rhymefest_grammy_and_oscarwinning_hiphop/) * [Request for a Professional Servant - 0 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p1fvf/ama_request_looking_for_a_professional_servant/) * [Request for Lynndie England - 0 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p1har/ama_request_lynndie_england/) * [Request for Scientology member - 5 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p1un2/ama_request_a_higher_member_of_scientology/) * [Request for Dr. Horrible actors - 0 points](https://www.listnook.com/r/IAmA/comments/3p26b6/ama_request_the_bad_horse_guys_from_dr_horrible/) That's it. Those were all the options, and none of them would really make sense to replace a 5000 point post with. It's not really a simple thing to figure out how to handle when you've got posting/voting patterns like that. There wasn't even a single post made for 15 and a half hours after the Dr. Horrible one (and leading up to that they were all requests, there were zero actual AMAs posted for over 19 hours).
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DrAminove Oct 17, 2015 +55
That makes perfect sense. I also notice that the front page ranking algorithm differs significanlty from /r/all in that there is one post from each sublistnook I'm subbed to at the top. My guess is that is to provide fairness for the smaller, less active sublistnooks. That's the only way posts in /r/announcments get seen instantly, for example. But it also means a celebrity AMA cannot be replaced by popular content from other subs but only by another popular AMA. This is unlike /r/all where content from all sublistnooks are competing with no concern for fairness across sublistnooks. For those who really want a fresh "front page", I'd recommend checking /r/all occasionally as well.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +15
I want something that uses all's algorithm with only the subs I'm subscribed to...
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justcool393 Oct 17, 2015 +29
https://www.listnook.com/sublistnooks/mine and then click on "multilistnook of my subscriptions" on the right.
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bongarong Oct 17, 2015 +155
I don't think thats what he was talking about. Instead of replacing a celebrity AMA on the front page with a worse AMA, why not just move the popular AMA lower down the front page and have other sublistnook posts that are newer and more popular take its place at the top?
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Deimorz Oct 17, 2015 +93
That is already how it works. It's over-simplifying it quite a bit, but basically each of your subscribed sublistnooks has a "s***" on your front page that's going to have the currently-#1 post in that sublistnook. The position of where that s*** is will depend on the "hot score" of that sublistnook's #1 post compared to the hot score of all the other sublistnooks' top posts. That is, whichever sublistnook's #1 has the highest hot score will have the #1 s*** on your front page, and so on. So the "/r/IAmA s***" will already move down over time as newer posts get higher hot scores, but I think he was complaining more about the fact that since the #1 post is the same all day, it's always the same post in that s*** the whole time.
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Hari___Seldon Oct 17, 2015 +20
To a degree, isn't this also a function of the subs that people choose to subscribe to as well? While I have a few front page posts that occasionally get stuck, most of the content rotates fairly well throughout the day. By design, I have very few hyper-popular subs to which I subscribe, and many that are active in the scale of hundreds or thousands of readers, instead of millions like /r/funny or /r/science. This seems necessary to keep Listnook functionally worthwhile for me, but does so by punishing many of the more popular subs that I might otherwise follow. Is there a way allow us to filter the front page to include the heavyweight monsters in our subscription lists without drowning out the other content that, quite frankly, is more compelling and more of a reason to visit Listnook?
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ornothumper Oct 17, 2015 +487
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +199
> Why is the front page now dominated by Facebook quality posts? People are upvoting Facebook quality posts. >For anyone over 25 Listnook has become an eyeroll. You just answered your own question in a way. The userbase is one of the largest drivers of content. Sure, the algorithm plays a role. Even a large one. But Listnook's still driven by users. You're seeing what they want to see.
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lotsosmiley Oct 17, 2015 +856
That is what your fellow listnookors are upvoting. And what becomes popular by definition is pretty much what appeals to the most people. So it's whatever most people are upvoting.
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abcIDontKnowTheRest Oct 17, 2015 +112
Exactly this. It's the userbase and voting patterns that are popularizing shit content, not site admins...and to change the algorithms to favour some subs over others would be entirely unfair to the community at large.
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lotsosmiley Oct 17, 2015 +101
Yep, he basically just said "I don't like what's up here, so the admins must be controlling it. Instead, I want them to control what's on there and put content that I approve of there." Sub to things you want to see, unsub from things you don't, and then browse *your* front page instead of /r/all. Check out /r/all every so often if you are looking for some new subs or /r/findalistnook or /r/newlistnooks. That's the basic functionality of listnook, subbing and voting. I don't know why it's so hard to grasp for some.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +14
It's easier to gripe and b**** about how much better Listnook was back in the day. It was just different. In fact I'd say it's qualitatively MUCH better than in the past but you have to USE it differently now. The site has gone through a massive transition over the last couple of years , even more so if you look back six+ years.
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Defilus Oct 17, 2015 +16
TL,DR: not everything is a conspiracy and you hear the narrative you want. I have a hard time believing that the average vocal minority listnookor cant seem to understand that when things get upvoted that they are being upvoted by thousands of other people. No, it must be a conspiracy to earn corporate trust and "internet money." Why does it have to be a conspiracy? Cant people just enjoy vapid shit that doesn't have any overbearing meaning to their everyday lives? Is that really such a bad thing? I get the idea about Listnook having this "first to the front" theme about it when it comes to global news and pop trends. What I don't get is how there can be such a dichotomy between what's obviously popular and what these people actually want. It's always got to be faster faster faster, until eventually you get people saying "I want to know about things before they happen." There's no upper limit to the speed of information and I think it's pretty rediculous to assume otherwise. I use listnook on a daily basis with ListnookIsFun and the only common theme I've seen is the bitching of the algorithm which, as has been explained by Steve already, is *the exact same algorithm listnook was using before they changed it for a week or two!* Look, you can be skeptical all you want but it just kinda makes you look like an ass.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +29
The trick is to unsubscribe from the default subs where this kind of content dominates. There are a lot of good, non-default subs out there with quality content.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +105
> Why is the front page now dominated by Facebook quality posts? Probably because you suck at curating your front page. My front page is dominated by baby elephants, bead art, and unstirred paint.
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jago81 Oct 17, 2015 +25
Are you serious? How is that listnook's fault? It's not Facebook's fault that the quality is bad, it's the users. Same as listnook. If bad posts are getting 5000 upvotes do you expect an admin to say "Oh look at that, I don't like this highly upvoted post. I'm going to take it down a notch". Yea, I would LOVE to see listnook's reaction to that.
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psyki Oct 17, 2015 +233
The default front page has always been and always will be controlled by the sites visitors. I think a large percentage of new visitors discovered the site from their friends on Facebook (or similar ways) and therefore continue to place value/upvote what brought them here originally. Any moderately experienced listnook user knows that the real value is in creating your own front page, subscribing to sublistnooks you like, unsubscribing from those you don't, and often times just straight up avoiding the front page all together and going straight to your sublistnooks of choice. Or become one of the knights of /new/ :)
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +151
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.6818 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/43788)
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +97
This is the /r/lewwronggeneration phenomenon. We remember things more fondly than they actually are. 5 years ago the front page was very similar to how it is now, the only main differences are that it is no longer full of: 1. Advice Animal Memes 2. Rage Comics 3. Atheism The front page has always been click bait for the masses - because that it what fhs majority of people upvoting enjoy - and the Listnook system favours low effort content and punchy headlines. You are remembering things a lot more fondly than they have ever been.
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Zornig Oct 17, 2015 +7
5 years ago was still post Digg exodus. The front page was not always memes/clickbait, but it has been for quite a while.
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Kiwi150 Oct 18, 2015 +3
Can you try to be a bit more specific with your complaint? While reading what you said I couldn't get a cohesive idea of what you feel is wrong with the front page. So far I'm getting that you think the front page is "staler" than normal, and this confuses me because my frontpage went back to "normal" a while ago, shortly after the shooting. Basically, my frontpage is the "resource" that yours used to be. I don't see posts staying there all day, and it's same "lame" content mixed with good content that it's always been for me. I check listnook's first few pages in the morning, afternoon, and night. My frontpage is usually completely different from morning to night, and from night to the next morning unless I stay on listnook until 4am or some stupid shit. Anyways, I'm just confused about what you're actually complaining about. Are you complaining that the logarithm supposedly killed the frontpage or are you complaining about the content itself lately? It really sounds like you're just complaining about content quality and using "the algorithm" as a scapegoat. I'm actually seeing similar things all over listnook. People see a boring/bad post on the frontpage for more than 4 hrs and they go "ugh that stupid algorithm" without actually knowing it's the algorithms fault, and it just spreads through the community as the new scapegoat excuse for a patch of bad content quality after a brief period of legitimate issues with the algorithm. I think people are thinking about this issue in the wrong way. They're quick to blame the algorithm because it's this unseen entity that controls some stuff, and they experienced a hiccup with algorithm that made the frontpage stale and now it's super easy for people to place false blame on the algorithm instead of maybe looking for other reasons.
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CarrollQuigley Oct 17, 2015 +608
When are you going to implement a public moderation log for default subs? I'm tired /r/news blocking articles on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and then banning people (myself included) for calling them out on it: https://www.listnook.com/r/undelete/comments/3betxr/no_articles_about_the_transpacific_partnership/
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Ex-Sgt_Wintergreen Oct 17, 2015 +133
The #1 growing problem with listnook right now is the total lack of accountability for moderators. They have unrivaled control over discourse and narrative on this website, and many have started to abuse that power as we've seen recently with all the censorship scandals happening in default subs. It's basically Digg Powerusers all over again; Listnook needs to forget about new moderation tools until they can figure out how to make sure the people holding said tools aren't going to be abusing them.
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Drunken_Economist Oct 17, 2015 +70
There are a lot of problems with public modlogs, I think. I moderate a few sublistnooks, and the majority of the moderation is removing spam and other rule-breaking posts. You wouldn't want a log showing all the spam, since it would achieve the spammers' goal that way. Similarly, if a mod or admin removes PI or (worst case) CP or something, you *definitely* don't want that showing up in a public modlog. That sort of problem isn't unsolvable, but it's a blocker. You might consider, for example, giving a mod the ability to exclude an action from the modlog if it's spam or PI . . . but then mods would just use that "exclude from modlog" button all the time anyway
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well_golly Oct 17, 2015 +8
Well make two buttons: "Exclude from modlog - Advert" "Exclude from modlog - CP" Then upon clicking the button, there would be a modlog entry which just says which type of offense it was: "Comment deleted due to . In order to thwart the SPAMmer by deleting the offending SPAM, the modlog entry only contains the message you are presently reading. " If mods start using these buttons as a shortcut (laziness), people will start calling them out on it. People will begin to notice that all the Trans Pacific Partnership stuff is all being flagged as CP, for example. I would think that the Admims would want this tool even more than the users do: A way to ferret out corrupt mods, such as "car enthusiast" sublistnooks which might have mods who delete all references to Pennzoil, but never delete QuakerState oil references. People who are potentially manipulating sublistnooks into private advertising spaces. I think I recall several such scandals in the recent past.
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Intuentis Oct 17, 2015 +53
Out of curiosity, would it be possible to ELI5 how we've outgrown the current algorithm? Is it due to an influx of new users, a loss of users or something entirely different? This whole issue seems really interesting but I don't know that much about it. Thanks!
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tonycomputerguy Oct 17, 2015 +42
Pretty sure it's a combination of new users upvoting things already on the front page, while never visiting /new to upvote new posts.
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Mentalpopcorn Oct 17, 2015 +31
I try going to New every once in a while, but it's always 80%+ /r/asklistnook, and it's always really uninteresting questions that would never make it to the front page anyway.
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Drunken_Economist Oct 17, 2015 +19
The TL;DR is that a lot more users on the site means a lot more users voting on things from the front page, so stories stay there longer.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +15
I just want to thank you for whatever has happened to the front page. It used to be like crack for me and I would spend an hour or two on listnook every day (who are we kidding-it was probably more than that). Since it has become less interesting I've started writing again (not listnook posts), reading actual literature, and my house is cleaner. It's not the Baader-Mienhof effect either. I noticed that listnook was less interesting before I heard about any changes to the algorithm. So keep up the good work. Maybe I'll start learning a new language or get a second degree. Oh, and my childrens' grades have improved (I have more time to parent).
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LintGrazOr8 Oct 17, 2015 +860
I just want to ask. Is there any specific direction you guys want listnook to head towards? I see things like the Upvoted but I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to be useful for me as a listnookor. I guess I'm just asking what your plans are. Thanks!
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therealcb Oct 17, 2015 +176
Not Spez, but it seems to me that they're trying new avenues of possible monetization that aren't detrimental to the user base. Things like podcast sponsorships are a great way to do that. I personally really appreciate it when community based platforms test out new types of content. Maybe they'll roll out a YouTube/Kickstarter hybrid for Listnook filmmakers to launch independent films, or something of that ilk next. Just a startup capitalizing on their agility and resources, ya know? Man?
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RedAero Oct 17, 2015 +48
>Maybe they'll roll out a YouTube/Kickstarter hybrid for Listnook filmmakers to launch independent films There's no way the servers could handle the bandwidth (listnook doesn't even have an imagehost), but that's not a terrible idea.
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +835
Right, Upvoted is really aimed at non-listnookors. The goal is to show more people all the cool stuff that happens on Listnook every day, and hopefully bring more people into our communities. Our short term plans I've talked about a lot: release proper mobile apps, mod/community tools, stabilize infrastructure, hire, hire hire. Long term, we believe every person in the world should be able to enjoy Listnook. To do this, we need to improve the product in just about every dimension.
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jaxspider Oct 17, 2015 +14
>Right, Upvoted is really aimed at non-listnookors. Have you heard of /r/SublistnookOfTheDay? We have been featuring sublistnooks for almost 4 & a half years now without a missed day. For listnookors by listnookors. We bring the awesome everyday is our motto. We *could* do more good if we had more support from [admins like you.](http://gfycat.com/ShinyPaleBlackfly) ^^Courtesy ^^of ^^/r/GfycatDepot.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +137
See, that's my problem with listnook as a company. Under Yishan, there was no overall policy neither with content nor with how you wanted to grow the company. It was pretty much "do nothing until we receive backlash in the media" and on the company-level it was "throw everything against a wall and see what sticks" (listnookmade, listnook notes, listnookgifts, listnookmarketplace and whatever). Now you dealt with the policy-thing rather well I believe, and kudos for that, but on the company-level you still seem to be completely clueless. Just the last months Victoria was fired without involving the moderators of 'her' subs, and lastly there was the "spontaneous" appearance by Tom Hanks in a couple of subs without involving the mods either. And now, I hear you say: >Long term, we believe every person in the world should be able to enjoy Listnook. To do this, we need to improve the product in just about every dimension. which to me pretty much implies "we still have no clue on where we should be going as a company".
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +1010
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Aethelric Oct 17, 2015 +368
They're probably hoping that first time or occasional visitors to the site will click on it rather than just finding whatever "genuine conversation" is embarrassing the site on a given day.
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SpudOfDoom Oct 17, 2015 +12
I'm genuinely confused by this post. Where are the ad posts? I don't even enable adblock on listnook and I'm pretty sure I never see any promotion for Upvoted other than the occasional sidebar ad in the box.
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kelminak Oct 17, 2015 +406
Are you really bitching about a singular post at the top of the page you can scroll your eyes past in less than a second? If that's your biggest concern, your time on listnook must be pretty good.
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PikachuSnowman Oct 17, 2015 +375
What happened to the promise that some of listnook's profits were going to be distributed back to the members in some way?
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +421
We're still maintaining that stock for this purpose. The challenge is the mechanism through which we distribute it, and when. There are many legal and tax implications that need to be worked through. I'm sad to say we haven't spent a ton of time on it since I've returned other than to reaffirm, that yes, we are going to do it. Because I don't anticipate a liquidity event for a while (nor are we profitable), we don't have anything to distribute, so we're not in a huge rush.
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DrewsephA Oct 17, 2015 +420
If you really want to give back to the community, use that $10 million (or however much it was) and put it directly back into listnook. Use it to buy more servers, to hire more coders and engineers, etc. The best way you can distribute the profits of a fundraising campaign back to the users is not to give it to the users, but to give it to yourselves to make listnook itself better.
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throwmeout06 Oct 17, 2015 +96
He has repeatedly said (in this AMA) the near future goals are literally to hire more coders/engineers and to make the site more stable (more/better servers). It's on like 2 or 3 of the top comment threads already
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Kryeiszkhazek Oct 18, 2015 +8
As cool as it would be to get a couple bucks from listnook for being a long term active user, I have to agree that it would be cooler if they used that money to upgrade infrastructure
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hansjens47 Oct 17, 2015 +513
#1: /r/listnookrequest was added as a stopgap measure 5 years ago. Currently someone can squat on large and active sublistnook communities without any involvement in that sublistnook whatsoever, as long as they log into their account once every 2 months. * **What would it take for the admins to look at new procedures for removing inactive and unresponsive moderators who aren't part of the communities they're supposed to act on behalf of?** --- #2: When the default set of sublistnooks was changed to encompas 50 sublistnooks a year or so ago, rather than about 25, the promise was that changes could be made more often to ensure that things stay fresh, and that listnook is an interesting website also for those who don't have accounts. I think that was at least in part a response to how overdue the un-defaulting of sublistnooks like /r/politics, /r/adviceanimals and /r/atheism took place. The longer a community is a default and passively builds up users even if mods are failing at running the community, the harder it is to fix those problems afterwards. * **What would it take to look at the current default sublistnooks and potential changes to them?** (corollary: geodefualts don't seem to have received any support in the last year or so either. Are they technically still in beta?) --- #3: The 2014 US midterm election wasn't covered in the default sublistnooks. That means that to follow US politics on listnook you have to have an account. A large proportion of listnookors don't. For a site that takes a stance on political issues like marriage equality and an open and free internet, it seems strange that not all users are exposed to that content, even if it's the regional politics of the location you're in (geodefaults). * **What would it take to cover the 2016 US presidential election in the defaults in some way?**
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +23
An addon to 3: there are many topics that are not covered in the defaults, largely because of how moderators curate their content. I remember lots of TPP posts getting deleted because /r/politics said it belonged in /r/news and /r/news said it belonged in /r/politics. Is listnook outgrowing its volunteer moderator system for the largest defaults? It used to be that you could come here for any information, now the largest sublistnooks delete things rather arbitrarily.
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hansjens47 Oct 17, 2015 +6
Well, isn't that a systematic problem that doesn't have to do with outgrowing volunteer moderators, but what's required of those volunteers? Each sublistnook is it's own castle: mods have very free hands to do *almost* whatever they want. So there's no control for whether or not /r/news and /r/worldnews overlap, or whether /r/pics and /r/funny allow the same content. It's up to the different mod teams to collaborate if they *want* the default set, or set of large sublistnooks to cover a certain topic or not. The admins (listnook employees) haven't gotten involved in that sort of thing other than choosing what subs are defaults in the past.
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tf2hipster Oct 17, 2015 +75
> That means that to follow US politics on listnook you have to have an account No, it doesn't. It means you have to manually navigate to a sublistnook that's not a default, which is also true of any existing account (you have to have subscribed to a non-default at some point for it to show up).
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AleixASV Oct 17, 2015 +88
> That means that to follow US politics on listnook you have to have an account. A large proportion of listnookors don't. And a large portion of listnookors aren't from the US and don't want listnook to have their frontpage even more flooded by Bernie Sanders. The US is not the world nor listnook.
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hansjens47 Oct 17, 2015 +24
That's where geodefaults come in. I don't know how much you know about them? Say you're in sweden: /r/sweden, /r/svenskpolitik and several other sublistnooks feature in the sublistnooks that show for people who're logged out. If you're in Germany there's a different set that covers things in German and so on. US politics could be covered by a US geodefault in the same way.
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +150
1. It's something we discuss somewhat regularly around here. We all agree it's a problem. It's not our largest problem at the moment, but we will address it. 2. I don't think the notion of blessing a specific set of communities is sustainable. It requires too much intervention on our side, and it also prevents new communities from breaking into popularity because they hit the "default ceiling". I'm looking forward to tackling this. 3. We don't control the content of the defaults, so it's largely up to them. We do work with them from time to time on more "event"-like situations. For example, if we have connections to a prominent candidate, we can help find them a place on Listnook.
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noeatnosleep Oct 17, 2015 +307
You do control what content is in the defaults by picking what subs are defaults. /u/hansjens47 is taking issue with the fact that there will be no default coverage for the 2016 election season and there was none for 2014 because there are no default sublistnooks that allow political content. 2016 is a presidential election without an incumbent. This will be a massive hole in information that your logged out users will be sure to notice.
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Fonjask Oct 17, 2015 +17
>by picking what subs are defaults. An interesting thing here is that sublistnooks are **asked** if they want to be defaults, sublistnooks whose mods don't want it to be won't be defaulted.
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Plorntus Oct 17, 2015 +10
The slight issue is those defaults should be handled at the Geo defaults level. I am from the UK and whilst US politics might interest me, it doesn't. I believe from what I have seen is that Geo defaults only occur when you login? Its definitely a difficult one for them to handle, and of course they cannot cater to everyone. But I agree something should be done.
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thelochok Oct 18, 2015 +5
... If they're in the US. The rest of us care - a little, but imagine if the defaults had to cover every element of whether Shorten or Turnbull win the next Australian federal election? Leave the defaults to be less geo-specific!
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hansjens47 Oct 17, 2015 +102
>We don't control the content of the defaults, Isn't that what's done when choosing what subs are defaults and what subs lose that status? It would be an editorial decision to remove say /r/worldnews and /r/news from the defaults. Now logged out users would no longer see breaking news when they're not logged in.
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GrijzePilion Oct 17, 2015 +11
> The 2014 US midterm election wasn't covered in the default sublistnooks. That means that to follow US politics on listnook you have to have an account. A large proportion of listnookors don't. > For a site that takes a stance on political issues like marriage equality and an open and free internet, it seems strange that not all users are exposed to that content, even if it's the regional politics of the location you're in (geodefaults). Well that just seems useless for anyone outside the US.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +276
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spez Oct 19, 2015 +29
I've answered this a couple times here and there. Any engineer should want to work at listnook for a variety of reasons: * You get to work on interesting problems (scaling, abuse, search, data, ML, mobile) * Your work will be seen by millions of people * Your work will affect the lives of millions on people * You get to work with smart people in a fun environment * We have really generous benefits. Full health, dental, vision. We pay for parking, gyms, daycare, and a bunch of other random stuff. As for no negotiation, we had a similar policy at Hipmunk, and it worked well. I think my reasoning might be different from Ellen's. The reason I like it is because many people are not good at negotiating, or just don't like it. We do our best to ensure comp is fair both internally and externally. A critical part of this policy is that we *always make our best offer up front*. That way, if someone comes back to us and asks for more, we can say "no" with a clear conscience. I have found in practice this is almost never required. We're in the business of getting the best people we can, not the best people for as c**** as possible.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +592
Anything to say about the servers, more specifically about improving them? Errors are way too often.
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +409
One of our major priorities this quarter is to stabilize the infrastructure. We're making progress, but we still have a ways to go.
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IAMAVelociraptorAMA Oct 17, 2015 +437
Can you be _any_ more specific at all other than just "stabilize the infrastructure; making progress"? I'm glad you've addressed it but what does that mean exactly - just more servers? Changing how listnook works so that there's less stress on the servers somehow? Buying more cloud service from Amazon? Just bug-fixing? If you can't say, that's fine, and I appreciate you answering the question at all, but _any_ kind of detail at all would go a very long way.
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +601
It's not just adding more servers. The specific short-term fixes involve looking for optimizations in code and addressing some glaring infrastructure issues: improving our internal caching, for example. Longer term, we'll rewrite everything, one piece at a time. Organizing the rest of our stack so this is possible is the first step. We need to get to more of a [SOA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture).
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IAMAVelociraptorAMA Oct 17, 2015 +171
Thank you very much, mate. I appreciate it.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +363
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +261
First, I'm sorry to hear that. Second, it's a reasonable request. There are a variety of reasons someone might want to disassociate from content, and I'd prefer they didn't have to delete it to do so because it leaves holes in comment threads.
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Pelon1071 Oct 17, 2015 +27
Yea, What I think we need, and I believe that someone has already alluded to this in this post is. A way to have a private archive for comments and submissions that only the user could access. Have a way to manually and/or automatically, have all or certain content archived. For example: Have in settings, a place to dictate rules for archiving. Such as: Every week, every month, or, every year. And allow users to manually add to that archive. And allow us to export that content to our computers, if desired. So basically, it would work like an E-Mail archive mailbox. Except for Listnook submissions and comments. User content will stay in their relevant threads, and if someone wants to track it down, they would have to find every Subblistnook, every thread that the user has posted to, and, find the comment if it's a large, text heavy thread. This has the potential to drastically reduce *"Witch hunting."* *Edit:* And if the issue is, "How or where do we add this?" It can be simply added to a user's account, next to the, "Saved" tab. It could say "Archive" and everything in there won't be visible to other users in the user's activity (Overview, Comments, ect.)
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dhicock Oct 17, 2015 +275
Maybe just auto-delete content from someone's history after a set amount of time? The comment would still be there in the thread from 3 years ago, but it won't show up in their history? Basically, your user history is only a snippet of what you've said recently? With facebook doing the "Memories" thing, it makes me realize how much I've changed in the past few years, and I wouldn't want someone to judge me for a comment I made in 2010.
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remedialrob Oct 17, 2015 +159
A better way wold just be to limit people that aren't the account holder from going back through more than a month of a persons history. I use older comments to save typing time when replying to similar questions. I don't want to lose that. But I don't like people being able to sift through 4 years of my comments either.
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dhicock Oct 17, 2015 +94
This is a much better way. I can go through my own history indefinitely, but everyone else only gets to see 30 days. If they stumble across a comment on a years-old thread though, it will still have my name on it. I like that
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MufinMcFlufin Oct 18, 2015 +12
There is another problem with that, being that if the account is still linked to the comment, a search engine could find it. It's not hard to imagine someone making a crawler that could recreate any given user's history. A solution to this could be adding another option to comments so you could unlink a comment publicly from your account. This also could have the effect of disassociating an old opinion from a user's history while keeping that thread intact. It also would have the double effect of having easy "throw away" comments/posts so throw away accounts wouldn't be necessary.
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snaps_ Oct 17, 2015 +28
Or having an option so if someone wanted more to be available (like content creators that we love to look at the post history of), then they could make it so.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +19
Sometimes you want to go through a persons account because you like the things they have posted with no ill intentions. E.g. if you find a GW poster you like.
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Alphamatroxom Oct 17, 2015 +3
I think it'd be simpler on everyone to simply anonymize the account holder and leave the comment. If you want to "delete" a post it simply deletes your user name and disassociates the post from your account. People have seen it, it's on the internet, people may have even replied to it but now it's not tied to anyone in particular. Obviously it would have to go through the thread and do the same to anyone who tagged the now anonymized user simply changing the tag to a deleted as the comments are now. There's always an edit button if the content is the issue and of course mods/admins would be able to see the original ties so people aren't trying to be asshats with it and just vanish.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +8
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TheThirdStrike Oct 17, 2015 +13
Absolutely this. I'm on my 3rd account (hence the name) because I have a long posting history. Eventually I give out enough tiny details that the one person I piss off will spend days putting every tiny detail I've release through my post and send 1000 pizzas to my door. I have no recourse but to stop answering my doorbell, delete my account, and start over. Now that I think about it... I'm going to start working on a script to delete all of my posts when they hit 30 days.
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I_DO_GOOD Oct 17, 2015 +65
May I second that? I just posted a comment but perhaps this one will be seen. How should regular users deal with witch hunting from mods of large sublistnooks who have enough connections to get users shadow banned from listnook? I watched just that happen yesterday over a video r/videos did not politically agree with. (It did not break sublistnook rules). The particular video is still being shadow removed when posted by others. *Edit here is the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQi8bkviiXI&feature=youtu.be *Edit great now I am being haressed by the r/video admins: http://imgur.com/e7KzXrC
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DotGaming Oct 17, 2015 +17
Listnook seriously needs to consider implementing advanced privacy settings, right now they're quite limited.
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fuckoffanddieinafire Oct 17, 2015 +13
While I also have problems with weirdly obsessive arseholes, I'm not sure what I'd want admins to do about it. How would you even go about fixing this?
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +889
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RonSpawnsonTP Oct 17, 2015 +37
This is a very good question. I've seen Listnook Admins and employees mention that this is a problem, and that normal users should neber be shadow banned, but if be interested to here what their thoughts are on replacing this. I know they've pushed transparency recently, this is a big area they could improve on. I don't know of many other sites of Listnook's stature that invisibly ban their users.
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smouy Oct 17, 2015 +374
I feel like people get banned from /r/offmychest for almost anything.
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whyarentwethereyet Oct 17, 2015 +14
I was banned after making a post there and asking why I couldn't see my post. I never received and notice and the mods will not respond. I'm going through some stuff right now and I'd love to post it but it's ran by people who don't give a f***.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +196
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ZorbaTHut Oct 17, 2015 +150
That's what /r/trueoffmychest is for :D
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ma2016 Oct 17, 2015 +109
There's always a rebellious version of every major sub isn't there?
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +183
/r/trueannouncements
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ma2016 Oct 17, 2015 +26
By the end of the year it'll probably be a thing
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SirPremierViceroy Oct 17, 2015 +112
I was banned without ever having posted there.
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libretti Oct 17, 2015 +97
Same. I made a post in /r/kotakuinaction yesterday and was instantly banned in spite of not once visiting or posting on /r/offmychest
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +295
Still working on it! Testing new stuff next week, I believe. It's a multi-part plan: first, we need to provide alternatives to shadowbanning. We're working on these now. It's worth noting the admins (Listnook employees) and moderators (Listnook users) have different tools, both inadequate. Second, we need to get everyone comfortable (admins, moderators, users) with new tools (basically, non shadowban enforcement). Third, we need to make it easier for new communities to grow. It's not happening overnight, but it is happening.
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HPPD3 Oct 17, 2015 +162
> Still working on it! Testing new stuff next week, I believe. It's a multi-part plan: first, we need to provide alternatives to shadowbanning. My old account /u/hppd2 got shadowbanned after you had said regular users should never be shadowbanned and should have a way to appeal. I tried getting in touch with someone about it and never heard anything, I'm kind of over it but it would still be nice to go back to that account.
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13steinj Oct 17, 2015 +214
For the sake of appeasing everyone, since other than the users in /r/spam done by the bot, from what I can tell [all shadowbans are manual]( https://www.listnook.com/r/13steinj/comments/3ni7od/how_to_do_admin_things_on_local_installs/ ), can't you guys *take the seemingly minimal effort to pm these non spam shadowbanees?*
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EknobFelix Oct 17, 2015 +191
I was banned from /r/offmychest for posting a completely innocent comment in /r/imgoingtohellforthis. When I messaged listnook, this was the response that I received. >Moderators are allowed to ban whoever they want. The moderators of /r/offmychest have decided for whatever reason that they should ban anyone who has ever commented in certain sublistnooks. That decision is theirs to make, no matter how questionable it may be. Luckily, it's a tactic that is in very limited use, in fact almost exclusively by that single mod team. I would suggest you ignore them and their sublistnook and find another to post in, such as /r/rant. Is this the official policy from Listnook? "Find somewhere else to be, because we can't do anything to stop moderators?" Additionally, I responded to this message and never received a reply.
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errorme Oct 17, 2015 +31
It's been their official position for a long time. Unless the mods for a sublistnook go inactive for 6 months, they can set the rules for their sub however they want. It's why people like /soccer were able to 'own' a vast number of sublistnooks and run it as their version of what the sub should be about, and some other top mods have pissed off all of the other mods in that sub for their actions or lack there of.
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justcool393 Oct 17, 2015 +8
This has and is been the official policy. Admins have repeatedly said that as long as people aren't breaking listnook rules, moderators control their turf. It's a problematic system, but it's an issue that is hard to fix without being absolutely awful.
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makemisteaks Oct 17, 2015 +43
The admins don't care. Not yet at least. It's still not a big enough of a problem for all the new users that they want to bring in. That's their focus for the foreseeable future. But I think it will be a huge problem eventually (in my opinion it already is) and they are misguided in not addressing it now. In the meantime the people that use Listnook now sit at the mercy of the mods.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +225
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GammaKing Oct 17, 2015 +57
TiA mod here. We've raised this with the admins and they're unwilling to do anything. Message we hear is that mods can do whatever they want, even when that crosses into abusing the tools to try to damage other sublistnooks, such as autobanning users with demands they leave other communities. I'd like to hear something from /u/spez on this, since I'd hope there's room for a "don't interfere with other sublistnooks" rule along the same lines as the brigading rules.
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MauldotheLastCrafter Oct 17, 2015 +345
What about SRS actually posting a call for brigading here: https://archive.is/wi8Zv? Then, when you go to their sub now, they're actually calling for yet more action against /r/kotakuinaction. This is blatant brigading, and as far as we've seen from the admins already, is a sublistnook bannable offense. Why isn't /r/ShitListnookSays banned yet?
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +153
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sapiophile Oct 18, 2015 +5
> https://archive.is/wi8Zv That seems pretty clearly to me that they're just accepting submissions from the low-hanging fruit sublistnooks for those three days, which they normally don't allow. There's absolutely nothing there related to "brigading" whatsoever. Can you clarify what you concern is, exactly? This seems to be nothing more than a misguided vendetta against SRS.
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Revesilia Oct 17, 2015 +83
Anything you could foreshadow as to what community tools we might expect?
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +117
Other than the thousand general product improvements we'd like to make, the big problems on our mind are community discovery (it's hard for listnookors to find new communities, let alone new users), and community growth (how do you attract new users to your up-and-coming community. Two sides of the same coin, but both supremely important in my mind.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +178
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Rich_Nix0n Oct 17, 2015 +10
This already happens with multilistnooks. If you make a gaming multilistnook it will suggest similar gaming related sublistnooks. The suggestions are hit or miss but it's reasonable to assume that this function could be easily implemented using a list of your subscribed subs instead of a multilistnook with the difference being that multilistnooks tend to involve fairly related sublistnooks while your subscribed subs will be more diverse.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +1443
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begrudged Oct 17, 2015 +278
AMA in general seems to be abandoned.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +154
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thrasumachos Oct 17, 2015 +235
Two observations since the blackout: 1) There have been a lot of AMAs lately that once would have been more fitting on /r/casualAMA. 2) A lot of people who are big names in a particular area have been doing AMAs in the relevant sublistnook for their field, rather than /r/AMA
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PixelatorOfTime Oct 17, 2015 +171
Back in the day before it blew up, AMA was really just normal people with one extra-ordinary characteristic. It's kind of returned to it's original purpose now.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +85
I enjoyed a lot of those threads, I remember reading about some really interesting people and things they do/did that you didn't typically hear about. When it became all about celebrity amas there were some awesome ones, but most of the time I felt I was being advertised to.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +428
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begrudged Oct 17, 2015 +96
I wonder how that affected gold sales? I quit buying gold for myself or gilding comments when that happened; wonder if it's a noticeable issue for listnook or just a blip.
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macbrover Oct 17, 2015 +162
Any plans for an Android version of Alien Blue?
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spez Oct 17, 2015 +296
Yes, but it will be called "Listnook" and we're actively working on it.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +402
There are already excellent third-party listnook apps for Android. You often say you're strapped for resources and staff - if so, why is developing an official app high priority? What significant features will an official app be able to offer that already existing ones can't?
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they_have_bagels Oct 17, 2015 +156
Adding ad revenue that goes to listnook instead of the third party devs...
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +37
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QuantumBadger Oct 17, 2015 +104
> What significant features will an official app be able to offer that already existing ones can't? Ads :(
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TestFixation Oct 17, 2015 +62
I can't imagine it being better than Sync or Relay, those two are phenomenal.
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IAmAnAnonymousCoward Oct 17, 2015 +80
> Yes, but it will be called "Listnook" and we're actively working on it. That's great, I just hope you won't try to suppress third party apps.
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TheThirdStrike Oct 17, 2015 +21
Listnook Is Fun is pretty much perfect. Put your resources to better use.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +504
When is the search tool going to be less awful?
504
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +66
You should've seen it four years ago. You could search for an exact title of something you've just seen and nothing would show up.
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nuedd Oct 17, 2015 +78
I swear it gets worse with every update
78
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +85
In this regard, it's actually impressive.
85
Shrinks99 Oct 17, 2015 +330
Has the new system of quarantining sublistnooks worked as you hoped it would? Do you think it improves the way listnook is viewed in the public eye? EDIT: /u/IpMedia brings up a good point. Do advertisers want to buy more adspace on listnook now that this system is in place?
330
MisterWoodhouse Oct 17, 2015 +88
Hey Steve, any plans/desire to build out the East Coast presence a little more with the workforce? I'm sure a lot of qualified people are interested in working for Listnook, but don't want to be in the San Francisco area. Perhaps you could expand the New York office or set up shop in Silicon Alley outside of Boston?
88
spez Oct 17, 2015 +118
We have a small presence in NYC, mostly for ad sales, though. For the foreseeable future I want all product people (product, design, engineering) and general leadership to be in the same office. It's easier to build our culture when everyone is face-to-face.
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The_Potato_God99 Oct 17, 2015 +160
What is your opinion on free speech today? Do you still believe shadowbanning should be reserved to spammer? If so, how are you going to change the current system? do you agree with the statement "Sublistnooks should be banned if they make listnook look bad, even if they are technically legal."? Does listnook thinks about adding a "nsfl" button? Finally, I have a suggestion for sublistnooks that are "weird" and make listnook look bad (I am not talking about subs that have CP or other illegal things in them). There should be an option when creating a sublistnook to tag it as "NSFL" and/or "Contains potentially offensive content", just like there is an option to make every post "NSFW". These subs would never appear in /r/All and there could be a warning when entering the sub just like with "NSFW". What do you think?
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +559
[deleted]
559
Uphoria Oct 17, 2015 +16
The problem here is there is no end-game and listnook does not want to become an arbitrator who has to deal with every petty dispute between the mods of a sublistnook and the users. They added a feature to mod-mail mute users because of how much people spam mods to get what they want/piss-off mods who moderated them. Could you imagine the shit-funnel of requests that would become admin mail? "/r/whatever banned my cat picture, I think they are being rule nazis, you should reverse this, admins" Everyone is focusing on when a sublistnook crashes and burns, but that is rare. Like a domain - if whitehouse.com is a p*** site or a government news outlet, its up to the owner to decided the content. Most of the problems that people have are with petty moderation issues, and that would swamp the devs/admins to take on arbitration duties. But if /r/watchingbirds decides to turn into a sub about p***, the users will be left with the same choices someone who's local restaurant changes the menu: The customers can't just call the city and demand the business return to the old menu or have their business license revoked. They can go to a new restaurant, open their own, or hope that the lack of traffic into the old restaurant makes them see the error of their ways.
16
herdsheep Oct 17, 2015 +45
People that enforce rules are never going to be individually popular - you cannot have common users able to overrule or penalize mods. If you don't like a set of mods, the answer is to prove that it'd be better without them by moving to a different sub. Mods to have to police themselves, and if a mod team can't do that, consider getting a new mod team (sub).
45
Swineflew1 Oct 17, 2015 +10
The problem is when an established community has a mod takeover and the sublistnook gets closed or literally destroyed. You can say "just make a new community" but usually this greatly fractures the community. Where would I go to find out what the "accepted" new community is? How do I spread the message of the new sub? An example would be /r/punchablefaces which was totally highjacked and currently /r/games is silencing all talk about TB and the community has no recourse and how exactly are they supposed to rally around a new sublistnook and spread the word about it?
10
SquareWheel Oct 17, 2015 +153
The tool is to make an alternative sublistnook, and if others agree they'll join. eg. /r/marijuana > /r/trees, or /r/lgbt > /r/ainbow, or /r/xkcd > /r/xkcdcomic.
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anon445 Oct 17, 2015 +24
Can't do much against defaults, tho (and those are the mods I think that should be kept in check, since they are essentially representing listnook and its admins).
24
blackout27 Oct 17, 2015 +6
Hey, can you fix an issue with alien blue where if you go to a link post and you cannot interact with the site that its linked to?
6
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +14
I think I might be early and I don't really have a serious question... what'd you have for breakfast?
14
b4b Oct 17, 2015 +316
Why do you allow one guy to be a moderator of over 100 sublistnooks (I think it was 140) and ban people from all of them using bots? e.g. someone posts something the guy does not like in 1 sublistnook and he bans that person from all other sublistnooks Are you planning to allow users of the "common" sublistnooks to vote for their moderators? In many sublistnooks like /r/hearthstone the moderators are basically the first people who created the sublistnook with a popular name and people join and join based on simple sublistnook name, not merit (just like in internet before google era, where people would write "noun + .com" and try to find a page about something, now it is /r/ + "noun"). Are you planning to finally allow users to kick out moderators of those big sublistnooks? Here is an example of users requesting a removal of a moderator due to poor moderation quality - guess what, the moderator removed the topic, which got 180 upvotes in around 1 hour from being posted https://www.listnook.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3ie59c/petition_to_remove_udeviouskat89_as_a_mod_of_this/
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Everybodygetslaid69 Oct 17, 2015 +91
A way to vote out moderators would be incredible. Something like 60% of subscribers voting to remove the mod, and have a simultaneous vote for who gets to replace them.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +65
Because of vote brigading, I don't think this would ever work in a reasonable and realistic way. I think that they need to make the default posting and viewing methods the new moderation. Where you can filter through results in whatever way you please but with a single click, you can view everything and anything. And obviously, have anything out of place removed automatically. Maybe even have it possible to auto x-post instead of deleting, like how most gaming sublistnooks have an unofficial circlejerk sublistnook where people can freely shitpost without spamming on the main sub. I really just don't enjoy current moderation on listnook.
65
[deleted] Oct 18, 2015 +25
[deleted]
25
-Albus- Oct 17, 2015 +140
Listnook Live threads are really useful, but have not gained much adoption because they are exclusively hosted on /r/live. Linking to the thread from a different sublistnook is not great because the link has to be submitted like any other external link. The moderators of the sublistnook that the link was submitted to then have no editorial control over what happens in the live thread, since it isn't actually on their sublistnook. Are there any changes planned for how Listnook Live works? Specifically, will we be able to create Listnook Live threads on any sublistnook at some point? [Here's a good post and discussion regarding how Listnook Live can be improved.](https://www.listnook.com/r/live/comments/3hf5rh/request_listnook_live_needs_proper_standardization/)
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utspg1980 Oct 17, 2015 +202
Two weeks ago, three noteworthy posts made it to the top of /r/funny, all within 24 hours. [This is one,](https://www.listnook.com/r/funny/comments/3n7png/theyve_gone_to_plaid/) [this is another,](https://www.listnook.com/r/funny/comments/3n908t/i_saw_this_mannequin_at_target_the_other_day/) and I can't find the third right now. All three of these posts had a "funny" picture from Target, and all three quickly made it to the front page with 2000+ upvotes, and (at the time) only <50 comments. To a user, this seems like guerrilla marketing. My questions: Is Target, or a Target marketing company, doing this knowingly with listnook's permission? Is listnook in any way assisting these companies, tacitly or explicitly? If listnook isn't involved, do you care that this is happening? Do you hope/plan to stop/hinder it?
202
PancakeTree Oct 17, 2015 +67
How about all the ridiculous Oreo posts that end up on funny or pics? There's some very obvious vote manipulation and astroturfing that goes ignored.
67
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +34
My belief is that the Oreo marketers don't *make* these posts, but they do have a team that searches all kinds of social media for positive things involving Oreos so they can upvote/favorite/like them. Many other brand marketers do the same, but Oreo seems to be particularly skilled at it.
34
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +23
[deleted]
23
Rhinowarlord Oct 17, 2015 +78
Why is there no site-wide spoiler tagging? Almost every community that is concerned with spoilers has their own CSS hack to hide it, but it doesn't work on mobile, doesn't show up when you aren't browsing from that sub, and isn't terribly standardized. Some subs have started using the NSFW tagging to hide spoiler thumbnails, but that also has flaws, because it still gets filtered as NSFW, doesn't hide the title, and can't be marked as both NSFW *and* spoilers (other than manually through the post title). Please: * Make spoiler tags site-wide. * Allow users to show/hide all spoiler posts (like how you can show/hide all NSFW posts). * Allow individual subs to (dis)allow spoiler posts.
78
tremulo Oct 17, 2015 +169
What was up with the Tom Hanks thing a couple of weeks ago, where he showed up and sporadically answered a few questions? karmanaut said that [ya'll had coordinated it](https://www.listnook.com/r/AskListnook/comments/3mxawa/announcement_the_timer/cvj7mbd). I, and I think a lot of people, just thought it was kind of weird. But was it coordinated, and if so, were the results what you were hoping for?
169
ColdFury96 Oct 17, 2015 +32
Hey Steve, I recently learned about the limitations of the front page, where I only view 50 of the sublistnooks I subscribed to at a time on my front page. I understand I could purchase gold to increase this to 100, but this feels like a very deceptive practice. The feature isn't really documented unless you go digging, and honestly it feels like a limitation a website of Listnook's caliber simply should not have. Any chance this limit will go away in the future?
32
libretti Oct 17, 2015 +430
I'd like a response to the autobanning bots being utilized by /r/offmychest . I made a post in /r/kotakuinaction yesterday and received the following message (despite never posting, nor visiting /r/offmychest): You have been automatically banned for participating in a hate sublistnook. /r/kotakuinaction is known to harass individuals and/or communities, including this one. I am a bot and I cannot determine context, but you support the hate sublistnook by providing content to it. The moderators are willing to reverse the ban only if you plan to stop supporting /r/kotakuinaction. If you do not, then do not contact us.
430
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +16
I visited this sublistnook, read the sidebar and a bunch of posts, but I still dont fully understand it. I understand it's obviously gaming related. Could someone explain?
16
[deleted] Oct 18, 2015 +20
[removed]
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Outlulz Oct 18, 2015 +36
It's for Gamergate. If you don't know what that is, do yourself a favor and don't look it up. Whether you're for or against it, you'll just end up angry.
36
Paper_Luigi Oct 17, 2015 +147
You can post there to disagree or criticize the sublistnook and still get banned.
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +15
The search function is still wonky. Subs with longer names show up before subs with shorter names, even when the search query exactly matches the shorter-named sub. For example, when I search "Mid_Century", "Mid_Century_Home" is the first result, even though it is practically a dead sub, and the sub I was looking for matches my query exactly. Not a huge deal obviously, but still annoying and worth fixing.
15
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +327
[deleted]
327
[deleted] Oct 24, 2015 +7
I have left listnook for [Voat](https://voat.co/) due to years of admin mismanagement and preferential treatment for certain sublistnooks and users holding certain political and ideological views. The situation has gotten especially worse since the appointment of Ellen Pao as CEO, culminating in the seemingly unjustified firings of several valuable employees and bans on hundreds of vibrant communities on completely trumped-up charges. The resignation of Ellen Pao and the appointment of Steve Huffman as CEO, despite initial hopes, has continued the same trend. As an act of protest, I have chosen to redact all the comments I've ever made on listnook, overwriting them with this message. If you would like to do the same, install [TamperMonkey](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo) for Chrome, [GreaseMonkey](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/) for Firefox, [NinjaKit](https://github.com/os0x/NinjaKit) for Safari, [Violent Monkey](https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/violent-monkey/) for Opera, or [AdGuard](http://adguard.com/) for Internet Explorer (in Advanced Mode), then add [this GreaseMonkey script](https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/10905-listnook-overwrite-extended). Finally, click on your username at the top right corner of listnook, click on the comments tab, and click on the new OVERWRITE button at the top of the page. You may need to scroll down to multiple comment pages if you have commented a lot. After doing all of the above, you are welcome to join me on [Voat](https://voat.co/)!
7
ELI5_MODS_SUCK_ASS Oct 17, 2015 +28
Some sublistnooks are moderated very poorly. Like, very, very poorly. Will there ever be anything about it that users can do other than leave in masse? (Which I can only really think of happening in /r/atheism). Its very hard to do anything about bad moderation in especially a default sub or otherwise extremely large ones with broad and "singular" titles (I know some people have issues with askscience for example which has a very unique use on listnook). Moderators often don't have to do any work or they can do it *extremely poorly* with no control because everyone gets funneled in the sub and told its the way to go anyway. It really does damage the integrity and reputation of listnook as a serious website when default subs are run on personal opinions by mods who have clearly let the power get to them. You know you have some subs that just let a shitty bot do all their work (I coulden't guess what sub does that!) and some that ban anything political that isn't praising Bernie Sanders, and when these are extremely popular or default subs you can't simply say "Well if its bad enough everyone will leave and go somewhere else".
28
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +89
Given the recent moderation drama in /r/gaming and /r/games related to TotalBiscuit posts, does Listnook plan to implement any sort of community-based moderator policing? There have been many instances where the moderators of a sublistnook went against the wishes of the members of that sublistnook (deleting topics, silencing discussion, appointing people to act as mods against the wishes of the community) and I feel that there needs to be some sort of community oversight, especially for large subs. The tired answer of "if you don't like the moderation of a sub just create a new one) isn't a solution because it punishes the community for the actions of a mod.
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originaldemo Oct 17, 2015 +38
**Why** do shadow bans still exist? We had your assurance that it was one of the foremost things you were looking into, that that you hated the concept of it, so how come it has taken, you, the management, this long to implement something that goes so drastically against what Listnook stands for?
38
g2420hd Oct 17, 2015 +54
The search sucks...period Are there plans to re-haul this ? For example try searching "Far Cry" and "Farcry" Totally different sublistnooks available. this is only one instance that I ran into recently. I kind of was hoping that the "main" sub-listnook would be found first. Also what is up with the forced mobile sites on portable devices when I search in google?
54
PM_me_lulu_hentai Oct 17, 2015 +154
Why did you ban /r/pomf and /r/lolicons but not /r/sexwithdogs? Are you saying f****** animals isn't as bad as sexual depictions of imaginary characters? Edit: lo and behold my question goes unanswered.
154
user_82650 Oct 17, 2015 +79
It's funny, people laugh at extremist muslims for getting all offended by a drawing of a stick figure with a text that says "I'm Muhammad". But then they get all offended (to the point of *literally* sending people to jail) by a drawing of a stick figure with a text that says "I'm 6 years old".
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[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +1005
[deleted]
1005
xstreamReddit Oct 17, 2015 +76
Why is listnook still censored in Germany (/r/watchpeopledie is unreachable) even though it was proven to you that there is no legal reason to do this. https://www.listnook.com/r/technology/comments/3gynwu/listnook_is_now_censoring_posts_and_communities_on/cu32bdj?context=3 To make it clear I think this sublistnook is pretty disgusting but listnook once stood for free speech and now it stands for censorship.
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Schnabeltierchen Oct 17, 2015 +15
You can bypass it by using this link for example: /r/null+watchpeopledie Same for the comments threads Obviously your point still stands and it shouldn't happen that way
15
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +97
Why did Listnook delete all of the links to the Intercept report on the Drone Papers over the last few days? Especially as this should be one of the biggest stories in the US! One link to a wired article about it made it to the front page, but the site that actually broke the news keeps getting links to it taken down in all of the main subs. Whats up with that?
97
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +39
I think it might have to do with the mods, not admins.
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seven_seven Oct 17, 2015 +33
I just searched and found literally 30 links.
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snatchi Oct 17, 2015 +12
Steve one recommendation i'd have for these Q&A sessions is to either take more time to answer each question, or don't answer a question if you don't have something of substance to say. If you say nothing, people assume you didn't see their question or it just got lost in the shuffle. But when you give a PR answer like **"yeah we're definitely working on that, we're making progress, we're focusing on giving people the tools to X, Y, Z,"**, thats when you get the -1000 point comments that make people think the admins don't give a shit.
12
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +9
[deleted]
9
[deleted] Oct 17, 2015 +115
When will moderation logs be made public for all subs, so moderation on listnook can be transparent and accountable?
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