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Announcements Jan 28, 2016 at 6:05 PM

Listnook in 2016

Posted by spez

Hi All, Now that 2015 is in the books, it’s a good time to reflect on where we are and where we are going. Since I returned last summer, my goal has been to bring a sense of calm; to rebuild our relationship with our users and moderators; and to improve the fundamentals of our business so that we can focus on making you (our users), those that work here, and the world in general, proud of Listnook. Listnook’s mission is to help people discover places where they can be themselves and to empower the community to flourish. 2015 was a big year for Listnook. First off, we cleaned up many of our external policies including our Content Policy, Privacy Policy, and API terms. We also established internal policies for managing requests from law enforcement and governments. Prior to my return, [Listnook took an industry-changing stance on involuntary p**********](https://www.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/2x0g9v/from_1_to_9000_communities_now_taking_steps_to/). Listnook is a collection of communities, and the moderators play a critical role shepherding these communities. It is our job to help them do this. We have shipped a [number of improvements](https://www.listnook.com/r/modnews/new/) to these tools, and while we have a long way to go, I am happy to see steady progress. Spam and abuse threaten Listnook’s communities. We created a Trust and Safety team to focus on abuse at scale, which has the added benefit of freeing up our Community team to focus on the positive aspects of our communities. We are still in transition, but you should feel the impact of the change more as we progress. We know we have a lot to do here. I believe we have positioned ourselves to have a strong 2016. A phrase we will be using a lot around here is "Look Forward." Listnook has a long history, and it’s important to focus on the future to ensure we live up to our potential. Whether you access it from your desktop, a mobile browser, or a native app, we will work to make the Listnook product more engaging. Mobile in particular continues to be a priority for us. Our new Android app is going into beta today, and our new iOS app should follow it out soon. We receive many requests from law enforcement and governments. We take our stewardship of your data seriously, and we know transparency is important to you, which is why we are putting together a Transparency Report. This will be available in March. This year will see a lot of changes on Listnook. Recently we built an A/B testing system, which allows us to test changes to individual features scientifically, and we are excited to put it through its paces. Some changes will be big, others small and, inevitably, not everything will work, but all our efforts are towards making Listnook better. We are all listnookors, and we are all driven to understand why Listnook works for some people, but not for others; which changes are working, and what effect they have; and to get into a rhythm of constant improvement. We appreciate your patience while we modernize Listnook. As always, Listnook would not exist without you, our community, so thank you. We are all excited about what 2016 has in store for us. –Steve edit: I'm off. Thanks for the feedback and questions. We've got a lot to deliver on this year, but the whole team is excited for what's in store. We've brought on a bunch of new people lately, but our biggest need is still hiring. If you're interested, please check out https://www.listnook.com/jobs.
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AH_starwars Jan 28, 2016 +1421
Hi Steve. Are you looking at changing up the default sublistnooks at all, or no? EDIT: Of course the gold chain starts right after me....
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spez Jan 28, 2016 +2291
Yes. We've got our sights on the front page algorithm in general. It can be vastly improved. I'm not a fan of defaults. It puts too much of a burden on us to be tastemakers and makes it difficult for great new communities to break through.
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mannyrmz123 Jan 28, 2016 +813
Why does Spez get so much gold? Doesn't he have enough??? Edit: Thank you for sharing gold!
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spez Jan 28, 2016 +1918
It's basic economics: the rich get richer.
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cye604 Jan 28, 2016 +859
Comment overwritten, RIP RIF.
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TeaDrinkingRedditor Jan 28, 2016 +2021
A suggestion stolen from when I used Stumbleupon years ago: When first creating a Listnook account, pick 5+ categories of content you enjoy, such as science, video games, television, sports and music. This then automatically selects some of the largest sublistnooks fitting your choices to subscribe you to, and shows you various smaller ones. The default front page without an account could be /r/All, minus the NSFW content Edit: [thanks!](https://youtu.be/gSq8ZBdSxNU)
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geoman2k Jan 28, 2016 +480
I like all of this, up until the idea of making r/all into the main frontpage for people without an account. If they did that, Adviceanimals and blackpeopletwitter would be the first impression of Listnook most new visitors get.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +80
This comment has been overwritten by an open source script to protect this user's privacy. It was created to help protect users from doxing, stalking, harassment, and profiling for the purposes of censorship. If you would also like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension [TamperMonkey](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo), or the Firefox extension [GreaseMonkey](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/) and add [this open source script](https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/10380-listnook-overwrite). Then simply click on your username on Listnook, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possible (hint:use [RES](http://www.listnookenhancementsuite.com/)), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +16
yeah but people new to listnook won't have RES
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +14
This comment has been overwritten by an open source script to protect this user's privacy. It was created to help protect users from doxing, stalking, harassment, and profiling for the purposes of censorship. If you would also like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension [TamperMonkey](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tampermonkey/dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo), or the Firefox extension [GreaseMonkey](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/) and add [this open source script](https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/10380-listnook-overwrite). Then simply click on your username on Listnook, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possible (hint:use [RES](http://www.listnookenhancementsuite.com/)), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.
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will-reddit-for-food Jan 28, 2016 +365
r/funny, gifs, advice animals, atheism, gaming, and pics were what I got on my first visit to Listnook and I'm still here.
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SolenoidSoldier Jan 28, 2016 +175
Anecdotal, but I got you. There's some truth to that. Many subscribed just to get rid of defaults.
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Noerdy Jan 28, 2016 +162
slim touch encourage friendly worm quiet recognise distinct nose disarm *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev/home)*
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HurtfulThings Jan 28, 2016 +210
The fact that /r/nosleep and /r/tifu were defaults was what actually pushed me to stop lurking and make an account. Just so I could get them off of my Frontpage.
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photonasty Jan 28, 2016 +135
I'm puzzled as to why /r/nosleep is a default. Is there really that much appeal in mediocre amateur horror fiction? Most /r/nosleep stories are like the literary equivalent of direct-to-DVD found footage horror films. I'm not saying that there aren't some interesting posts on /r/nosleep; not all of it is "My Dead Girlfriend Messaged Me On Facebook: Part 52." It just seems like an odd choice to show on the logged-out front page.
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dragneman Jan 28, 2016 +72
Before it made default, it was a lot better content. Like, on the whole it was made of mostly good stories. Now that any random 10-year old could be there posting shit, they're posting what makes a child scared/what a child thinks they can pass of as the truth. Plus all the "2edgey4me" teens looking to be cool by shitting all over the fun by telling bad stories and commenting on others that "this is fake, go kill yourself" so that the mods can delete their message. It's a bunch of nonsense, a niche sub like that has no place being on the front page.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +64
Tifu is maybe the worst default on earth.
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A_Hobo_In_Training Jan 28, 2016 +100
"Hey guys, this isn't a TIFU in recent memory or any timeframe that's supposed to be posted about in this sub, but TIFU 8 years ago by taking a shit on the family dog and making it run over to my handicapped neighbour's lap. Later that day, I totally banged his hot sister and did crack and set my house on fire. Whoo boy, what a TIFU. It's totally real btw. Yeah." Either that or something sexual.
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JavelinR Jan 28, 2016 +65
Also anecdotal but r/atheism was actually what kept me away from Listnook at first. Browsing some of that content at the time gave me the impression Listnook was a site for edgy teens who like to circlejerk about how much smarter they are than everyone else.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +25
Anecdotally r/girlshavingsexwithdogs is why I started coming to listnook in the first place, the community was very tight and genuine and I appreciated that.
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matman88 Jan 28, 2016 +337
I think the biggest problem with the front page is speed. I generally sort by Top>this hour just because the "hot" front page seems stagnant all day. Maybe this is just the opinion of someone who spends too much time on here but I think the front page could use some faster turn-over.
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ChaseDPat Jan 28, 2016 +79
ooooooooo shit. I didn't even realize Top>This Hour was a thing. Usually whenever I use Top I got straight for All Time or Week, as I'm either looking for the top shit of all time, or I'm looking for something I didn't save but that I know was posted that week. This... this is going to make me even less productive at work, probably.
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jofwu Jan 28, 2016 +17
The problem with using top is that it doesn't weight sublistnooks by their size. I subscribe to some huge subs and some tiny subs. Using Top would bury interesting posts on the small ones. That's what I like about Hot. But I have the same problem as you. The Hot formula needs some changes, or to be made more dynamic.
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frymaster Jan 28, 2016 +23
As another person who's on listnook for too long each day I agree the page is stagnant, but simultaneously they have to consider people who might only view the page once a day, and want the most popular posts of the **day**, not the hour, on the front page. I have no idea how those two different viewpoints can be reconciled.
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hassium Jan 28, 2016 +98
>Top >this hour ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
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matman88 Jan 28, 2016 +36
I feel like this should be explained when you make an account.
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Reddits_Worst_Night Jan 28, 2016 +6
Whilst on one level I agree, on another, I don't. When I wake up in the morning and find that Paris was bombed just after I went to bed, I want that at the top of my front page. I'm going to go to /r/worldnews at some point soon anyway, but I'd rather see the great post from 8 hours before than the moderately alright gif from 2 hours ago.
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bunka77 Jan 28, 2016 +82
Everyone is focusing on the default part of this statement, but I'm hoping this fixes my front page from looking the same all day long. I'll see a post on the front page at lunch, and it'll still be hanging around the next morning. And "breaking news" doesn't break through nearly fast enough.
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fuzzyfuzz Jan 29, 2016 +17
OH MAN. Please make it more clear to people that they can curated and manage their own front page. I've tailored listnook to my likings and it irks me a bit when people say "that was on the front page, this is a repost". Not all of us subscribe to /r/pics or /r/funny, so the concept of "front page" always seemed flawed to me. spez++
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QWERTY_licious Jan 28, 2016 +54
Not a fan of defaults? As in getting rid of defaults in general?
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SebayaKeto Jan 28, 2016 +28
It sounds like he was proposing making the front page /r/all which would break up the default monopoly.
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Eyezupguardian Jan 28, 2016 +35
yeah creepy imo shouldn't be a default, its a bit boring
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +747
[deleted]
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spez Jan 28, 2016 +534
Our position is still that shadowbanning shouldn't be used on real users. It's useful for spammers, but that's about it. That's why we released the [better banning](https://www.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/3sbrro/account_suspensions_a_transparent_alternative_to/) tools a couple months ago, which allows us to put a user in timeout with an explanation. This helps correct behavior. Moderators can still ban users from their communities, and it's not transparent. I don't like this, and I get a lot of complaints from confused users. However, the moderators don't have a ton of alternatives. [Improving reporting with more rules](https://www.listnook.com/r/modnews/comments/42o2i0/moderators_sublistnook_rules_now_available_for_all/) is a step in the right direction. It's my desire that moderators will rely on banning less and less as we build better tooling.
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glr123 Jan 28, 2016 +554
Hi /u/Spez, can you comment on the criticism that Suspensions/Muting and the new tools have actually caused an increase in the animosity between users and moderators? In /r/science, this is a constant problem that we deal with. Muting users has done essentially the same thing as banning them has - it ultimately tells them their behavior is unacceptable, and encourages them to reach out in modmail to discuss the situation with us further. 90% of the time, this results in them sending hateful messages to use that are full of abuse. We are then told to mute them in modmail, and they are back in 72 hours to abuse us some more. We have gone to the community team to report these users, and are told completely mixed answers. In some cases, we are told that by merely messaging the user to stop abusing us in modmail, we are engaging them and thus nothing can be done. In other cases, we are told that since we didn't tell them to stop messaging us, nothing can be done. You say that you want to improve moderator relations, but these new policies have only resulted in us fielding *more* abuse. It has gotten so bad in /r/science, that we have resorted to just banning users with automod and not having the automated listnook system send them any more messages, as the level of venomous comments in modmail has gotten too high to deal with. We have even recently had moderators receive death threats over such activities. This is the exact opposite scenario that you would wish to happen, but the policies on moderator abuse are so lax that we have had to take actions into our own hands. How do you plan to fix this?
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frymaster Jan 28, 2016 +7
> Muting users has done essentially the same thing as banning them has - it ultimately tells them their behavior is unacceptable, and encourages them to reach out in modmail to discuss the situation with us further. that's the point, surely? I get that you aren't getting support with people sending abuse, but it looks like you're saying the above is a bad thing in and of itself.
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Roland_Asfert Feb 12, 2016 +5
Howdy. This is an alt for my main account /u/rasfert I created it two days ago when /u/rasfert got shadowbanned. I am a real person, I don't spam, don't do vote manipulation (don't even know how, actually), and I'm completely confused. I've tried following the instructions the nice bot at /r/Shadowban, and I've heard absolutely nothing about why I got shadowbanned or anything, and it makes me sad.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +338
[deleted]
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HowAboutShutUp Jan 28, 2016 +35
/u/spez how about a little transparency now by answering this question instead of making us wait a few months to read some half-hearted platitudes?
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Renegade_Meister Jan 28, 2016 +35
As a multi-sub mod, I believe that "[Improving reporting with more rules](https://www.listnook.com/r/modnews/comments/42o2i0/moderators_sublistnook_rules_now_available_for_all/)" is a step in a direction that is unrelated to transparency of mods banning users, although I do appreciate it as a general tool. Listnook functionality and mods can formalize rules, reporting, and AutoMod all they want, but one or both of these things need to happen to increase mod to user transparency: * Tools require disclosure of the ban reason to user - Could include a tally of deleted and reported posts or comments to the sub. Without requiring disclosure, mods *can* choose to essentially shadowban. * Mods communicate on their own with users that are on the brink of or getting banned. The muting a user for X number of days thing when sending messages to mods can help mods not be as worried about post-ban backlash.
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emmster Jan 29, 2016 +5
>Mods communicate on their own with users that are on the brink of or getting banned. This gets impractical once you're over half a million or so users, unless a semi-automated tool is introduced for it. In defaults, especially very political or contentious ones, you'd have a full time job just sending out warnings like "stop calling people racial slurs, please." Even with all kinds of nifty AutoMod tricks, high volume communities may need different things than smaller ones.
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BroodjeAap Jan 28, 2016 +23
> It's useful for spammers, but that's about it. Is it really though? Any one who can write a spam bot, can add (literally) a few lines that checks if it's shadow banned. The only users (people and bots) that are 'tricked' by shadow banning are people.
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theroflcoptr Jan 28, 2016 +248
> shadowbanning shouldn't be used on real users So why is it still being used on real users?
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mo-reeseCEO1 Jan 28, 2016 +583
there's been some recent anxiety about listnook attempting to monetize user posts through publishing. will there be a a policy addressing the kind of content that listnook might seek to publish and generate future revenue? or is it anything is up for grabs?
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spez Jan 28, 2016 +1033
Are you referring to the AMA book? That was a project started quite a while ago with the r/IAMA mods with the aim of making something physical and beautiful to show off in the real world. Proceeds from the book are going to charity, but we're still working with the charity on terms (yes, that's a thing we have to do). But if you think our best revenue idea is *making a book*, I'm a little insulted. I mean, I know we have a lot to improve on, but we'd at least sell your personal data to advertisers before getting into publishing for profit.
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Bioman312 Jan 28, 2016 +810
He mainly means the Upvoted site. Many listnookors are unhappy with listnook operating a Buzzfeed-like site to make money by increasing traffic. The main reason they don't like it is probably because it uses original content made by listnookors without permission. It's kind of like an opt-out system, but worse, because you can only ask for it to be taken down once it's already been put up and advertised. At least, that's how I understand it. I think a lot of people would be happier just ignoring Upvoted if you made sure to contact the listnookors who made the content first and got their permission before you monetize their content. EDIT: Typo
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shouldnt_post_this Jan 28, 2016 +24
I did not consent to have my posts be used for direct gain of a public corporation and am deleting all my contributed content in protest of Listnook's IPO.
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Reddegeddon Jan 28, 2016 +98
Not to mention, it gives listnook an incentive to push default subs towards mainstream-friendly, clickbaitable content. Which admittedly is what many frontpage/all/ posts have been throughout the history of the site, but it was also counterbalanced frequently by serious content as well.
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Windows_98 Jan 28, 2016 +118
I don't think it's technically without permission. If I recall correctly, the listnook TOS says they can use your posts as they please.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +33
Same with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Vine, Tumblr, etc. etc.
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gsfgf Jan 28, 2016 +30
Legally, you are 100% correct. Listnook owns all content posted here. But people don't "feel" like they've relinquished all rights, so it still pisses some people off. ^^^^As ^^^^of ^^^^January ^^^^28th ^^^^5:00 ^^^^pm ^^^^Eastern ^^^^standard ^^^^time, ^^^^I ^^^^do ^^^^not ^^^^give ^^^^listnook ^^^^or ^^^^any ^^^^entities ^^^^associated ^^^^with ^^^^listnook ^^^^permission ^^^^to ^^^^use ^^^^my ^^^^pictures, ^^^^information, ^^^^or ^^^^posts, ^^^^both ^^^^past ^^^^and ^^^^future. ^^^^By ^^^^this ^^^^statement, ^^^^I ^^^^give ^^^^notice ^^^^to ^^^^listnook ^^^^it ^^^^is ^^^^strictly ^^^^forbidden ^^^^to ^^^^disclose, ^^^^copy, ^^^^distribute, ^^^^or ^^^^take ^^^^any ^^^^other ^^^^action ^^^^against ^^^^me ^^^^based ^^^^on ^^^^this ^^^^profile ^^^^and/or ^^^^its ^^^^contents.
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ONLY_COMMENTS_ON_GW Jan 28, 2016 +31
>^^^^As ^^^^of ^^^^January ^^^^28th ^^^^5:00 ^^^^pm ^^^^Eastern ^^^^standard ^^^^time, ^^^^I ^^^^do ^^^^not ^^^^give ^^^^listnook ^^^^or ^^^^any ^^^^entities ^^^^associated ^^^^with ^^^^listnook ^^^^permission ^^^^to ^^^^use ^^^^my ^^^^pictures, ^^^^information, ^^^^or ^^^^posts, ^^^^both ^^^^past ^^^^and ^^^^future. ^^^^By ^^^^this ^^^^statement, ^^^^I ^^^^give ^^^^notice ^^^^to ^^^^listnook ^^^^it ^^^^is ^^^^strictly ^^^^forbidden ^^^^to ^^^^disclose, ^^^^copy, ^^^^distribute, ^^^^or ^^^^take ^^^^any ^^^^other ^^^^action ^^^^against ^^^^me ^^^^based ^^^^on ^^^^this ^^^^profile ^^^^and/or ^^^^its ^^^^contents. Listnook owns this now
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +61
[deleted]
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roboguy12 Jan 28, 2016 +26
That, and sites like Buzzfeed have plenty of articles and content "inspired by" (read: almost directly copied from) popular posts on listnook. I don't mind Upvoted at all; I view it as a version of Buzzfeed without the middleman.
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zang227 Jan 28, 2016 +213
>we'd at least sell your personal data to advertisers before getting into publishing for profit. http://i.imgur.com/9unfFH5.gif
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Bigbee_the_Scallion Jan 28, 2016 +142
>we'd at least sell your personal data to advertisers before getting into publishing for profit. You cheeky f*****.
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chromecarz00 Jan 28, 2016 +360
Man, that last sentence...you're really hoping the userbase has a sense of humor eh?
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jbeast33 Jan 28, 2016 +174
One of the largest sublistnooks is /r/funny... So, no. They don't.
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Spider_pig448 Jan 28, 2016 +60
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. ^^popcorn ^^tastes ^^good
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pcjonathan Jan 28, 2016 +303
> we'd at least sell your personal data to advertisers Coming back to bite you in 3...2....1....
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Aikarus Jan 28, 2016 +16
"(We) at least sell your information to advertisers..." -Listnook Admin /u/spez Brb I have to delete my submissions to midget p***
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +96
[deleted]
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ds2600 Jan 28, 2016 +13
>we^^^'d at least sell your personal data to advertisers -spez
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +12
> But if you think our best revenue idea is making a book, I'm a little insulted Well as far as I can tell nothing else listnook has tried (other than asking investors for cash) has really worked so...
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duckvimes_ Jan 28, 2016 +872
As a mod, there's been a huge increase in spam lately. Reporting spammers via r/spam seems to be hit or miss, and it's not clear if there's any way to report entire spam domains (which would make everything so much easier). Modmails and username summons in r/spam usually go unanswered. You acknowledged that there's a spam problem, but what are you planning to actually do about it?
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spez Jan 28, 2016 +348
We don't have the bandwidth to answer every summons, but we're aware of the uptick lately. Our efforts right now are to improve in a more scalable fashion. Historically, it's been a lot of one-offs and by-hand efforts, which isn't sustainable.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +177
>We don't have the bandwidth to answer every summons Listnook has a pretty small community team, improving that could also be a good step worth taking
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spez Jan 28, 2016 +155
Yes. That's what I was referring with the T&S team. We basically had one small group of people trying to do everything. Going forward it'll be better to have teams focusing on specific areas. In this case, the Community team can focus on community, and the T&S team can focus on spam and abuse. [We're hiring for both](http://www.listnook.com/jobs).
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xiongchiamiov Jan 28, 2016 +75
From [the T&S posting](https://jobs.lever.co/listnook/91d89a2e-94cc-4ddb-baf4-01470c0a3d20): > Track record of identifying and implementing improvements based on data and insights and proficient in SQL and Python. I'm glad that made it in. I firmly believe better automation is the only way to effectively scale anti-spam operations, and it's hard when engineering time has to be borrowed from other teams.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +94
Neat. Looking forward to it. ^I ^actually ^applied ^for ^the ^community ^position ^there ^the ^other ^day, ^^put ^^in ^^a ^^good ^^word ^^for ^^me.
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ZombieAlpacaLips Jan 28, 2016 +422
"Hey listnook user! You can earn a month of listnook gold by telling us if these 50 links are or are not spam. Your answers will have to match 85% of everyone else's answers in order to qualify for the credit."
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alfredonoodles Jan 28, 2016 +161
Sounds spammy. Should I report it?
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +65
[removed]
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adeadhead Jan 28, 2016 +15
I'd just like to namedrop the 'Trophy for prolific submitters to /r/spam with x thousand confirmed removals by the bot' idea
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ChrisSlicks Jan 28, 2016 +849
Hi Steve, are there any plans in place to deal with the server overload that occurs during peak hours?
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gooeyblob Jan 28, 2016 +73
We've worked on this quite a bit! The hardest thing recently has been r/nfl gameday threads, and we've done two things to try and fix that. - We've made it so we calculate the comment tree for the "new" sort by [just using comment IDs](https://github.com/listnook/listnook/commit/46d7fa2a4a3c2b880235f98e51f4f043e2c7afd2) instead of looking up extra information about each comment and using that information to sort. This is particularly useful for r/nfl, as their gameday threads are always set to a default sort of new. - We're replacing our entire Cassandra ring with bigger servers and better networking. We're about halfway through and hope to be done before the Sports Event.
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ProbablyRickSantorum Jan 29, 2016 +5
From what I have been led to believe, threads with over 10,000 comments start to cause issues. In /r/CFB we sliced our three playoff games into quarters and locked each thread with a stickied mod comment leading to the next quarter's thread. Does doing that help alleviate the issue?
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spez Jan 28, 2016 +559
Yes. We're making steady progress. We've made a couple of solid new hires on that team as well.
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PipBoy808 Jan 28, 2016 +937
[Some of the hefty new hardware that has gone in since Steve rejoined](http://i.imgur.com/lLHNJGv.jpg)
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skyskr4per Jan 28, 2016 +169
You are now a moderator of /r/Latvia
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thoag Jan 28, 2016 +64
No. You are confuse. Never is potato. Only despair. Server cannot run on despair. Is why Listnook function as if were starving donkey. Such is life.
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hassium Jan 28, 2016 +36
I thought that was the Imgur server?
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +62
[deleted]
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monopanda Jan 28, 2016 +470
>We created a Trust and Safety team to focus on abuse at scale, which has the added benefit of freeing up our Community team to focus on the positive aspects of our communities. We are still in transition, but you should feel the impact of the change more as we progress. We know we have a lot to do here. So in a community where a lot of debate and back and forth happen how do you feel you will be able to separate abuse and threats vs hot headed argumentative people who can't seem to just hug it out?
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adeadhead Jan 28, 2016 +174
>A/B testing system Are different users experiencing different versions of listnook without their input? EDIT: A/B testing explained in this [new admin post over in /r/changelog](https://www.listnook.com/r/changelog/comments/434n3a/listnook_change_ab_testing_read_next/) for those who are interested.
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cooper12 Jan 28, 2016 +27
That's the whole point of [A/B testing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing). Otherwise you'd get [self-selection bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias) or [response bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Response_bias) in general. Sample sets also have to be selected at random and be representative of the population and that wouldn't work if it was opt-in. Anyway I doubt it's a whole different version of listnook, but rather small incremental changes that they want to test the effectiveness of.
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StopThePresses Jan 28, 2016 +2057
That was a lot of words to use to say that little.
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hatessw Jan 28, 2016 +299
Listnook has a history of banning users rather opaquely, such as by means of the still well-known shadowban. What will users see and not see during 2016 when the T&S team deems a user to have violated a rule?
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reseph Jan 28, 2016 +2906
>to rebuild our relationship with our users and moderators As a moderator, I'm not really sure this happened. Look in /r/ModSupport which was suppose to be a communication channel between mods and admins. The majority of the topics (which are questions) have no admin response. I have a couple topics in there from weeks ago with no admin comment. I sent a modmail to that sublistnook 7 days ago just asking if the sublistnook was still planned to be a communication tool between us mods and admins. I never got a reply. I'm losing count of all the "having major spam issues" questions in /r/ModSupport that receive no admin reply; a single response would be enough. It seems to have fallen to as little admin participation as /r/modtalk gets. I don't think I've heard a peep around what's going on with the anti-brigading tools. A year ago, listnook hired a "Community Engineer" to rebuild modmail. There are literally no signs of progress on this. Modmail is one of the most important things for us moderators; even having an acknowledge/resolved button would be fantastic. /r/snoogaming (created by an admin) remains abandoned by the admins with us moderators trying to pick up the slack. I had to pull teeth like no tomorrow to get a basic answer on what the future of this was from an admin perspective. This was before you returned though I think. I barely hear anything from the admins nowadays. I get replies on /r/listnook.com PMs when I contact them about ban evasion, but I got replies like that 2 years ago so things are as they were. In the same light, AlienBlue was taken over by listnook recently and seems to be dead in the water. There is an error topic [stickied](https://www.listnook.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/3zrckp/bug_i_am_getting_this_error_almost_daily_since/) and has been for 3 weeks. No fix nor admin comments in the last 20 days. Not only that, but with listnook.com owning the app now the admins developing that app don't seem to be staying on top of their own listnook changes. I don't believe the new sublistnook rule system (which was in beta for a while) is even implemented on the app? And as a moderator, sublistnook rules being front and center on mobile is very important to us. If listnook is developing a new system like that, don't you think it should be implemented into AlienBlue in parallel? I'm not trying to pick on individual admins, scenarios or people. I am trying to show a pattern that is not changing. listnook is a *professional business*. It's very concerning. There are good things, like the new sublistnook rules system (although it's limited to 10 rules only) and sticky comments. But communication doesn't seem improved. It's not the end of the world, it's just things don't feel different outside new mod features.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +896
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +313
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[deleted] Jan 29, 2016 +38
> How does it feel to watch /r/nottheonion upvote shit that would never appear in the onion and completely ignore articles that would? One of the difficulties of listnook is that it requires an active and strong moderator team - and a userbase that understands how things work. The job of the moderator is, among other things, to be the gatekeeper for the sublistnook's charter: Removing submissions that shouldn't go there. Then, the users should upvote/downvote what they think is good. Now, one problem is a lot of listnookors disagree with the above. "Mods shouldn't remove things!" - but that just means things that appeal to quick browsers and the lowest common denominator will get upvotes. And people don't pay attention where things are submitted, only what they like on their frontpage, so they'll upvote whatever. That's one way a sublistnook goes to hell - any sublistnook. But it is also very difficult to mod a sublistnook like /r/nto just because what's oniony is EXTREMELY subjective. Countless times when was still head mod, but had brought on a mod team to help, one of us would remove something; the OP would invariably complain, and we'd discuss. Surprising how often mods disagreed with each other on what was oniony. Add to that that nobody's perfect, being a moderator on listnook is extremely difficult as far as presenting a united front and acting consistently is concerned, and the fact that most OPs think their submission is the shit, that's why they submitted it, why are you censoring me.............. Add to that a bit of sheer luck or unluck... and one final ingredient: Submissions go live immediately unless they hit the spam filter. So mods are always looking at live submissions and removing ones that don't fit (in a perfect world) - but meanwhile, people have already seen "Hey, THAT one was submitted!" and might not see the removal later........... It's a perfect shitstorm that generates understandable complaints. That being said, for all listnook's faults, there's still a hell of a lot of good here.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +143
Cursing will get you banned from that sub now, btw. Don't ask why or be purmabanned. It was my highest comment karma earning sub too :-/
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Reddisaurusrekts Jan 29, 2016 +109
> Cursing will get you banned from that sub now, btw. You're kidding me. This is "Nottheonion", based on the Onion which basically revolve around irreverence and shock humor. What the actual f***.
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CharChar12 Jan 29, 2016 +70
You are now banned from /r/nottheonion
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GamerGateFan Jan 29, 2016 +8
> I don't think I've heard a peep around what's going on with the anti-brigading tools. There was a /r/defaultmods leak about brigading tools, the conversation occurred a few months ago but was the last communication on the subject: https://www.listnook.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/3zr7ui/rdefaultmods_leak_so_what_would_anti_brigading/ ---- In other and more recent news: If you look in your browser cookies (for firefox go to about:preferences#privacy click cookies and type listnook in search) and look for the cookie name _recent_srs . This is a recent addition. You'll see it contains data in the format of t5_yae59z%2Ct5_z33dbe . The t5 stands for sublistnook id, it is followed by a sequence of letters and numbers which is the internal identifier for a sublistnook, and %2C is code for a comma that separates the items. The cookie name itself stands for recent sublistnooks and tracks the last few sublistnooks you have visited. How it will be used/misused is up to your imagination.
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redditsuckmyballs Jan 28, 2016 +77
They just want to provide the illusion of feedback, they don't care. All they want is to increase the userbase by whatever means necessary, to monetize listnook.
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GammaKing Jan 28, 2016 +6
> As a moderator, I'm not really sure this happened. Look in /r/ModSupport which was suppose to be a communication channel between mods and admins. The majority of the topics (which are questions) have no admin response. I have a couple topics in there from weeks ago with no admin comment. I sent a modmail to that sublistnook 7 days ago just asking if the sublistnook was still planned to be a communication tool between us mods and admins. I never got a reply. I'm losing count of all the "having major spam issues" questions in /r/ModSupport that receive no admin reply; a single response would be enough. It seems to have fallen to as little admin participation as /r/modtalk gets. To my knowledge this is because they now give most of their attention to mods of the default subs. There's a growing divide in the level of communication received for default vs general moderators. To some extent I can understand the need to pander to larger communities, but many of us mod subs with hundreds of thousands of users and if anything communication has got worse.
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fyreNL Jan 28, 2016 +162
Hi Steve! Could you explain a bit on what this Trust and Safety team is about and what they do? Thanks for the update!
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kicktriple Jan 28, 2016 +76
This is the important one. Trust and Safety team sounds like its ripe for abuse if there are not transparent rules on how it affects listnook.
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mcopper89 Jan 29, 2016 +3
The fact that they need a trust and safety team means that they already have a trust and safety issue. But I don't think this is a recognition of that issue as the users see it. Users don't trust them because good employees are cut lose and employees who are outspoken supporters of the sort of free speech trampling agendas that people fear represent the listnook administration take their place. People don't trust listnook because they have banned ideas and said they would only ban actions and failed to produce reason to believe that the alleged actions were committed. And if committed why other known offenders of such actions have not had the same application of the poorly constructed "rules". People don't trust listnook because they will enforce rules about brigading without ever defining brigading, and leaving it open to whatever interpretation suits them. What they think is that users don't trust listnook because listnook has too much riff raff that needs to be silenced so that the people can feel secure without dissent.
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kerovon Jan 28, 2016 +411
It does seem like the Listnook community has become more bitter and divided, with some groups actively protesting against moderators and large communities. Do you have any plans to try to address the gap between groups like moderators and sublistnookcancer/undelete?
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BradC Jan 28, 2016 +33
I wonder if there will ever be a practical, realistic solution to this. With any large group of people, you're going to have opinions all over the place. When a sublistnook gets large enough and then one "side" gets vocal enough, something's going to have to give. And things probably aren't going to get much better as the listnook community grows. It's a very real problem, and I hope some people a lot smarter than I are working on what can be done.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +134
I propose a cap on how many sublistnooks a single email-verified account can moderate.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +44
No one person should mod more than one default much less a multi million user sub of any kind.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +379
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imclone Jan 28, 2016 +642
Is it just me or does this seem pretty blank? It does not seem like much advancement will be happening in 2016?
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +83
Not much except more fake pornstar AMAs and more advertising!
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Mini_True Jan 28, 2016 +36
Pretty low signal to noise ratio there.
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TheOtherCumKing Jan 28, 2016 +12
> It does not seem like much advancement will be happening in 2016? If they can actually provide a good mobile experience, I think that would be a huge step forward for Listnook.
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Reddegeddon Jan 28, 2016 +13
Listnook has many good mobile experiences, none of which are provided by the company itself. And honestly, I'm okay with that. That said, coming to iOS from Android, Alien Blue has a horrid interface compared to Relay. Eventually settled on Narwhal.
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CatNamedBernie4Karma Jan 28, 2016 +608
Would be nice to have some sort of accountability for *mods* who consistently *abuse* their positions, *especially when they do it for the sake of being able to do it in the first place.* (Looking at you, "Mr.666") 90% of them are great! In fact, I've not had any personal encounters myself that were anything other than respectful. I'm referring to some very, very toxic examples that can be seen sprinkled throughout the communities at any given time.
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Adamapplejacks Jan 28, 2016 +32
This 100%. Mods have been out of control lately, banning people because they disagree with them as opposed to any actual violation of the rules. There should be some system in place to report mods to the admins. The mods with the most reports should obviously be subjected to scrutiny at the very least, and a ban from being a moderator as a last resort if they don't get the point. The same thing is done with users, so why not mods?
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BranWendy Jan 29, 2016 +4
Agreed. I'm pretty offended by the idea that certain subs will auto ban you from posting if you post in another sub those mods don't like. For instance, offmychest bans anyone who posts in tumblrInAction. This is insane. It doesn't even matter if your comments are innocuous, if you post, you're banned, you will be abused and silenced by mods if you ask why. Absolutely unbelievable abuse of power.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +41
Can confirm. I've been banned, called an idiot, faggot, n*****, etc, I've been personally attacked by entire groups of mods from certain subs....and that's really just scratching the surface. A better way to report and actually see some kind of action regarding mod abuse would be pretty nice...
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mycouchpulledout Jan 28, 2016 +51
Can we start posting cat pics/videos in 2016?
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +313
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jsmooth7 Jan 28, 2016 +22
It's crazy that you can be a top mod of a sublistnook with millions of subscribers and all you have to do to hold onto your position is log in once a month or so, and you don't even have to do any moderating!
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Doctorphate Jan 28, 2016 +14
That will always be the case as long as anyone and everyone can create their own sub. If that sub becomes popular and some immature d*** head is the mod, it'll be shitty.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +517
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[deleted] Jan 29, 2016 +45
Seeing how this comment was linked to SRS and you're still standing with 225% more upvotes than when the comment was linked; and seeing how Spez is standing in more downvotes too then I'd argue that SRS isn't brigading. Actually, looking at all their posts (they post the number of upvotes or downvotes at the time) I've yet to see a any posts manipulated. I see one of their linkings, see that they say the user is at 150 upvotes and then check back a few hours later to see that user is at 290 upvotes. Unless they're upvoting comments instead of downvoting, or unless there is a far far more powerful anti-SRS going around and canceling out everything SRS links then I'd say there's no brigading going on. Some harassment I can see, just as back in the days of TiA blogs featured there would get sudden spikes of hateful anons. Some vote manipulation in the old days I can see, but from my experience they're not brigading. Unless their sublistnook is a elaborate front and they've installed a computer virus to show every single one of those postings as not being brigaded to hell then they're not brigading. Look for yourself, /r/shitlistnooksays and count the votes yourself.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +110
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devilmaydance Jan 29, 2016 +23
In the first post he's clearly referring to brigading in general, not SRS specifically.
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Scorch8482 Jan 28, 2016 +151
Anyone else feel like this was the year listnook became less of a community, and more of just another facebook of sorts? I remember when I first joined listnook three years ago, there were a ton of key users on this site who would post frequently, would have gifs/tags to distinguish themselves as karma whores or what have you, and most would add something to a post. Im not talking just about novelty accounts either. Just guys that were around enough to make listnook comments more interesting. Now, everything is predictable. Not that it was difficult to predict a cute cat video going to the top in the past, but now it just seems mainstreamed. There aren't any posts that seem "legendary" anymore. No AMA's of people drawing sex positions of a guy with two dicks. No Tom Cruise threads. No "I have a request" threads. Shit I cant even find those on the smaller subs I frequent. Im not being specific, I just want some more flavor that would remind me that listnook is a community rather another vent of pop-social culture. Its for these reasons that I no longer browse the Front page. I don't even look in AMA's anymore, because they're all dry af. Interesting and different threads no longer make it to the top. What happened?
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Tin_Whiskers Jan 28, 2016 +259
Spez, I've got one. Are there plans to initiate a sort of "Mod Code of Conduct"? There are increasing problems with Mods of certain sublistnooks banning users from posting/commenting not based on the user's behavior in their sub, but rather the fact that the user posted or commented in completely unrelated subs that that Mod doesn't personally like. So, a user can get a message banning them from r/durpadurp because the mods of r/durpadurp noticed that said user also posted or commented on something in r/hurpahurp, and r/hurpahurp just makes them sad. Despite the fact that in most cases I've seen people speak of, it doesn't appear that our example user broke any of r/durpadurps's rules or misbehaved there. The mods of some of these subs are engaging in thought and speech policing outside of their subs. If Listnook is serious about putting on its big boy pants and maturing as a platform, you're really going to need to create a Mod policy that will prevent Mods from running their Subs as personal safe spaces, excluding users based on activities *outside of their purview.* Related to this, there needs to be a way for Listnook proper to remove Moderators who refuse to follow these basic guidelines. "Well, it's their sub" is unacceptable when you're allowing someones personal hiccups preclude open communication for capricious reasons.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +92
As an example, I used to post to offmychest a lot, and I feel I helped people out, too. My friend sent me a link to tumblrinaction - I didn't know what the sub was at the time - and I commented and lost my privileges. I think that behavior is abhorrent.
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Tin_Whiskers Jan 28, 2016 +27
I'm in the same boat. I visted that sub and was surprised to find I couldn't reply to a user's post I felt I had something relivant to add to. And then, hilariously, the mods there added "and you can't create a *new* username to side-step our ban or we'll get you blocked from the *whole site!*" No, that's not how it works. Not at *all*. Damn right I made a new user just for a few subs moderated by people who seem to need an adjustment or enforcement of Mod Etiquette. I'll respect the rules of a sub and post or reply in ways I think adds to the conversation, but I'm not going to sit by and be silenced because I said something in a totally different place they didn't like. It occurs to me that this is very much like the current debate on companies potentially watching their employees and punishing them for holding views counter to the employer. It's similar, at least.
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GammaKing Jan 28, 2016 +70
We've spoken to the admins about this, they refuse to do anything. Our main angst with the bot OMC is using is that the messages being sent effectively try to threaten TiA users into leaving our sub. Apparently that's an acceptable (mis)use of the tools. Might as well tag /u/Spez here, I like the l******.
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MisterWoodhouse Jan 28, 2016 +23
[moddiquette](https://www.listnook.com/wiki/moddiquette) has existed for a while and says not to do exactly what you want a mod code of conduct to say not to do.
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Nathan2055 Jan 28, 2016 +7
I love how \u\theymos has broken practically all of those rules on /r/bitcoin and friends and yet the admins still refuse to do anything despite precedent on other sublistnooks.
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Tin_Whiskers Jan 28, 2016 +32
Then perhaps this is a problem of enforcement?
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Zombies_hate_ninjas Jan 28, 2016 +416
>Listnook took an industry-changing stance on involuntary p**********. Could you and the rest of the admin team please stop with this ridiculous and intellectually dishonest self aggrandizement? Listnook is in fact not a socially progressive stimulator of social change. It is a corporate control business entity that made such a change to increase it's public reputation and also limit it's exposure to litigation. I support the change in policy, it is the right thing to do. But such a change wasn't precipitated by a deep sense of social correctness, it was the result of several changes in law and a general agreement in the media as a whole. We as a community don't like when the Admins try and pull the moral high ground. It's unnecessary and it doesn't come off as truthful. If the admin team could change anything in the next year, stopping the constant need to justify listnook through such unnecessary constructs as moral rightness; would be a good start. I feel the admin team has lost touch with it's community. This is but one example of it. Sorry if I came off as a d***, but this is how I feel.
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Aweq Jan 28, 2016 +45
Yeah, this is just so obviously bullshit. Go to any of sublistnooks that feature some form or other of amateur naked women. Like hell the vast majority of those women wanted their pictures floating around on the internet, but since they're not celebrities nobody is going to care.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +18
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K_Lobstah Jan 28, 2016 +19
Obviously not everyone would agree, but I've been happy with the steady stream of new tools, fixes and features for moderating. So thank you and thank you to the team responsible for developing these tools, for sticking to your word on that. One thing I was curious about was the on-boarding process for new listnook accounts. At some point, this was a project being worked on by a few admins that involved a really snazzy looking UI with some basic info. However, I understand it was put on the back-burner to deal with the more imminent issues facing listnook admin (Blackout 2015 never5get). Will this come back into the pipeline at some point this year? I honestly believe that presenting a new user with even just a *brief* overview of basic listnook standards, rules, and etiquette would make a world of difference for everyone who uses the site on a daily (hourly, minutely?) basis.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +42
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +23
They fired Victoria and subsequently botched several AMA's. The reputation and impact of AMA's has been irreparably damaged as a result.
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ZombieAlpacaLips Jan 28, 2016 +288
**For those concerned about privacy:** if you want to delete your old comments, you need to edit them to "#" instead of deleting them. Listnook does not actually delete comments when you ask them to, it just hides them from everyone except Listnook employees and probably government requests. Listnook does not store revision histories for comments, so editing it will remove the previous version from Listnook's servers.
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Fuzzwy Jan 28, 2016 +27
Wow, I didn't know that; thanks for the tip. I think that this should be clearly stated, as I don't recall reading about that anywhere. (Maybe when you click 'delete' and it asks if you're sure, it tells you that this function only *hides* the message from other users, and a copy is saved to Listnook's servers). On a side note, when a message is deleted by the moderators, is that removed from the server as well?
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ZombieAlpacaLips Jan 28, 2016 +30
It's common practice to not actually delete things that the user asks to delete, so I doubt that anyone but an admin can actually delete anything on listnook.
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cfuse Jan 28, 2016 +6
There are so many other repositories of that data on the web that it will take more than a simple edit to get rid of it. Once something is in the public domain on the internet you have to assume that it will be there forever. Only boring content disappears, the more contentious or salacious it is the more it will be mirrored.
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BaconZombie Jan 28, 2016 +21
It does not remove the comment from any backups.
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ZombieAlpacaLips Jan 28, 2016 +30
True, but it makes it harder to find. If listnook doesn't have a backup, they're going to have to figure out who else has a copy and subpoena them. If you don't want something you write to be read in a courtroom, don't post in on the internet.
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healydorf Jan 28, 2016 +560
AMAs, while still pulling in quite a lot of upvotes/comments, seem pretty gutted compared to what they were prior to Victoria being let go. Is this something you guys have recognized, or am I not seeing the whole picture? EDIT* /u/allthefoxes was kind enough to point out [this job posting](https://jobs.lever.co/listnook/c7a3a40b-c407-4d58-a676-6203cde892bb)
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +170
Listnook is currently hiring a communication assistant to help with those kinds of things. ^^^edit: ^^^which ^^^I ^^^applied ^^^for ^^^so ^^^don't ^^^even ^^^think ^^^about ^^^it.
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TheMagnificentJoe Jan 28, 2016 +307
You know who would be *perfect* for that? Victoria.
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dvidsilva Jan 28, 2016 +26
Nooo Victoria works at my coworking space and without her I wouldn't get my fix on rare memes and funny gifs.
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IAMA_BAD_MAN_AMA Jan 28, 2016 +191
Nah, that'd be like some dumb b**** in a lifetime movie going back to her abusive ex. Victoria's on to bigger and better things.
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_The-Big-Giant-Head_ Jan 29, 2016 +16
"News" subs such as /r/worldnews are anything but news as they are very heavily brigaded http://i.imgur.com/ubmYGe6.png and MODs don't seem to be the one in charge. Before every other post was about Muslims after that it was ISIS after that refuges and today 9 posts about the Iranian leader and the holocausts. The postings are very heavily manipulated and it is pointless for your average listnookor to say anything at all without getting heavily downvoted. Do you have any plans to remedy this anomaly.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +452
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +272
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Crash_Bandicunt Jan 28, 2016 +22
I just got off work. They are enforcing a new no cell phone policy today so I didn't get to be on Listnook. Come home and see this thread thinking oh cool lets see what is happening. After skimming it and reading comments it seems like I'm in a typical meeting with my boss just saying all this big changes and fluff.
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provoko Jan 28, 2016 +265
What's up with all the censorship in r/worldnews and r/videos? Basically mods just delete a post or auto-hide posts that are NOT against the rules. It's so bad that there's a sublistnook designed solely to show you what the front page looks like without moderation and then link you to the articles via r/ListnookMinusMods/ And it's not just worldnews, it's every sublistnook, i'm talking about posts that get 3000 or 5000 points, this is just from today: http://i.imgur.com/Xwv8npC.png . Perhaps implement something on listnook which makes a post immutable after it reaches a certain amount of points? Of course with the exception of spam. Or even a review process, if a mod wants to hide/delete a post, have someone else review it, even a random mod in their own sublistnook, at least 2 people involved will end the dictator like style these mods are going through.
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Jobcv314 Jan 29, 2016 +12
Thank you for posting this. Really, thank you. I was banned from worldnews for seven days for posting a link to an article about the refugee crisis. I received a notice that I was banned. I messaged the mods and one responded by the name of green_flash who informed me that I was banned for posting links that had already been posted and they were opinion articles. With all due respect to the mod, he or she was either too lazy to view the link I posted or just felt like lying. Because before I posted that evening I searched, the article had not been posted before, and no article had been posted abut refugees for 15 hours. This was strange because it was a very hot issue for a few days during the summer when the crisis began being reported by every news agency. I figured worldnews deleted every single post involving migrants and refugees going back 15 hours. I mentioned that my post was from a major news organization and it wasn't opinion, it was reporting on the situation. I never got any response after that. Also my seven day ban hasn't been lifted and it's been months. I really hope worldnews pays attention to their censorship issues. Because they've had one article written about them already. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/26/female-refugee-centre-worker-killed-by-migrant-listnook-moderators-censor-story/ And since I tried to mention the article in /Europe tonight and received an auto response that all posts about breitbart are automatically deleted by the bot, it looks like now /Europe is trying to help suppress worldnews' censorship issues. But all that just was earn them a chance to be in the next article written on breitbart.
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oldneckbeard Jan 28, 2016 +179
Are you planning to address the widespread mod abuse? For example, the drama that went on in /r/punchablefaces where a mod took it over and started banning people not just in that sublistnook, but across multiple sublistnooks they manage? I mean, it's great you're giving us these tools, but there needs to be some sort of empowerment of the regular reader as well. Too many communities are being bullied by these mods. We all have our pet theories on why nothing has been done on it up until now, but this is a long-standing issue with certain sublistnooks (like SRS and SRD) that the admin team has specifically avoided.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +27
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Rhinowarlord Jan 28, 2016 +16
I'm going to copy paste [this old comment](https://www.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/3p4shh/ceo_steve_here_to_answer_more_questions/cw36l3d) into every new /r/announcements thread until something gets done. > 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.
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DelAvaria Jan 28, 2016 +46
Any comments about sublistnooks that are under control by corporations or individuals with a financial incentive to mislead users? I am mostly refering to sublistnooks like r/rocketleague and r/leagueoflegends that have huge impact by the developers of those products. There are MANY other sublistnooks that have this problem as well. This is also a problem is other sublistnooks like a moderator deleting all mentions of a competitors product while the sublistnook owner actually sells a product that gets talked about in the sub frequently. This is a growing problem as corporations want to control how their product is viewed and more and more corporations are moderating the listnook community.
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[deleted] Jan 29, 2016 +6
"We receive many requests from law enforcement and governments. We take our stewardship of your data seriously, and we know transparency is important to you, which is why we are putting together a Transparency Report. This will be available in March." i dont even want to know how badly threw us under the bus. "Spam and abuse threaten Listnook’s communities. We created a Trust and Safety team to focus on abuse at scale, which has the added benefit of freeing up our Community team to focus on the positive aspects of our communities. We are still in transition, but you should feel the impact of the change more as we progress. We know we have a lot to do here." no you catered to whiny, self entitled hate group and said f*** you to anyone who doesnt agree with the group. when will you address the issues with your mods abusing the power provided to them and their censoring of OUR content. (which you have decided to sell on our behalf to line your wallets) F*** YOU LISTNOOK ADMINS, SERIOUSLY F*** YOU! YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH SOGGY C*** SCABS!
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +59
I got a one day suspension yesterday. I noticed a post about Amy Schumer's joke stealing had been removed from the front page, and decided to try and find out why. This led me to /r/undelete, where someone had already posted about the situation and the mod's motivation in deleting the thread (while leaving many other similar threads that weren't on the front page of /r/all alone). I read through that thread and the mod's posts on it, and decided I really didn't believe the mod had deleted the thread in good faith, and downvoted his comments on it. Not really much else I could do on it, since there is no real recourse on Listnook when it comes to Mod abuse, so I just went on with my day. When I came back from lunch my account was suspended for "brigading". So, when there are entire subs devoted to brigading, like SRS, I get suspended for downvoting a mod who was abusing his mod privileges. I contested the suspension and no one even bothered responding. I feel like the Admins are turning a blind eye to Mods who abuse their power and take down stuff on the front page because it goes against their politics or other petty reasons, and going to the other extreme of silencing people who don't like it. Wish there was a way to take back the money I spent on Listnook gold, on this account and others. I hate feeling powerless, and I hope a good alternative to Listnook comes around soon, because I don't believe the Admins actually care about these issues. /rant
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sinebiryan Jan 28, 2016 +9
Hello a nice reminder but it looked like a "Previously on listnook" kinda post rather than a future plans. I know you have a plenty of stuff working on out and you just want question so i ask only this: When will the search get some fixes? I'm tired of constantly using google to search something in listnook. I don't even want very specific detailed post or something like that. Just type "Pretty Girls" in the search and you'll see what i mean and sorry about my English if it's too hard to understand.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +1899
Is there going to be any word on why some sublistnooks that don't break Listnook rules are banned while sublistnooks that are obviously brigading/breaking the rules are not?
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allnose Jan 28, 2016 +559
Because /r/bestof is a gold fountain and ready-built good PR aggregator
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DrenDran Jan 28, 2016 +301
Honestly /r/bestof is the worst sublistnook for brigading. I mean its 'positive' brigading, but still.
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allnose Jan 28, 2016 +266
It's positive until someone in the linked thread disagrees with the lengthy [needless superlative] linked comment. Then their whole history gets slammed.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +47
[removed]
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allnose Jan 28, 2016 +53
"extremely eloquent" is a best-case scenario. Half the time you just end up seeing "thesaurus-fucked to hell."
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SpinningNipples Jan 28, 2016 +40
Throw in a lot of "f******", "shit", "bullshit" and overall pretentiousness for better /r/bestof results.
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DrenDran Jan 28, 2016 +32
This. Even if the person is wrong they usually don't deserve the quantity of downvotes that /r/bestof shits all over them.
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thefoolofemmaus Jan 28, 2016 +858
Yes, but it'll boil down to double speak that means nothing.
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uNople Jan 28, 2016 +239
The subs that get banned are the ones bringing negative press to listnook. No bad press, no ban.
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HonProfDrEsqCPA Jan 28, 2016 +15
Or the clear bias displayed by mods of default sublistnooks....or have a way to oust inactive mods that are just holding sublistnook names so other people can't use them?
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Mutiny32 Jan 28, 2016 +152
You guys are like the Google release notes of content moderation. All silent action, no explanation to what the hell is going on.
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k8seren Jan 28, 2016 +21
This is the best analogy. "Listnook 2016: Bug fixes and performance improvements"
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codsonmaty Jan 28, 2016 +95
Add back in individual upvote and downvote counts. A "t" to symbolize controversy doesn't tell me shit and I want to know if I'm at +210 and -190 or +7 and -5. It was a mistake back then and it still sucks now.
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DrenDran Jan 28, 2016 +11
I joined a bit over a year ago, and when I realized you used to be able to see both downvotes and upvotes that amazed me.
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Schnabeltierchen Jan 28, 2016 +13
You only were able to see these with RES though (and most listnook apps). But it indeed is too bad they're gone.
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sbblakey777 Jan 28, 2016 +29
Steve, why does it seem that although the soft cap limit changes were undone, posts are still staying at the top of my front page for 21-22 hours on a regular basis and getting 7000-8500 upvotes?
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +9
It'd be nice if this was fixed, I come to listnook less frequently throughout the day because everything is already viewed. I have trouble seeing important threads that should have been more towards the top by the time I see them -- the old listnook was perfect with keeping the front page fresh, now it's always stale.
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_Rowdy Jan 29, 2016 +6
/u/spez - I know i'm late to the post, but can you guys look at changing the algorithm for posts on the front page? I often see the same posts in the top 20 for 15+ hours. I know you constantly deny it, but this has not always been the case, in fact i remember a number of years ago (on another account) where it was about a 6-8hour limit. I know your argument in the past has been that one-a-day visitors benefit from it this way, but many of us are on it fairly constantly and have to trawl through /new and /all and /random to get new content. Perhaps there could be another filter for hot, such as "Hot today" and "Hot Now"?
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ravencrowed Jan 28, 2016 +53
A lot of the default mods seemingly want/demand more mod tools to make their jobs easier. Could we, (the regular users) also have tools to hold the moderators to account more easier? Transparancy logs for example?
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eatnerdlove Jan 28, 2016 +10
Hi, /u/spez sorry if I'm a little late. I've noticed an increase as of late in an increasing of individuals using mod powers to ban people automatically for using other subs. Is this an ability you plan on continuing to allow?
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evildonald Jan 28, 2016 +81
I read "We appreciate your patience while we *modernize* Listnook." as "We appreciate your patience while we **monetize** Listnook." I had to read it again to make sure you guys weren't being Freudianly honest.
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SirShakes Jan 28, 2016 +26
>We receive many requests from law enforcement and governments. We take our stewardship of your data seriously, and we know transparency is important to you, which is why we are putting together a Transparency Report. This will be available in March. The way this is grouped together makes me question if this means you're planning to increase cooperation with law enforcement. There are quite a few sublistnooks discussing/promoting very illegal things (by US law), such as drug users, sex workers, and animal diddlers. From what I understand, they're careful to toe the line in public, but I honestly don't know. Are these sublistnooks on their way out next? Are the posters there going to be at risk of having their data handed over to the authorities?
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +63
> Listnook’s mission is to help people discover places where they can be themselves and to empower the community to flourish. Haha. Good one. Did the other board members and shareholders laugh at this one? "Listnook's 2016 mission is to try and figure out a way to make some f****** money without the annoying cunts that use it kicking up a big fuss...otherwise I'll be out on my arse too" - more accurate.
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Bowwow828 Jan 28, 2016 +16
Have you considered placing a limit on the number of sublistnooks a user can moderate? It seems like control of the largest sublistnooks are being concentrated in the hands of only a few individuals. Its not uncommon to see one person have full control over 100+ sublistnooks, many of which with 100,000+ subscribers. Is there anything being planned to address this?
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scrubs2009 Jan 29, 2016 +9
Fixed: Since I returned last summer I have worked hard to rebuild the relationship we had that was messed up by our ~~scapegoat~~ new CEO. (Of course I haven't really learned anything from the experience) We have also taken great strides towards becoming massive pansies when it came to anything that exists and have gotten rid of all measures protecting your privacy (don't worry, we are preparing a detailed report of what we have done and how you can do nothing to change it). We have also decided that instead of allowing the internet to grow and change, being maintained by the moderators of individual communities we will instead institute the "play nicely" policy in which if anyones feelings get hurt you both have to go to time out until we forget about you. This of course will be overseen by our new crack team of ~~cucks~~ moderators. This was done so we could keep as much staff as possible working our sister site, ~~listnook buzzfeed~~ Upvoted, in which we take content produced by you and use it to increase our traffic and profits. Furthermore we are continuing work on our crappy mobile version and the android app that thousands will try, and 3 will keep using. As always, Listnook would not exist without you, our community, whom we consistently alienate, so thank you. We are all excited about what our net profits in the new quarter. -Steve "please don't insult our fat people" Huffman
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +12
Remove quarantines from all subs, make mods police according to actual rules instead of agendas (and require those rules to be clearly defined), welcome all content that is legal to post, do away with vote fuzzing and show the -/+ for all comments and unfuck whatever you did that A) makes the front page sit unchanged for hours and B) makes me turn my television on to get news updates because Listnook is somehow often behind the news curve now. Basically, leave it to the users to generate and promote content like was always done before and watch Listnook suddenly stop sucking so much.
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WriteDude Jan 29, 2016 +17
Thanks for taming the wild beast that was listnook. It's now safe, calm and above all, bland. In 2015, I used to click on about 80% or more of all posts. Today, I click on about 10%, and most those have no edge. Even the listed sublistnooks at the top of the page is bland. Gone are wtf, atheism, and even politics, replaced by such pulse-reducing offerings as television, mildly interesting, and aww. Cutting edge, really. No, not really. Maybe listnook should get a new name to go with its new look. I suggest "Glass of Warm Milk."
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AlwaysLupus Jan 28, 2016 +25
Hi Steve. Can we have a way to permanently opt out of listnook mobile? It's worse in literally every way compared to main site, and I'm tired of having to switch all my search results from mobile to desktop.
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[deleted] Jan 28, 2016 +12
Hi! Have ya'll noticed some sublistnooks made exclusively for spamming? [Example](https://www.listnook.com/r/fAdFic/) There are a few others which I can't find at the moment but, please look into this. Also how do I report them?
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IAmTheZeke Jan 28, 2016 +61
>I believe we have positioned ourselves to have a strong 2016. A phrase we will be using a lot around here is "Look Forward." Yeah - I wouldn't want to think about what happened last year either.
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onan Jan 28, 2016 +67
And in service of transparency, this is when you're going to bring back visible upvote/downvote counts, right?
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Broxxar Jan 28, 2016 +8
I have butt heads several times with mods about the 10% rule and self promotion. It's a really awkward rule to get around for content creators. There are some things about the rule I think need clarification: 1. What should be counted as part of the 90%? Some mods do not include comments, but should a user who comments in a sub 100 times per 1 post submission have his or her content removed? 2. Should content in other sublistnooks even be counted at all? Some mods encourage users to spam memes and cat photos to their respective subs so that the poster falls in the 9:1 ratio. Encouraging spam seems counter productive. 3. Some sublistnooks exist solely for posting OC, eg, /r/IRenderedAPic. How should these be included in the 9:1 count? The rule just seems a bit messy all around and doesn't have consistent enforcement. It would be great to hear about the future of the rule.
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alexmikli Jan 28, 2016 +6
Is there a way we can have the quarantine CSS disabled if we're subscribed to a sublistnook? I know /r/gore is so offensive and all but I would really love to view it without my eyes bleeding.
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x_minus_one Jan 28, 2016 +12
>Spam and abuse threaten Listnook’s communities. We created a Trust and Safety team to focus on abuse at scale, which has the added benefit of freeing up our Community team to focus on the positive aspects of our communities. We are still in transition, but you should feel the impact of the change more as we progress. We know we have a lot to do here. Why does it take so long for people to be hired? It seems like some of these job postings have been up forever, and I can't imagine there's a lack of good applicants. Meanwhile, we have to deal with not getting replies from the /r/listnook.com modmail and an [endless t****** of spam](https://www.listnook.com/sublistnooks/new). The new mod features are great and all, but it still feels like there's a huge lack of communication sometimes. It doesn't help that the modmail system is still a disaster and it doesn't seem like that will be fixed any time soon.
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