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Announcements Jan 30, 2018 at 6:12 PM

Not my first, could be my last, State of the Snoo-nion

Posted by spez

Hello again, Now that it’s far enough into the year that we’re all [writing the date correctly](https://www.listnook.com/r/pics/comments/7npj23/first_day_back_in_this_office_this_year_i_never/), I thought I’d give a quick recap of 2017 and share some of what we’re working on in 2018. In 2017, we doubled the size of our staff, and as a result, we accomplished more than ever: We recently gave our [iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/listnook-the-official-app/id1064216828?mt=8) and [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.listnook.frontpage&hl=en) apps major updates that, in addition to many of your most\-requested features, also includes a new suite of mod tools. If you haven’t tried the app in a while, please check it out! We added a ton of new features to Listnook, from spoiler tags and post\-to\-profile to chat \(now in beta for individuals and groups\), and we’re especially pleased to see features that didn’t exist a year ago like crossposts and native video on our front pages every day. Not every launch has gone swimmingly, and while we may not respond to everything directly, we do see and read all of your feedback. We rarely get things right the first time \(profile pages, anybody?\), but we’re still working on these features and we’ll do our best to continue improving Listnook for everybody. If you’d like to participate and follow along with every change, subscribe to r/announcements \(major announcements\), r/beta \(long\-running tests\), r/modnews \(moderator features\), and r/changelog \(most everything else\). I’m particularly proud of how far our Community, Trust & Safety, and Anti\-Evil teams have come. We’ve steadily shifted the balance of our work from reactive to proactive, which means that much more often we’re catching issues before they become issues. I’d like to highlight one stat in particular: at the beginning of 2017 our T&S work was almost entirely driven by user reports. Today, more than half of the users and content we action are caught by us proactively using more sophisticated modeling. Often we catch policy violations before being reported or even seen by users or mods. The greater Listnook community does something incredible every day. In fact, one of the lessons I’ve learned from Listnook is that when people are in the right context, they are more creative, collaborative, supportive, and funnier than we sometimes give ourselves credit for \(I’m serious!\). A couple great examples from last year include that time you all created an [artistic masterpiece](https://listnookblog.com/2017/04/18/place-part-two/) and that other time you all organized [site\-wide grassroots campaigns](https://listnookblog.com/2017/12/11/an-analysis-of-net-neutrality-activism-on-listnook/) for net neutrality. Well done, everybody. In 2018, we’ll continue our efforts to make Listnook welcoming. Our biggest project continues to be the web redesign. We know you have a lot of questions, so our teams will be doing a series of blog posts and AMAs all about the redesign, starting soon\-ish in r/blog. It’s still in alpha with a few thousand users testing it every day, but we’re excited about the progress we’ve made and looking forward to expanding our testing group to more users. \(Thanks to all of you who have offered your feedback so far!\) If you’d like to join in the fun, we pull testers from r/beta. We’ll be dramatically increasing the number of testers soon. We’re super excited about 2018. The staff and I will hang around to answer questions for a bit. Happy New Year, Steve and the Listnook team update: I'm off for now. As always, thanks for the feedback and questions.
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etr4807 Jan 30, 2018 +5566
You mention the web redesign as being the biggest project in 2018. As I'm sure you're aware, almost every site that goes through any kind of redesign also goes through a long period of everyone complaining that they just want the old site back. My question would be what plans do you have in place to ensure that the redesign is something that the overwhelming majority of users are actually satisfied with?
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +2284
We've been in testing the past few months with a few thousand users and moderators, and the feedback has been super valuable. Every week we survey the testers and invite more users. We'll expanding the beta to many more users over the next month. Subscribe to r/beta to get involved. As I mentioned in my post, in addition to bringing in more users to test, we'll be doing a series of blog posts and videos to explain what we're doing and what we're trying to accomplish. Speaking as a Listnook user, I've been using the new site nearly exclusively the past couple of weeks, and am pretty happy. We're not there yet, but Listnook is as addictive as ever. I even had to re-block it on the my laptop during working hours.
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Skorpazoid Jan 30, 2018 +302
Speaking of redesign, one thing I never see people make out, is how hard it is to pick out top-level comments. Say there is an AMA about spooky goings on, I just want the straight spook stories. But I have to try and pick out the fear nuggets from the replies. RES makes it palatable but it's still not enough.
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SlipperyFrob Jan 31, 2018 +71
You can collapse the top-level comment when you're done, and the next one will be the next readable comment.
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CrimsonKnightmare Jan 30, 2018 +890
Out of curiosity, what exactly do you think is wrong or not-optimal about the current site design? I actually think it's pretty close to perfect for what Listnook is all about (an aggregate of noteworthy internet content and original ideas/posts).
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Cryptonaut Jan 30, 2018 +152
For you and me the default site might be intuitive, but both of our accounts are several years old so we've been using it for a while. One of the admins mentioned some time ago that Listnook has an enormous bounce rate \(% of visitors who visit one page and then leave again\) and that most visitors of Listnook aren't even logged in users. A good way to improve this is to make the site more intuitive for new visitors, and with the redesign that's what they're doing. You can find some pictures online and it's definitely more in line with what a user can expect on the rest of the internet, which is good for the bounce rate. Now whether it's beneficial for Listnook in the long term to focus on acquiring more users is obviously up for debate. Facebook arguably didn't improve much for the first users by adding the last extra billion users. On the other hand, /[u/spez](/user/spez) has said that he wants Listnook to reach a 1\-billion userbase, and in addition they've doubled the amount of staff in just a year so they're going to need a lot more revenue. It's really an interesting topic and it's kind of a shame that Listnook users are so black and white about it, because there's not really an easy answer here.
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turkeypedal Jan 30, 2018 +55
This missing the fact that we all still found it rather intuitive when we were newbies, too. I admit it took me a bit to get used to clicking "comments" to see the comments, but that makes sense since the site is a link aggregator first. Other than that, it makes intuitive sense. And it's actually better laid out than most modern sites which throw in junk that distracts from the content, unnecessary white space, requires special scaling to actually fit in a window properly, and much more.
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Cryptonaut Jan 30, 2018 +30
I mean, there a lot of survivor bias here though. For every user like us, (I can't remember the exact bounce rate they stated but it was very large) there's a bunch of users who didn't sign up because they found it confusing. Not to mention that early on, Listnook's main audience were programmers (who are very technically literate) and early adopters who are good with tech in general. Chances are that group *does* find the old Listnook a bit easier to use. However if Listnook wants to reach the 1 billion mark, they have to focus on the mainstream audience who are not that literate or even motivated to learn a new interface. A lot of the vocal users on Listnook belong to this technically literate group and will complain about this dumbing down but they likely won't leave as much as new users will join because of the changes.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +55
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Cryptonaut Jan 30, 2018 +12
Such a good point! This is I think the biggest dilemma for the tech industry right now. The problem is often that a site can't turn a profit with just the early adopters, so they need to move to that mainstream appeal in order to sustain themselves. Weirdly enough it feels like the period where a site isn't profitable is usually their best era because of that (to me anyway). But since advertising only works on a large scale this is often necessary. It's also why the subscription model is getting to much more popular now because it allows the site to do well with less mainstream appeal, but I've seen that already users don't want to pay for and Netflix, and Spotify, and Amazon Prime, etc, etc.
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karmahunger Jan 31, 2018 +14
> more photos-and-videos centric This is my biggest fear with the redesign. I'm here because the site loads fast. I like that I can easily cache a few pages and read it on the plane on my phone. It's text based, I like that. I can read, I don't need a video yelling at me every time I load the page. I don't need a lot of fluff animation. All I want is to read the title of the post and user comments.
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Hrothen Jan 30, 2018 +73
> One of the admins mentioned some time ago that Listnook has an enormous bounce rate (% of visitors who visit one page and then leave again) and that most visitors of Listnook aren't even logged in users. This is only a problem if most of those visitors aren't _logged out_ users. Lots of people don't log in unless they want to comment on something.
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bradalay Jan 30, 2018 +46
I logged in to upvote this. I browse listnook >90% without logging in, mostly because I never went through the effort to personalize my subscriptions. Years later I have to be careful when I actually log in because nsfw_gifs used to be a default sub, and I have family around...
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KalenXI Jan 31, 2018 +23
> I browse listnook >90% without logging in, mostly because I never went through the effort to personalize my subscriptions. It always surprises me the number of people that do this. For me logging out means 90% of the stuff on my front page is now stuff I have no interest in. I don't think I would ever go to listnook if I couldn't filter out the defaults.
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kju Jan 30, 2018 +15
i see these statistics (visiting one page and leaving, not logging in if i dont want to make a comment) and i think, yeah that's how i use listnook, why is that wrong? i often use googles site:listnook.com/r/news water michigan site:listnook.com/r/eu4 how kill kebab functions if i want to find something specific or information on a certain topic but am not logged in, (and dont want to log in from where i'm at) afterwards ill close it because im not looking to browse listnook, im looking to reference something specific and leave
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pepe_le_shoe Jan 31, 2018 +13
All websites have huge bounce rates, that's how it's supposed to be. The internet wasn't built so we just look at one website the majority of the time.
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rube203 Jan 30, 2018 +240
Personally, I'd change the subscribed sublistnook management. A page with a simple list, unsubscribe buttons, and add to multilistnook button. The sublistnooks page has the feed with unsubscribe buttons but honestly it's a pain to get to and a side-feature on the page, plus the multilistnook difficulty. Ninja edit: But that's it. The new profile page is a pain, the rest of the current site is well designed.
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d9_m_5 Jan 30, 2018 +17
The new profile page is actually the biggest problem with Listnook atm. It's much more useful to click someone's username and see their recent posts/comments than to see one or two of their recent comments plus the post they were commenting on, what they were replying to, and a bunch of blank space. Honestly if it becomes mandatory I'll probably use this site a lot less.
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Fauster Jan 30, 2018 +95
When you click on the link text in the new site design, it redirects you to the comment page instead of the off-listnook content. This fixes the problem that 25% of listnookors read content before they vote on it, and it should get that number down to 5-10%.
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PresidentShithead Jan 30, 2018 +73
Honestly I can only imagine tampering with the design will make it worse. I remember during the big Digg migration how many of those users complained about the spartan design of Listnook and all I could think was, “that’s why the site is good!”
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +240
Are you changing the design to help listnook become more advertiser friendly? Or to make listnook more user accessible? I don't want the site to become like the mobile app, with ads every few posts.
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aYearOfPrompts Jan 30, 2018 +21
> I don't want the site to become like the mobile app, with ads every few posts. This is the redesign: https://listnookupvoted.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/aww_card.png Looks just the apps, doesn't it? So take a guess what that means in regards to similar ad structures.
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supaphly42 Jan 30, 2018 +90
As someone that's been here 11 years, it's going to be hard to see any sort of change. I certainly understand that change is needed (as a former web dev myself), but I've always loved the cleanliness and simplicity of the site. I'll definitely be subscribing to /r/beta as I'm anxious and curious what it will look like. Thanks for all your hard work here over the years!
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DiamondMinah Jan 30, 2018 +31
I honestly hate the "profile" It was nice before you could just click to any post/comment in one click. now it takes like 5
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Suppafly Jan 30, 2018 +18
> I'll definitely be subscribing to /r/beta as I'm anxious and curious what it will look like. It looks like shit.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +223
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +100
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ElagabalusRex Jan 30, 2018 +24
This is a game that Listnook, Google, Twitter, and many other web services like to play. They take decisions from designers who want to change stuff for the sake of changing stuff and then briefly "test" them in the wild so they can pretend that users actually wanted them.
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MaXiMiUS Jan 31, 2018 +8
> They take decisions from designers who want to change stuff for the sake of changing stuff I don't think even the designers want to change stuff. They just want job security, and appeasing investors by making pointless "social media" changes does that. If it was actually about improving the user experience the community already beat them to the punch years ago with RES.
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AltimaNEO Jan 30, 2018 +332
He makes a good point, though. Don't want Listnook to go the way of digg after their site redesign.
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Tonamel Jan 30, 2018 +146
The problem with the Digg redesign wasn't the site layout, it's that they changed their voting algorithms (including total removal of downvoting) in a way that ensured only corporate posts made it to the front page.
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Blyd Jan 30, 2018 +158
No they removed all of the comment sections. They entirely misunderstood their community, they thought people want another social news aggregator when what we want to do is argue about cats and trump.
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Tonamel Jan 30, 2018 +38
Ah, yeah. I just remember that I left because I was no longer seeing any posts by random users.
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Brostafarian Jan 30, 2018 +74
I don't feel very reassured. In response to the very realistic fear that the site redesign will be bad, you offered that: 1. You like it, so it might still be good 2. You're going to write some blog posts about it 3. You are having it beta tested None of those things are particularly exemplary, nor do any really ensure that the changes made are going to be positive. Beta testing does not guarantee that the changes will be well-received, not even because your beta group doesn't represent the userbase at large, but because your team already has a bias towards the redesign since you've spent so much time and effort on it. If the redesign is anything like the profile pages colored me very, very worried.
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Lord_Cronos Jan 30, 2018 +13
It's worth pointing out that the beta group and user testing with people who aren't current listnook users is incredibly valuable. A goal of the redesign is to bring in more users and one of the big things that stands in the way of that is the current design of listnook. It has a crazy steep learning curve compared to other social or content platforms. Some of the changes have to be geared towards making it more usable for new people. Some of that is going to upset the old people. That's not to say they can ignore the usability for existing users, but simply that it's not the only concern. It's also worth mentioning that listnook comments and upvotes are not reliable or particularly useful user research survey techniques. I don't know if they have a UX researcher on the team or not, but if they do, and if there's buy in into the process, they're definitely listening to all kinds of different users.
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Suppafly Jan 30, 2018 +16
Beta users almost universally hate every change the want to make. They are making changes that the admins and the advertises want, not improving the user experience.
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ElagabalusRex Jan 30, 2018 +70
I see that Listnook has been infected with the "Google Disease" where perfectly good interfaces have to be broken in order to appease the designers. I pray that websites will at least give us the option of using their legacy UIs.
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dezmd Jan 30, 2018 +87
Speaking as a Listnook user, that'll be a hard NO. Don't Digg your own grave here. The new profile page is bad. It's horrifically bad. HORRIFICALLY BAD. Facebook bad. And, side note, if you're blocking listnook, while you're working at listnook, why are you working at listnook?
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HonkHonk Jan 30, 2018 +28
I'm here because of the Digg 2.0 fiasco of Summer 2010. Please don't repeat their mistake.
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BishamonX Jan 30, 2018 +2871
The only request I want to make is to please add a dark mode into the new upcoming layout natively without needing RES or any addon. Love dark mode on the app, would love to have it on desktop as well. If you do it, I'll totally add a trophy to your profile. I don't know how, but I will think of something. Other than that, keep up the great work.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +2438
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Zmodem Jan 30, 2018 +26
Great thing, but f*** that. Listnook needs a search bar on your profile page, and it needs it 8 years ago. Sort by only goes so far. I want to know what I've posted, on, say, /r/politics within the past, hrm, 8 months. I also want to know the comments I've made as well, and I want them sorted by: date (old->new). I'd also like to know the posts where I'm OP, and I'd like to filter the results that only contain the word "covfefe". Why is this not there yet?
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BlatantConservative Jan 30, 2018 +724
>I’m particularly proud of how far our Community, Trust & Safety, and Anti-Evil teams have come. We’ve steadily shifted the balance of our work from reactive to proactive, which means that much more often we’re catching issues before they become issues. I’d like to highlight one stat in particular: at the beginning of 2017 our T&S work was almost entirely driven by user reports. Today, more than half of the users and content we action are caught by us proactively using more sophisticated modeling. Often we catch policy violations before being reported or even seen by users or mods This is a lot of words, but I don't know what they mean. Are you talking about spam, brigades, doxxing, bots, or what?
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +475
All of those things, yes, with a particular focus on PM harassment last year. This year our focus will be reducing the amount of noise in our reporting system so that the reports moderators and we see will be much more useful.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +1150
Spez, You absolutely HAVE TO do something about mod abuse. It is mentioned in these threads time and time and time again, yet the same old answer is always regurgitated. Mods are banning folks, given no reason for the ban, then they cry to the admins when the user "PMs them too much", **even if its just asking why they were banned**. Doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to you? Mods can be power tripping morons who ban whoever they want, and all they have to do is ask you to give the person a temp ban to shut them up? Because it is "considered harassment" to message them anymore? Sounds like an out for them to not have to deal with shit. Not a really good look for Listnook. At all. Your continued silence on this is absolutely deafening. Honestly, at this point I don't care what you do, but you have to do something. Mods are way too powerful and there is little consequence to hold them in check. Its absolutely asinine and its going to start making Listnook hemorrhage users. Nobody wants to deal with this anymore. edit: No response, big shocker. Also, it looks like someone really got their feelings hurt by my post and pretty much validated my point: https://i.imgur.com/hT9Tblr.png And I'm immediately muted so I have absolutely zero chance to ask why I was banned (hint: there is no reason. The mod somehow felt offended by my post here and decided to ban/mute me. Yikes, what an absolute embarrassment u/spez). This is what I am talking about u/spez. You have subs with hundreds of thousands of users being run by toddlers. Is this really what you want people to think of when they think of Listnook? Angry children as mods?
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bluestarcyclone Jan 30, 2018 +85
Yeah, this does get a bit ridiculous at times. I got banned from one sub with no warning for something innocuous. When i PMed to ask why i was banned, i got sent a link to their rules, under a section that i did not violate. I asked 'what exactly was wrong here', and they moved the ban to a permaban, and muted my account. I had an alt, so i PMed once more something along the lines of 'really, you won't even have a reasonable discussion about this?' and they reported the accounts to listnook admins and they both got 1 week suspensions.
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SirNarwhal Jan 30, 2018 +408
I'm literally banned from the sublistnook for a band I do work for because the mods are f****** idiots that got upset that we told them to politely please remove the links to a leaked track's download. This site is hilarious with mod abuse.
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porn_is_tight Jan 30, 2018 +107
so let me get this straight, you got banned by a sub thats dedicated to the band that you are in (do work for)? Haha perfect example of mod abuse. I once got banned by r/conspiracy because i was very vocal against a certain aspect of that sublistnook (the antisemitism and the rising trump support) and one of the mods who is a blatant anti semite and holocaust denier banned me, but i knew one of the other mods who is an impartial good mod over there and he looked into it and reinstated me after realizing how ridiculous it was. Especially the excuse the one mod used as to why he banned me. I know r/ conspiracy gets a bad rap here because the briggading it gets from trump supporters but there's enough people there as well who are there for the general conspiracies and the anti-government vibe over there who fight back just as hard against them including me. But it was especially bad during the election and immediately before and after. Edit: Shit like this https://www.listnook.com/r/conspiracy/comments/7se566/pence_making_america_great_again_in_israel_again/dt4917l/
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[deleted] Jan 31, 2018 +32
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PizzaDeliverator Jan 30, 2018 +169
They wont do shit. Mods do a lot of work for Listnook - for free. Listnook doesnt want to piss off Fatsy McVirgin, because Fatsy McVirgin does work that equals a full-salary job. Have you checked the /r/worldnews mods? Some of them post every hour every day. They have absolutly no existence outside of Listnook, how much money would you have to pay a normal guy for a job that time consuming?
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ShitInMyCunt-2dollar Jan 31, 2018 +25
And /r/worldnews mods keep breaking their own rules. No internal US news is ignored by them, all the time.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +67
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LiterallyKesha Jan 31, 2018 +28
> There NEEDS to be a system of removing Mods by request of the community. Hmmm. This can't possibly go wrong. The average listnookor is easily riled up and it's almost guaranteed that there is going to be a shitstorm over trivial things in the future if this is let through. Listnook comments can't get facts right concerning meta issues who is giving the whole website voting power going to make that any better?
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stevean2 Jan 31, 2018 +9
The problem with this is there needs to be a reasonable limit on what the vote would be to remove a mod by request of the community. Listnook is one of the largest places i've ever seen circlejerking grow. You get your opinion censored and hidden for having an opposing, non-offensive view. Now imagine if you were doing your job and someone formed a hate mob against you, appealing to listnook's circle jerking nature? goodbye mod status.
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Sephrick Jan 30, 2018 +1276
Can the web version in mobile f*** off with reverting back from desktop view every time I visit the page? Used to be I requested desktop once on a new device and I was good to go. Now I get an ad and a mobile layout every time I load the front page. Why do tech companies have to fix what isn’t broken?
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +767
We can't fix things if we don't break them first! But seriously, I know it's annoying. We're going to redo all that.
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Sephrick Jan 30, 2018 +639
Sorry for the harsh language. Woke up to a death in the family and I’m processing it in weird ways that’s not me. You don’t deserve that sort of ire.
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waldo_wigglesworth Jan 30, 2018 +7683
Please stop trying to make me use your mobile site with it's persistent nagging about the Listnook app. I hate that I have to keep enabling Desktop mode to bypass that garbage.
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Forricide Jan 30, 2018 +501
Yeah, the 'ad' for the mobile Listnook app literally takes up half the screen and makes the mobile site unusable. The best part is when something literally won't load in the Listnook app (which can be very slow sometimes) and I need to swap over to the browser version *just because* of the app's deficiency, and it takes longer to load because I have to bypass a massive 'view in the app because you deserve it' thing.
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whats8 Jan 30, 2018 +62
And what about the deceitful phrasing for the "CONTINUE" and "go to mobile site" buttons.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +18
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +2641
Agreed. I think I responded to this elsewhere: we are going to take a another pass at this.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +1227
If you dismiss the 'get listnook mobile' button, add an option like 'never ask me again on this device' that users can click, and then re-enable if they wish on the main listnook preferences page. The mobile site is horrid, has no css, and I just use desktop on mobile anyway. Don't think I'm alone.
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Drunken_Economist Jan 30, 2018 +980
There actually is an option for that! In the hamburger menu (top-right), click the option labeled "Ask to open in app" to toggle it on or off: https://i.redd.it/ycdcx8o5j9d01.png
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bedsuavekid Jan 30, 2018 +763
Yes, but look. If a user has responded to the site-covering popup by managing to click the tiny "proceed to the mobile site" link, it's safe to assume they don't want to use the app. Prompting them immediately to install the app on their first click is rage inducing. Making them go through a sandwich menu to turn that shit off is even more so. Plus, if they use listnook in P*** Mode, the setting to make the prompts go away is never saved. You have to go through that shit every. goddamn. time. For myself, I uninstalled the app when it auto-played a video advert. The fact that it used premium mobile data to do so is besides the point, I would have uninstalled it if it did it on wifi, too. The mobile version does not auto-play video ads.
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[deleted] Jan 31, 2018 +86
They're listening carefully and will make sure the mobile site auto-plays video ads very soon.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +16
I may just be misunderstanding you, or you may be misunderstanding me, but I hit 'request desktop site' and don't use the app or the mobile website, as that's the way I like it. I don't have a hamburger menu to click 'ask to open in app' on. Would I need to launch the mobile site to get access to that menu, only to then tell it to not use the mobile site again?
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SirEDCaLot Jan 30, 2018 +46
Suggestion that might make both users and investors happy: Make a URL like d.listnook.com that will always load Listnook in desktop mode. Also there should be a user preference for 'never prompt me to open the Listnook app'. This way new users can still get the useless annoying bullshit popup pushing them to the app, but logged in users who don't want it won't see it, and people can easily get to desktop mode without having to click thru a menu.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +18
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paypalmecashpls Jan 30, 2018 +166
Thanks for sticking around and actually responding to the community. I joined about a year ago and within a week Listnook became, hands down, my favorite site. You’ll always get hate, but from me thanks for all that you guys do.
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AdjectiveNounCombo Jan 30, 2018 +3812
Truly I don't know what's more amazing- how far Listnook has come in the past year, or the fact that we still don't have a decent search function.
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imaginethehangover Jan 30, 2018 +184
The search system may need improving, but it’s worth noting that if there’s garbage in, there’s garbage out. The fact that most people don’t name their posts descriptively enough, or name them something totally unrelated to the content, means making a good search is a tall order.
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Miserable_Fuck Jan 30, 2018 +157
This. If people want something like e.g. "Mufasa death scene" to return the right results, they need to stop naming posts shit like "Right in the feels" or "Childhood ruined". Otherwise, Listnook would have to write some crazy algorithm that analyzes comments and stuff to try to classify it, and they would have to keep an indexed database with all these connections and relations that can grow and adapt over time, so that then can classify new content depending on how closely it relates to old stuff, etc. And that's basically what google does. That's why searching for "black actor with lazy eye" brings up Forest Whitaker. So no, Listnook will probably not be building that any time soon.
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +1515
We still have a long way to go, but we [are making progress] (https://listnookblog.com/2017/09/07/the-search-for-better-search-at-listnook/) on search.
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Hypothesis_Null Jan 30, 2018 +224
Searching for listnook posts is a difficult task, because of the volume and often the lack of proper thread titles and such. But for searching our *own* comments at least, by either thread content or comment content, should be a relatively trivial task. Any chance we could get a search option limited to our own past comments? Clicking through 100+ pages of comment history alongside ctrl+f keywords gets kind of tiresome after a while.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +1627
>“Go ask the search team on the 5th floor.” Which was great fun because a) the elevator button to the 5th floor didn’t work and b) there was no search team. and this is about how it feels to use listnook search function so it all evens out.
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swirlViking Jan 30, 2018 +73
Not only do all of these people exist, but they've been asking about the search function for weeks. It's all they're talking about up there.
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Solid_Snark Jan 30, 2018 +289
That’s why they’re called the *“Search Team”* and not the *“Found Team”*.
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thoawaydatrash Jan 30, 2018 +884
Don't run too fast on the search. The meme economy relies on our inability to remember or easily search prior content. You're going to seriously devalue our currency!
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Roughy Jan 30, 2018 +96
> Making progress >>[searches by exact timestamp are no longer supported on the newer system.](https://www.listnook.com/r/changelog/comments/7tus5f/update_to_search_api/) okay.jpg
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alphanovember Jan 30, 2018 +27
Plus removing [dozens of other search features](http://paperlined.org/apps/listnook/technical/cloudsearch_reference.html) in mid-2017. The search is a complete joke now. Instead of improving the already-good product, they just severely gimped it by ditching ~10 years of work and starting over. The whole "search sux, amirite? " thing was just a stupid meme propped up by the fact that most of users were too lazy/dumb to learn how to use it. The 2017 change took that dumb meme and made it a reality.
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pcjonathan Jan 30, 2018 +71
> We still have a long way to go In particular, timestamp search which is now soon to be deprecated from the API too, which made up the vast majority of searches by both me and my bot. Most disappointing.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +732
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +805
They're the engineering team that focuses on internal tools and abuse at scale: spam, account take-overs (they just release 2FA!), vote manipulation, etc. It's the team I'd love to be on if I was still engineering.
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TexasThrowDown Jan 30, 2018 +415
How does the team plan on addressing the massive amount of vote manipulation that goes on? Specifically, what is the general attitude about websites that offer paid upvote services and plans to counteract them? In the past, listnook was vehemently against vote manipulation, but nowadays it seems that as long as you pay the price, you are allowed to buy front page posts. Just curious if y'all find this as troubling as I do as a long-term user. The integrity of listnook is legitimately at stake in my opinion.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +111
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TexasThrowDown Jan 30, 2018 +26
Oh I know, but if I come in here with the doom and gloom immediately I get downvoted to oblivion for some reason. Listnook is a dangerous platform for propaganda.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +26
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JustASmurfBro Jan 30, 2018 +43
> The integrity of listnook is legitimately at stake in my opinion. A service that can't be bothered to enforce it's own rules and plays favorites with who it bans doesn't really have any integrity.
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TexasThrowDown Jan 30, 2018 +14
While I agree, my comment is more about spreading awareness of the problem. Everything you said is true, yet millions of people go to listnook daily to have discussions about politics, news, products, hobbies... I feel that the majority of people here are not aware to what extent the content they are seeing is actually propaganda in some form.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +30
One thing I think that should be looked at is while Some subs will have users correctly tagged as working for so and so organization (A news etc) others won't. So they are able to spam subs with their organizations news and feeds yet if you look for them in some subs they will have the correct tag. I think it should be universal so that people know that an account is a paid account and the information they release is from their organization.
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RetroSplicer Jan 30, 2018 +1923
I just want the option of seeing only legacy profiles. The new ones are so clunky and ugly.
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VagueSomething Jan 30, 2018 +54
Once profiles become a bigger thing I plan to leave Listnook. If I wanted a profile I'd be on Facebook. I'm here for content and discussions not pushing personalities. I don't want to write a bio or upload a profile picture. I just want to giggle at gifs, argue with strangers and enjoy p***. Sometimes multi-tasking them. I'll miss listnook for a while but I don't NEED listnook, just like I didn't need other social media. If anyone has any suggestions for content hubs like Listnook USED to be about I'm all ears for when I move on.
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +493
Yes, we're adding an option for the legacy profiles while we finish the new ones. The team is all hands on deck finishing the redesign, which means we've slowed on the new profiles. Our plan is to pause the rollout, give an option to use the legacy version, and finish the profiles with the redesign, taking into account the feedback we've received so far.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +410
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supergauntlet Jan 30, 2018 +131
of course it will, why would you want to see more than 3 posts per page? that's not very user friendly :\^)
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evanc1411 Jan 30, 2018 +300
The new profile design is one of my least favorite changes to listnook ever made. I'm not one resistant to change, but I seriously cannot understand trying to make profiles so anti-information. Comment context is something that makes sense when viewing a profile, but it takes up way more space than the user's actual content and it's all grayed out so I get the feeling I'm looking at an overall useless page of information when I want to be looking at exactly what this user did on listnook. And then there's the other *cool* new stuff to the side like 'Other interesting profiles', which is advertising profiles for corporations. I do not like the direction listnook is taking with this. It seems as if you want to turn listnook into every other social media website, slowly adding features to individual profiles and letting them make them their own communities in their profiles, effectively dodging sublistnooks altogether. Sublistnooks are the reason the site is successful, why all the focus on getting people out of them?
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DrewsephA Jan 30, 2018 +52
> Why all the focus on getting people out of them Because normally, communities will ban advertising bots and paid promotion profiles, but when you allow users to post to their own profile, nobody can ban them, and in fact they can pay listnook to be seen in public places, like the trending sublistnooks bar, or /r/all. It's all about the ad money, my friend.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +217
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +38
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hysan Jan 30, 2018 +14
> I don't know if they're still honoring this, but I did this about a month ago and they reverted my profile. They are no longer honoring this. I was forced into the new profile last week and tried what you suggested and was told: > Because we are slowly rolling profiles out to all users across the site, we are currently no longer accepting opt out requests. **Edit:** Proof that they don't honor this anymore since I'm starting to get comments to do this. https://imgur.com/I1VP9IL.png
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snorlz Jan 30, 2018 +63
honest question, have you ever gotten positive feedback about the new profiles from anyone who isnt a prolific poster (ex. gallowboob)? i have yet to read a comment section that supports the new profile pages on any of these threads.
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Algernon_Asimov Jan 30, 2018 +29
> have you ever gotten positive feedback about the new profiles from anyone who isnt a prolific poster I've read a lot of comments in the various threads where admins discuss the new profiles, and I have *never* seen a public comment in favour of the new profiles. Maybe those people don't see a need to speak up - maybe only people who want to complain will bother to type out a comment - but I've never seen anyone support the new profiles.
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DownvoteWarden Jan 30, 2018 +48
Can we default to the legacy page? RES does it but it takes a few extra seconds to flip back every time I go back to my profile. Like most people, the current profile page configuration is a step backwards in usability. I don't know of many experienced listnookors who like the new look in favor of the clean, utilitarian, no nonsense legacy page.
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Algernon_Asimov Jan 30, 2018 +13
> give an option to use the legacy version Will this apply only to *my* profile, or to *other people's* profiles? As a moderator, I want to be able to see *other people's* profiles in the simplest cleanest possible way - which is what the legacy profile provides me. This is more important to me than what *my* profile looks like: I can simply choose not to upload a profile picture or write a bio, or any of that other Facebook-style stuff. What's important is viewing *other people's* profiles as simply and cleanly as possible.
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dissonance_Incarnate Jan 30, 2018 +79
Just scrap it. Seriously, i know how upsetting it is to throw away months of work, but it needs to be done. The profile project is a failure, and you need to let it die.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +69
The new profiles are complete trash. I don't know who you have on that team, but what they're doing will push Listnook into the same position a similar redesign pushed Digg.com into, not having any real userbase anymore.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +38
That's a nebulous reply. Are you going to keep forcing the new profile on users who don't want it?
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DrewsephA Jan 30, 2018 +19
Yes, they are. In one of the admin posts (either in /r/beta or /r/modnews or even /r/Announcements), they said that once they finish the design of the profile pages, everyone is going to get it, no matter what. E: wrong sub lol
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noticethisusername Jan 30, 2018 +85
[Listnook Enhancement Suite](https://listnookenhancementsuite.com "also /r/Enhancement") has a way to redirect to legacy overview.
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aladyjewel Jan 30, 2018 +49
For directions on redirecting to the legacy profile using RES: https://www.listnook.com/r/Enhancement/wiki/profiles
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Grimalkin Jan 30, 2018 +22
Absolutely. I have the RES setting enabled so that it automatically switches to legacy view whenever looking at a user profile page and it makes a big difference.
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imsupercereal4 Jan 30, 2018 +156
Agreed. The layout of the new profiles doesn't feel like the rest of listnook to me.
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virusking Jan 30, 2018 +181
That's how probably the rest of Listnook is going to look like soon, as they are trying to change the whole design of Listnook to be like other social medias. I've seen this happen badly to some websites in the past, like the big guys before Listnook took their place...
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ptd163 Jan 30, 2018 +19
>That's how probably the rest of Listnook is going to look like soon, as they are trying to change the whole design of Listnook to be like other social medias. Which I don't get. Other than Facebook, Listnook is the most popular social media site. Sites should be copying Listnook not Listnook copying less popular sites.
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ivorjawa Jan 30, 2018 +121
Ugh. Listnook works. It doesn't need new tailfins welded to or cut off the fenders to follow fashion.
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virusking Jan 30, 2018 +31
Well higher ups see that social media is the trend and want to get some of that money, they don't usually care about anything else. New profile pages are the best example of that. Let's hope for the best of the Listnook.
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BBJ_Dolch Jan 30, 2018 +34
Don't forget chat! Because chatting with other listnookors is not only something people want, but also you can't opt out of it!
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pcjonathan Jan 30, 2018 +14
As a mod, same. I like the idea of it giving context and optionally seeing a mix would be great, but I almost always find myself switching to the legacy profile as it's simply easier to find what i'm looking for on there.
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FfanaticR Jan 30, 2018 +400
Your last? Are you hinting at something /u/spez? I dont follow the admin team much, but I am very thankful for what you guys do. Hope things go well for ya mate!
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +548
Just a joke knowing today was going to be a tough one. I can't go anywhere, no one else wants this job! Fortunately, I love it.
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atomicllama1 Jan 30, 2018 +257
I live 40 miles south of Listnook HQ, If you want Ill come in and fill in on you for you on the weekend. I do have 4 year + of listnooking experience. Pm me for details. -Regards /u/atomicllama1
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SickBurnBro Jan 30, 2018 +49
> I do have 4 year + of listnooking experience. Well then, sir, show me your best cat gif.
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Kilazur Jan 30, 2018 +56
Cat gif. What am I, a f****** amateur? If you're a seasoned listnookor, you know otters is where it's at.
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EditingAndLayout Jan 30, 2018 +618
Of all the sublistnooks you moderate, which one would you say is your favorite, and why is it /r/HighQualityGifs?
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +1461
It's HQF. Sometimes you just want to laugh at something that isn't funny.
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-eDgAR- Jan 30, 2018 +893
Will mods ever be getting tools to help combat the surge of sockpuppet accounts that appear on the site daily? Also what happened to antibrigading tools that were talked about a long time ago?
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foamed Jan 30, 2018 +109
> what happened to antibrigading tools [that were talked about a long time ago?](https://www.listnook.com/r/modtalk/comments/3byqjc/we_hear_you_lets_talk_xpost_from_rdefaultmods/csquh68/) (about two and a half years ago to be exact). The anti-brigading tools were created, but the moderators will never get access to them. You can read more about it here: * https://www.listnook.com/r/ModSupport/comments/4tpla8/where_are_the_promised_antibrigading_tools/ * https://www.listnook.com/r/modtalk/comments/59kf6m/update_on_those_antibrigading_tools/
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +283
Moderators shouldn't have to deal with sockpuppets and brigading, but we do take abuse of Listnook seriously, and spend a fair amount of time working on it. Our VP Product gave a [long answer](https://www.listnook.com/r/TheoryOfListnook/comments/7sn6b0/regarding_crossposts/dt6bhm9/?context=0) on this topic earlier this week. The tl;dr is we're adopting more sophisticated approaches to brigading and manipulation.
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AnArcher Jan 30, 2018 +276
But what if mods **want** to combat the surge of sockpuppet accounts? Shouldn't they have the means?
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Namyts Jan 30, 2018 +173
Do you guys have any interesting plans to unite the community this year? I really enjoyed Robin from 2 years ago, and would like to see it return :)
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spez Jan 30, 2018 +251
Yes! April Fools is in the works, Robin is gone but not forgotten (we've got a lot of fun chat things coming), and a bunch of IRL events.
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PensForFriends Jan 30, 2018 +129
Will multilistnook support on mobile be on the radar this year?
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +775
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.2169 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/57793)
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turbotong Jan 30, 2018 +239
I don't want to download your app. At various times, the mobile website seems to introduce more annoying delay features to force me go get the app. First you had the listnook icon slowly fill with color with instructions to download the app, whereas before a post would instantly load. Now, it looks like you delay the comments from appearing, again replaced with a delay causing message telling me to download the app. I don't want your app. Can you please stop these unnecessary delays?
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HalLogan Jan 30, 2018 +114
Can this be the text for the actual SOTU address tonight? I feel like it'd be a solid improvement.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +189
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +3937
Why isn't The_donald And all affiliated subs banned for breaking almost every site-wide rule you have yet? edit: Read this comment by /u/illpaco > Here is a very complete list of violations by the_donald of Listnook's policy. This was sent directly to to u/spez a while ago. > https://np.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/7a4bjo/time_for_my_quarterly_inquisition_listnook_ceo_here/dp6youa > This is not about censoring people with opposing views. Don't buy into that false narrative. This is about applying the rules equally across the board. For whatever reason, the_donald is treated with a different standard than other subs and people are fully aware of it. The only ones turning a blind eye to these blatant violations are the admins themselves.
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Illpaco Jan 30, 2018 +95
Here is a **very** complete list of violations by the_donald of Listnook's policy. This was sent directly to to u/spez a while ago. https://np.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/7a4bjo/time_for_my_quarterly_inquisition_listnook_ceo_here/dp6youa This is not about censoring people with opposing views. Don't buy into that false narrative. This is about applying the rules equally across the board. For whatever reason, the_donald is treated with a different standard than other subs and people are fully aware of it. The only ones turning a blind eye to these blatant violations are the admins themselves. Edit: Here is part of u/spez response to this: >Generally the mods of the_donald have been cooperative when we approach them with systematic abuses. Typically we ban entire communities only when the mods are uncooperative or the entire premise of the community is in violation of our policies. In the past we have removed mods of the_donald that refuse to work with us. >We are on the eve of the President’s SOTU and, sadly, alienation and cynicism are still deeply felt by much of our population, and we’re more divided than ever. I don’t believe banning a community that represents different viewpoints does anything but make the problem worse. Read u/spez full response [here.](https://www.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/7u2zpi/z/dth6eq9) After reading that, please consider the following: - several special rules had the be designed by the admins to avoid banning the_donald altogether. - by u/spez own account, some of the mods have refused to cooperate. Instead of banning them, they simply removed the mods. Why the special treatment? - the algorithm for /r/all had to be modified several times to avoid t_d spam. Remember how often the people "without a voice" would be on the front page throughout 2016? This again shows special treatment. - In this post [here](https://www.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/7a4bjo/time_for_my_quarterly_inquisition_listnook_ceo_here/dp708xx) from 3 months ago, u/spez makes the case that there have been no violations reported to them. This directly contradicts his statement about mods being removed due to lack of cooperation. - "*sadly, alienation and cynicism are still deeply felt by much of our population, and we’re more divided than ever.* **I don’t believe banning a community that represents different viewpoints does anything but make the problem worse.**" For a glimpse of the viewpoints that u/spez is defending, refer back to the list I linked [above](https://np.listnook.com/r/announcements/comments/7a4bjo/time_for_my_quarterly_inquisition_listnook_ceo_here/dp6youa). Something is not right with this picture .
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FreedomDatAss Jan 30, 2018 +166
My guess is Listnook has a vested interest in keeping T_D because it gives them more clicks/comments/etc. Another theory is that some employees at Listnook are T_D members/supporters. Or Listnook is scared of Don Cheeto talking poorly about Listnook to the #fakenewsmedia.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +480
So with Facebook and Google stepping up it's anti-bot defense, do you see Listnook going in that same direction? Or are we going to just keep ignoring the elephant in the room? If people are able to manipulate the top stories by paying for Fake accounts that spam/upvote, what's next?
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +60
I have a feeling they have no idea how to actually handle this problem, and they probably won't ever give a good response. Sad but most likely :/
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Iamthenewme Jan 30, 2018 +51
Thanks for the hard work you all put in to keep this place going. I like that listnook has steadily been recovering towards being more honest and personal in communicating things, and us old users are especially thankful for keeping the censorship to a smaller degree than the loud voices ask for. You take a lot of flak either way, but I really hope that this place will remain aligned towards free expression even if it can't afford to be "a bastion of free speech" anymore .
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Rain12913 Jan 30, 2018 +1198
Hi Spez I’m a clinical psychologist, and for the past six years I’ve been the mod of a sublistnook for people with borderline personality disorder (/r/BPD). BPD has among the highest rates of completed suicide of any psychiatric disorder; approximately 70% of people with BPD will attempt suicide at some point. Given this, out of our 30,000 subscribers, we are likely to be having dozens of users attempting suicide every week. In particular, the users who are most active on our sub are often very symptomatic and desperate, and we very frequently get posts from actively suicidal users. I’m telling you this because over the years I have felt very unsupported by the Listnook admins in one particular area. As you know, there are unfortunately a lot of very disturbed people on Listnook. Some of these people want to hurt others. As a result, I often encounter users who goad on our suicidal community members to kill themselves. This is a **big** problem. Of course encouraging any suicidal person to kill themselves is a big deal, but people with BPD in particular are prone to impulsivity and are highly susceptible to abusive behavior. This makes them more likely to act on these malicious suggestions. When I encounter these users, I immediately contact the admins. Although I can ban them and remove their posts, I cannot stop them from sending PMs and creating new accounts to continue encouraging suicide. Instead, I need you guys to step in and take more direct action. The problem I’m having is that it sometimes take more than 4 full days before anything is done by the admins. In the meantime, I see the offending users continue to be active on Listnook and, sometimes, continuing to encourage suicide. Over the years I’ve asked you guys how we can ensure that these situations are dealt with immediately (or at least more promptly than 4 days later), and I’ve gotten nothing. As a psychologist who works primarily with personality disordered and suicidal patients, I can assure you that someone is going to attempt suicide because of a situation like this, if it hasn’t happened already. We, both myself **and** Listnook, need to figure out a better way to handle this. Please tell me what we can do. I’m very eager to work with you guys on this. Thank you. Edit: Thanks for the support everyone. I’m hopeful that /u/spez will address this. Edit 2: More than a month has passed and I haven’t heard back from /u/spez. I heard from another admin who was very kind and eager to help, but ultimately they could not come up with a solution and told me that their hands are tied. On Sunday 3/4, yet another person told one of our users to kill themselves. As of Wednesday 3/7, 72 hours have passed since I first contacted the admins about this and I have still not heard back. I’m really at a loss here. I fear that it will take a publicized suicide for anything to change, and perhaps not even then. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get Listnook to actually do something about this? **Edit 3 (5/3/18): It happened again this weekend and I didn't get a response for 48 hours. The user had not only told people on /r/BPD and other subs to kill themselves, but had also encouraged a mentally unstable person to commit murder. Two full days and the person kept posting. Here is the final word that I got from Spez: "What you should do: report the user, then ban them from your community. We'll always be working to speed our response times, but you have some agency here as well." That's it. That is the answer to this post.**
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alolan-snackbar Jan 30, 2018 +145
As a quick fix for now, you could require users to "only allow PMs from trusted users" before posting. Bots can track new submitters and auto-remove them (you could even have Automod PM them, if it overrides the 'trusted user' thing now that it's admin-sanctioned). Once a user has affirmed that they have "trusted PMs" set they can post in your sub. It's not a true fix as users could lie about their setting or be dissuaded from posting entirely... but the admins historically have a terrible track record getting real solutions implemented in niche cases like this, so it might be all you can do. /r/RequestABot might be able to help. If you're worried about dissuading users the only other way to do it would be to let them post to a sub where their stuff's removed and have a bunch of approved users as mods without perms - they'd still be able to view the posts. That way you'd control who sees and replies to posts though - but you'd need an /r/askscience-like vetting process in place or admin support to root out trolls by IP address or other ties. hm.
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VediusPollio Jan 30, 2018 +19
It's unfortunate that you have to deal with sick people harassing the sick people that you're trying to help. The world could use more people like you. Keep up the good work. I hope Listnook steps up to help find a solution here.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +14
I think the easiest /best method is unfortunately the most reactive. If someone kills themselves listnook needs to work with authorities to try and determine who pushed them over the edge and seek charges for 2nd or 3rd degree murder against the person harassing people. Shit like swatting and pressuring people to commit suicide online are not solely a listnook phenomenon and needs to be dealt with on all platforms. This should be dealt with legally, and not just with bans or mutes. People need to realize there are serious consequences to their actions, not just on others, but legally for themselves. *edit: bad autocorrect. Dealt, not delta.
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redtaboo Jan 31, 2018 +56
Hey there! I'm sorry you've felt unsupported here, this is an issue we do try to deal with as much as we can where we can. That's especially true in sensitive communities such as yours. One thing that can help is to educate your community members to hit the 'report' button on any abusive PMs they get. Our Trust & Safety team reviews reported PMs on a regular basis. This can sometimes mean action is taken faster than other routes. You can also encourage people to switch to the \[whitelist only PM system\]\([https://www.listnook.com/prefs/blocked/](https://www.listnook.com/prefs/blocked/)\). That means only people they've specifically chosen can privately message them. It's not perfect, but it can help. I'd also suggest, if you haven't already, talking to the moderators of /r/suicidewatch about how they handle similar issues. We've worked with them in the past and the modteam is really solid. They may have some tips to handle these specific issues that I may not think of. As for how long it takes to get a response for reports, we know it's not yet ideal, however we're still hiring and training people and hope to continue getting better. If there's anything specific that you'd like to talk about please feel free to message me privately and we can look into it for you.
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Rain12913 Jan 31, 2018 +71
I appreciate your attention and concern, I truly do, but these aren’t the solutions I need. This is very similar to the responses that I’ve been getting from you guys over the years. It reinforces my belief that you don’t fully understand the problem I’m dealing with. Please let me try to explain it better. The problem I’m dealing with isn’t my suicidal users; it’s the users who are egging on my suicidal users. It’s the guy who tells the 17-year-old who has been cutting herself all night and who has a bottle of meds she’s ready to take “Do it you ugly b****, it was your fault you got raped and no one wants you here anymore.” *That* guy is my problem, and I don’t have the tools I need to deal with him. Only you do. /r/suicidewatch is a great place and I’ve worked with them in the past, but they aren’t able to intervene directly and remove abusive users from the website. Only you guys can do that. I’m curious to hear about the ways that you’ve worked closely with them in the past, as you said, because I’ve been begging for that kind of interaction with you and I’ve been brushed aside. Instead of sending me to ask them how you helped them, could you please speak with me directly to generate some real solutions? In regard to your other suggestions: preventive measures don’t work in this situation. The significant majority of people who come to /r/BPD to post “goodbye” messages are new users or people who haven’t visited the sub before. They’re not people whom I can speak to in advance about setting up whitelisting, and most of these threats happen in comments anyway. What makes this problem so devastating is that it occurs over the course of seconds or minutes, not hours or days. By the time even I get involved, the damage is done and the messages have been sent. What I need is a way to stop these abusive users once they’ve started and to prevent them from doing it in the future. I feel the need to be a little more firm in regard to your “less than ideal” statement. It’s not less than ideal; it’s extremely problematic and dangerous. Just last week it took 4 days for you guys to take action in one of these situations. The abusive user continued posting the whole time, and he very well could have kept encouraging people to kill themselves on each of those days. I’ve been hearing “we’re hiring more people” since Obama was in his first term, but it’s still taking 4 days. This is **not** ok. Is it unreasonable to ask that a more direct connection be established between the admins and mods of high risk sublistnooks like /r/BPD? If it is, then what else can you offer me? I’m a user of your site and a volunteer community leader. I need you to provide me with the resources that I need to moderate your communities and keep vulnerable users safe. Please help me accomplish this. Edit: I just noticed your PM offer. Please feel free to respond to this via PM. Thank you!
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a_bit_persnickety Jan 31, 2018 +22
Why not create your own whitelist, /u/spez? A whitelist of sublistnooks that demand immediate attention when a moderator contacts listnook support. OC(original-commenter. is that a thing?)'s sublistnook seems like a viable candidate. As an engineer who works primarily in web this seems like a fairly easy solution.
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SQLwitch Jan 31, 2018 +5
It's a big issue for us, too, although I think the overt trollish inciters are not the most harmful group because most (although of course not all) of our cohort are internet-savvy enough to be prepared for and thus somewhat inoculated against that sort of thing. The people who I think do the most harm are the subtle voyeur/fetishist types who hide behind the concepts like "free speech", "open debate" and "rights to self-determination" to get their rocks off by stealthily pushing people toward the edge. Of course that doesn't just happen in PMs. Also, AFAIK there's no one-step way to report PMs for the biggest segment of our population, users of the official mobile apps - correct?
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a_bit_persnickety Jan 31, 2018 +7
Why not create your own whitelist, /u/spez? A whitelist of sublistnooks that demand immediate attention when a moderator contacts listnook support. /u/Rain12913's sublistnook seems like a viable candidate. As an engineer who works primarily in web this seems like a fairly easy, low-risk solution that could save a not-insignificant amount of lives. It should seem clear from a business perspective as well. Edit: I added a hyphen. Any "not-insignificant" means 1.
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Zaorish9 Jan 30, 2018 +588
Ban T_D please due to the [constant threats of violence](https://www.listnook.com//r/RightAgainstTrump/wiki/violence). Or their death threats the "community" that you're "proud of" ?
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thelegendarybeng Jan 30, 2018 +25
As a user of the iOS app, I can’t help but be irked by one part of the sublistnook search function. When typing in a sublistnook on the app, it is common to find random, basically unpopulated sublistnooks to pop up as suggested fill in terms. As someone who rarely subscribes to sublistnooks, I use the search function often, and get annoyed when I go to a 45 subscriber sports team listnook rather than their 30K or so and active counterpart (often because I don’t know the official term & spelling of the Team sub). My proposed solution to this issue is to change the suggested sub pop ups to be ranked on subscriber count as long as the first letters match up and the typed in query does not complete the title of another sublistnook. This would solve my biggest gripe with the app in its current form. Thank you for keeping this website rolling. It must be hard doing a thankless and hate filled job like this, and although I do not agree with all of your decisions, I know you are trying to run this site most effectively.
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DubTeeDub Jan 30, 2018 +1147
Dear Spez, White supremacists are now near-universally radicalized online and by allowing various white supremacist and altright sublistnooks to continue to exist and recruit vulnerable men on this website, you are enabling terrorism and supporting extremists. Other major tech companies are taking action against white supremacists and removing them from their services including Twitter, Uber, Spotify, Cloudflare, Google, GoDaddy, PayPal, ApplePay, Discord, AirBNB, Mastercard, and Patreon. Meanwhile, you and the listnook admins are silent. Listnookors on T_D were responsible for [supporting and promoting the "Unite the Right" Rally](http://archive.is/3X8PB) that led to a woman being murdered by a neo-nazi terrorist. A T_D poster named [/u/seattle4Truth murdered his own father](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/10/23/alt-righter-seattle4truth-charged-killing-father-over-conspiracy-theories) for being a "pedophile rapist." These are both examples of a larger trend of [murders by white supremacists more than doubling in 2017](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-supremacist-murders-2017-report_us_5a5f59b0e4b0ee2ff32c4bea). White supremacist sublistnooks have near-constant calls for violence, r***, and genocide against minorities, women, trans people, and others. How many more terrorist attacks have to happen before you accept responsibility and take action? Some examples of the many white supremacy / altright sublistnooks the admins are supporting: /r/fullfascism /r/debatealtright /r/uncensorednews /r/whiterights /r/TheNewRight /r/holocaust_truth /r/holocaust /r/DebateFascism /r/AntiPOZi /r/ethnocommunity /r/Identitarians /r/milliondollarextreme /r/whitebeauty /r/BlackCrimesMatter /r/liberaldegeneracy /r/White_Pride /r/WhiteNationalism /r/new_right /r/The_Europe/ /r/racism_immigration and of course /r/the_donald Spez, your silence on this topic is deafening. **Edit: the admins just (within the last hour) banned three of the communities listed above, but have ignored my question or discuss why they were banned.** At least three white supremacy communities have just been banned, though they are ignoring the larger ones https://www.listnook.com/r/fullfascism - banned https://www.listnook.com/r/whiterights - banned https://www.listnook.com/r/BlackCrimesMatter - banned This appeasement by doing to absolute bare minimum will not make any difference as they still have a multitude of other sublistnooks to go to and will just make many more. Unless an actual policy change is made this is meaningless.
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The_Actual_Pope Jan 30, 2018 +46
Why were these communities banned, but not others? There's pressure on u/spez at the moment, and these communities fall into the orange category on [this chart](https://imgur.com/e7aAYZT).
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Andoo Jan 31, 2018 +41
/u/spez I got banned from uncensored news because I called out people for saying 'nigs gonna nig' and then the mod called me a communist piece of shit when I was inquiring about the ban. You gotta get a little backbone sometimes and get rid of hate. There are other places they can exist. I've been here a while and I'd like you to at least address this issue again.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +261
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +70
This is one I just don't get. He won't ban T_D because they have a large user base and it generates a lot of money. But /r/Holocaust? It's tiny and *way* more controversial.
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Meltingteeth Jan 30, 2018 +97
Spez, listnook appears to be putting massive amounts of efforts into front-facing overhaul and seems to be half-assedly (to a detrimental level) tweaking modmail and modqueue tools. Were it not for third-party tools (Toolbox for Listnook and Layer7,) large sublistnooks would be absolutely impossible to moderate effectively. Why are incredibly basic functions like modmail or inbox search being put far behind petty features like "[bulk mod actions](https://i.redd.it/6mdi08dltnwz.gif)" (which will always take *more* clicks than just removing on an item-level basis,) user chat and video hosting? Why is my personal inbox filled with ban messages for my sublistnook, to the point where it's impossible to look through? Never-ending listnook fries itself 10% of the time on any of my browsers, so ten pages in and I'm toast. These kind of half-implementations feel like fields full of software debris that make listnook a b**** to interact with.
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Kilimancagua Jan 30, 2018 +155
Can you please get rid of power moderators? There's zero reason any one person should moderate 200+ subs. This just gives them the ability to ban users from multiple popular subs just because they feel like it rather than because of any issue across all the subs. It's ludicrous. Put a rule in place that limits the number of subs a single person can moderate to 25, then also add a rule that says the total number of major subs a single person can moderate can't exceed 3. Stop giving power to random f****** losers who wish they had real authority in life.
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h0nest_Bender Jan 31, 2018 +7
> This just gives them the ability to ban users from multiple popular subs just because they feel like it rather than because of any issue across all the subs. That's against the [moderator guidelines](https://www.listnook.com/help/healthycommunities/#section_management_of_multiple_communities), fyi. But good luck getting the admins to do anything about it LOL!
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LordofNarwhals Jan 30, 2018 +320
>I’m particularly proud of how far our Community, Trust & Safety, and Anti-Evil teams have come. We’ve steadily shifted the balance of our work from reactive to proactive, which means that much more often we’re catching issues before they become issues. I’d like to highlight one stat in particular: at the beginning of 2017 our T&S work was almost entirely driven by user reports. Today, more than half of the users and content we action are caught by us proactively using more sophisticated modeling. Often we catch policy violations before being reported or even seen by users or mods. This is good progress but I still think you're a bit too lenient on who is and isn't allowed to run a sub on this site. Are you really okay with having self admitted neo-nazis running >100,000 subscriber sublistnooks filled with neo-nazi imagery? I'm ofc talking about /r/uncensorednews which currently features the [Nordic Resistance Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Resistance_Movement)'s logo in their banner. > couple great examples from last year include that time you all created an artistic masterpiece I'm looking forward to what you do for April Fools this year because that was pretty fun!
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WikiTextBot Jan 30, 2018 +34
**Nordic Resistance Movement** The Nordic Resistance Movement (Swedish: Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen; NMR, Norwegian: Nordiske motstandsbevegelsen; NMB, Finnish: Pohjoismainen vastarintaliike; PVL, Danish: Nordiske modstandsbevægelse; NMB) is a Pan-Nordic Neo-Nazi movement and, in Sweden, a party. It is established in Sweden and Norway, but has been prohibited in Finland as a violent group that exhorts followers and members to violent acts, and a threat to democratic rule of law. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.listnook.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://listnook.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^sublistnook](https://np.listnook.com/r/announcements/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.listnook.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^| [^Donate](https://www.listnook.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/donate) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28
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battles Jan 30, 2018 +68
The biggest issue on Listnook is the complete lack of accountability of mods. These unpaid laborers almost inevitably become tyrants. Listnook desperately needs a mechanism for removing mods via sub-listnook members. I can understand why Listnook wants to stay on their good side... I mean they have held your entire site hostage on several occasions, but their unchecked power remains an issue on every platform that depends on them. Pretending to work on 'improving listnook,' while ignoring the real problems with the site in favor of the awful app, the awful redesign or any of the other terrible development you are doing is laughable.
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Reformedjerk Jan 30, 2018 +37
/u/spez , I recommend you listen to this podcast with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr: https://mastersofscale.com/caterina-fake-model-behavior/ You, as the CEO of Listnook, are the person that can benefit most from listening to two people who have built some of the largest online communities. > And I think that one of the things that Heather Champ, who is a community manager, the first community manager on Flickr says—one thing she says repeatedly is that what you tolerate is what you are. **So, if you tolerate white supremacists on your platform, you’re a platform for white supremacists.** And you just have to accept that. And that unless you draw the lines, unless you say what is and is not acceptable on your platform, it just becomes a disaster. > Because you want to be part of a community that share your values. And you don’t share values with white supremacists. I had to rewind to make sure they weren't talking about Listnook, that is how much this platform has become associated with white supremacists. You can make all the excuses you want, but the simple fact remains, **Listnook tolerates white supremacists**. I would not want to be in your position, banning T_D would create a ton of issues no one could ever be prepared to handle. I hope you have come to realize that this is not about freedom of speech, Listnook is not the government, it is not held to the constitution and the first amendment. It is a platform. It is up to you, as the CEO to determine what Listnook is a platform for. If you banned T_D and related white supremacist sublistnooks, you would be making a statement that white supremacy is not tolerated. *Even when disguised as a voice for the disenfranchised.* You can send a clear message to the people who feel T_D gives them a voice. **You have a voice, but if you use it for white supremacy, we will not force others to hear it.** You are a public figure now, your actions define you. As long as your action is to allow T_D to exist, you and Listnook will be defined by their tolerance for white supremacy. Listnook has weathered many controversies, jailbait, the fappening, etc. It is just a matter of time because T_D becomes the next mainstream controversy, and at that point you will have no excuse. The true nature of the sublistnook will be evident. Your response about 'cooperative mods', 'a voice for those that need it' will not be accepted. At best, you will be seen as someone who did not want to deal with the fallout, at worst, a white supremacist. Good luck, I hope you make a decision you can live with.
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MeghanAM Jan 30, 2018 +16
Perhaps community management has moved to be more proactive, but the results of that aren't really being felt on any of my larger teams. On the other hand, complete communication drop offs have become pretty common, and the community managers no longer seem to be available for requests for help or advice. This was not true last year. It's pretty disappointing, since community communication had significantly improved in the recent past.
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HiimCaysE Jan 30, 2018 +399
> ...we’re especially pleased to see features ...like ...native video on our front pages every day. Is this v.redd.it content? It's terrible. More often than not these videos just freeze on me. Why host videos anyway?
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2SP00KY4ME Jan 30, 2018 +136
> Why host videos anyway? If you'll notice, you can't directly link Listnook videos, only to the post itself. This means if you want to share something you saw on Listnook, you *have* to make them go to the Listnook site, meaning more ad impressions.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +153
On mobile I don’t even bother looking at v.redd.it hosted content. It takes 3x as long to load as videos from other sources
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +64
I'd like v.listnook quite a bit more if it was possible to easily share it with a direct link. I didn't have any other issues with em yet, but thats in part because I avoid clicking on them to begin with...
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Duke_ofChutney Jan 30, 2018 +27
And how the hell do I share just the v.listnook gif/video? Its always the comment thread when I try to copy/paste
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mazrim_lol Jan 30, 2018 +152
I really dislike the new profile system and want a way to ignore it completely, looking at peoples profile page has been made significantly worse and you should be able to opt out of having to see all these listnook power users
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Supertilt Jan 30, 2018 +65
Can we have a talk about mod abuse in general? Not being able to participate in a politically or ideologically focused sub without having to prove your allegiance to the sub's theme on the threat of being instantly perma-banned doesn't really fit in with the intended inclusive nature of this site. For instance I had the location wrong in a comment I wrote in response to a video of a massive homeless community and was banned from r/latestagecapitalism within the hour. When I asked what the deal was they asked what my political leanings were- I expressed that I was not a capitalist but can't see why that would be relevant in context with my comment, and they then told me I wasn't garnering sympathy with them by questioning there methods and was subsequently muted by the mod. How is that not plain old abuse of power?
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GarrettTheMole Jan 30, 2018 +39
How do we address certain users on the site abusing their administrator privileges? There are some users that adhere (very strictly) to the rules of their sublistnooks and since they can sometimes moderate tens even hundreds of sublistnooks they can ban you from any and all sublistnook that they moderate. Do we just continue on as business as usual while this small number of people make a very large impact on the site as a whole? Here is one example of what I am talking about: https://ratelistnookors.com/randoh12
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bobcobble Jan 30, 2018 +918
>I’m particularly proud of how far our Community, Trust & Safety, and Anti-Evil teams have come. Really, seriously?? I'm not. There are calls to violence, racism, harassment, doxxing all the time here. Nothing happens, people don't get perma banned, communities don't get banned and they can still run around this site pulling this bullshit and forcing **good users off the site**. >In 2018, we’ll continue our efforts to make Listnook welcoming. You're banning abusive and racist communites that encourage harassment?
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +201
It took them *years* to ban the jailbait subs. They were happy to bask in the traffic violentacrez brought the site, until the spotlight that Anderson Cooper shone on them finally made them act, almost certainly more out of legal concern than moral concern. Listnook doesn't care in the least about the kind of people they attract to the site, or the overall "evil" level that Spez is patting himself on the back for in this post. Hate subs bring in traffic, and listnook has obviously found that they're not losing ad revenue by catering to that demographic.
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orochi Jan 30, 2018 +284
Mod has several users trying to dox him, users still active 48 hours later dubteedub posts an article, gets suspended for doxxing someone within hours. Lets face it. /u/spez will never do anything about the cancer killing listnook. They'll make a few token gestures every few months when advertisers start catching on, but they'll never touch the primary group, and will instead go after subs that haven't been used in years, if ever.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +68
They only care about traffic numbers. They're going to continue lying about problematic subs that are popular right until someone drags them through the mud because of it. Listnook Inc. is a corporation first, and corporations don't care about people.
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superhelical Jan 30, 2018 +217
Have you considered your role in the spread of misinformation and radicalization that has taken place over the past year? Other tech companies have taken steps to become more transparent and identify accounts that are using the platform in bad faith to promote false ideas and influence the public discourse. What is listnook doing? Edit: fat fingers
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +57
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +1089
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wantagh Jan 30, 2018 +981
Look, I don’t like r/pics either, but I’ve come to accept them.
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BlatantConservative Jan 30, 2018 +184
I don't have as much of a problem with TD as I do with things like [Calm Before The Storm](https://www.listnook.com/r/CBTS_Stream/) which talk about "meme warfare" and link to off site brigades, and also are clearly affiliated with Stormfront.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +14
CBTS and the Q shit always has me dying of laughter until I realize they’re not doing it for keks, they’re 100% serious and believe all of the shit they’re talking about. It’s like reading through manifestos of mass shooters.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +20
Calm Before the Storm is also bot/propaganda heaven. Look at a shitload of the common content posters there: generic female names.
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anon_smithsonian Jan 30, 2018 +13
>If you’d like to participate and follow along with every change, subscribe to r/announcements (major announcements), r/beta (long-running tests), r/modnews (moderator features), and r/changelog (most everything else). Can updates to the Android and iOS listnook apps get posted somewhere else and *not* /r/changelog? With the exception of the app update posts, the changes that get posted in /r/changelog are generally important for developers and API consumers to know about and it would be a great sublistnook to subscribe to (e.g., using IFTTT to get notifications about new posts in /r/changelog) to make sure that any posts about important upcoming changes aren't missed... **except that only 20 out of the first 50 posts** are actually about ***listnook*** changes, with the other 30 being posts about the Android or iOS app updates. Even the first line of the /r/changelog sidebar says: >**/r/changelog is a running log of changes made to listnook.** /r/changelog should only contain changes to listnook ***the platform***. Listnook apps—official or otherwise—are just *interfaces* for the platform. Please change this and have posts about updates to the official listnook apps moved to their own sublistnooks. And, honestly, the apps *should* have their own sublistnooks, anyways, because right now there's not really anywhere that users of those apps can go for help (besides cluttering up /r/help) or to give feedback about the apps. Every other listnook client has its own sublistnook; the official listnook apps should, too (a sub that *isn't* /r/changelog).
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +603
What are the Listnook team doing to address the massive number of bots being used to spread misinformation and to blanket upvote/downvote?
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Dahti Jan 30, 2018 +128
Yeah, it's really weird when you see the same post in hundreds of sublistnooks completely unrelated to the sublistnook..
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +45
Hey /u/Spez, I saw you in this super interesting article about [Doomsday Prep for the Super Rich](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich). Can you tell us about your survival bunker? Also, when I first started learning to program through Udacity, you taught me the basics of creating a comment system, thanks yo
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f_k_a_g_n Jan 30, 2018 +28
It seems like Listnook is the only large social media company to escape media scrutiny when it comes to political and state-sponsored manipulation campaigns. Do you have any details you can share about if/how Listnook was targeted during the 2016 election? What are your plans for the future as the site grows and Listnook becomes a bigger target for political and state-sponsored campaigns?
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Aruseus493 Jan 30, 2018 +22
For anyone else that hates the new profile, RES has a setting to default to the legacy version. (I actually need the legacy to be able to moderate properly.) #[RES Setting](https://www.listnook.com/r/Enhancement/wiki/profiles#wiki_redirect_to_legacy_overview)
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JDGumby Jan 30, 2018 +33
> and post-to-profile to chat (now in beta for individuals and groups) Which you won't let us opt out of, no matter how much we might want to be rid of these incredibly stupid and pointless features. > In 2018, we’ll continue our efforts to make Listnook welcoming. ...by making it harder to read for everyone. > We’ll be dramatically increasing the number of testers soon. None of whom will be allowed to opt-out, of course.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +334
> In 2018, we’ll continue our efforts to make Listnook welcoming. Welcoming for who? Neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Russian troll armies? News manipulators? What are you doing to combat the ongoing hatred, doxxing, bullying, and literal threats of violence from users at T_D and other sympathetic subs? More importantly, what is being done to train admins and moderators to actually deal with these violations? My teenage cousin was getting death threats (they had found one of his social media accounts based on his Listnook username) over PM from users from T_D, reported it to the admins, and was completely ignored. Not a single admin replied to him. I suggested he just get off Listnook. No one, but especially not teenagers, deserve to deal with that.
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[deleted] Jan 30, 2018 +38
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