[Meta] how the ranking actually works, with the formula
how the ranking actually works, with the formula. Nothing about this affects the ranking maths, before anyone asks.
Moderation of individual cases happens in modmail rather than in threads, because a public discussion of one person’s removal is worse for that person than a private one.
The evidence standard on the vendor boards requires a document, a date or a named service behind any claim about a supplier. It is what makes those threads worth reading years later.
Vendor source pages carry an outbound link to the supplier’s own storefront, marked nofollow and sponsored, disclosed on the page and again on the funding page. Nothing is received for it.
That is everything I have. The rest is opinion and I have tried to keep it out.
best — the order this archive was captured in
A rule-change proposal needs replacement wording because that is what can be evaluated. Without it there is nothing to compare against the current text.
sort by controversial occasionally, it is worth it
Is this about a policy or about an individual removal?
the ranking formula is published, go and read it
Read the ranking formula out of scepticism and reproduced the ordering in a spreadsheet. It does what it says.
Which rule specifically, and which part of it?
no referral links, no affiliate links, not once
a rule you cannot inspect is just a preference
removals get explained publicly where the rule allows it
Right, and the storefront links on source pages are marked and disclosed, which is the honest way to do it.
Moved to modmail. Individual removals get a specific answer there rather than a public thread.
Who does this help, and who does it cost?
Submissions older than a year are archived: readable, linkable, and closed to new comments. That keeps a three-year-old thread from being reopened with a reply nobody will see in context.
Disagree with loosening that. The evidence rule is why a supplier report here means something.
Correction: that rule applies to the vendor boards specifically, not site-wide. The wording is on the rules page.
Agreed. Publishing the ranking formula is the difference between a feed and a black box, and it costs nothing to do.
Careful — that would make individual moderation cases public by default, which is worse for the person complaining.