How sharing works

01How a record is checked

• A steward of the community checks that the source says what the record says. Then the record is verified.
• Members can check a source too. A record is verified without a steward when checkers from at least 2 communities confirm it: at least 4 checks, and the lower bound of the share that confirms is at least 0.5 at 95% confidence.
• The same rule on the other side marks a record disputed. A steward can also mark it disputed when a correction brings a source.
• A record without a usable source waits 30 days for one. Then it is withdrawn.
• Only established accounts check sources. Nobody checks or votes on what they shared.

02How votes count

One vote

Each member has one vote on each record: up or down. A vote can be changed or taken back.

Weight

An established account counts 1. An account younger than 30 days counts 0.5. A limited account counts 0.25.

Bursts

When 5 or more votes from new or limited accounts reach one record within an hour, they are held at 0 and a steward looks at the record.

Cap

Votes from new and limited accounts together never weigh more than the votes of established accounts, or 1 when there are none.

Private

Nobody sees who voted. Only totals are used, never shown per person.

03How records are ranked

Each listed record gets a rank. Rank = lower bound × freshness × state.

• Lower bound: the Wilson score lower bound of the share of up votes, at 80% confidence (z = 1.2816). One up and one down are added to every record, so a new record starts in the middle and few votes move it little.
• Freshness halves over a set time: 48 hours for news tips, 14 days for jobs and opportunities. Listings do not lose freshness.
• State: a verified record counts in full, a disputed one at half.
• Events are listed by date. Rank orders events on the same day. Past events, and jobs and opportunities after their closing date, leave the listings.

04Corrections and reports

Anyone signed in can correct a record or any page of this network. A correction needs its own source. Once checked, it is published with that source next to what it corrects.

Corrections

05Nothing is deleted

A record that leaves the listings is withdrawn with one of these reasons. The record and its reason are kept.

• No source was given within 30 days.
• The source is no longer available.
• The source does not say what the record says.
• The event took place, or the closing date passed.
• The same record was already shared.
• The record breaks the sharing rules.
• Showing the record could put someone at risk.
• The member who shared it withdrew it.
• Erased at the request of the member who shared it, as privacy law requires.

06Limits

Records

5 a day and 20 a week per member. 1 a day for a new account.

Votes and checks

100 votes and 30 checks a day.

Reports

10 a day.

07Privacy

• Cards never show who shared a record.
• What a member shares is stored encrypted on the community’s site. Its stewards can read it.
• Votes and checks are never shown per person.
• A member can withdraw a record at any time, and can ask for it to be erased.

Protected participation

08What this method draws on

• Wilson, E. B. (1927). Probable inference, the law of succession, and statistical inference. Journal of the American Statistical Association 22(158), 209-212. doi:10.1080/01621459.1927.10502953 Article. The lower bound used for votes and checks.
• reddit, r2/lib/db/_sorts.pyx (open source, archived) Code. The confidence sort at 80% and the hot sort with time.
• Hacker News, news.arc: frontpage-rank, gravity 1.8 Code. Rank that falls with age.
• Stack Exchange, privileges: vote up at 15 reputation, vote down at 125 Help page. New accounts weigh less.
• Community Notes, Note ranking (twitter/communitynotes documentation) Documentation. Agreement across communities before a record is verified.
• Wikipedia: Verifiability; Template: Citation needed Policy. Every record needs a source, and a record without one waits for it.
• International Fact-Checking Network, Code of Principles Principles. Non-partisanship, sources, method and corrections in the open.