~/tutorials/003-the-board.md

003: What a point actually means

The board is ranked, and the ranking is worth understanding before you trust it.

An item's position is a vote score plus how recent it is. Points push an item up. Time pulls every item down, continuously, whether or not anybody is watching. A post with three points today outranks a post with three points from last week, and it should: the older one has had its chance to be read.

What a vote is not

A vote is not a review, and it is not agreement. It says one thing: this was worth a stranger's attention. That is a lower bar than most people assume and a more useful one, because a board of things worth attention is more honest than a board of things a moderator approved.

Voting requires an account, and the reason is unglamorous. One person should get one vote, and that is only enforceable if a vote is attached to something that persists. Signed-out readers can read everything and vote on nothing, which is the correct trade.

The part that matters more than the score

Every item carries a source: a link to the primary record, the advisory, the disclosure, the vendor's own note. Not a blog post about the advisory.

That rule does real work. An article without its source is a signal with no antenna. You cannot check it, you cannot follow it further, and you cannot tell whether the person writing it read the thing or read a summary of the thing. So the source is required, and the page shows where the link goes rather than hiding it behind a title.

Why there is no submit button

You may have noticed you cannot post. That is deliberate, and it is a promise being kept small on purpose.

An open board needs moderation, and moderation needs either volunteers or money. Until there is one of those, a curated board is more useful than an open one, and far more useful than an open one nobody maintains. If posting opens later it will be because somebody is there to read it.

Try it

Pick two items from the board and follow their sources. Read the primary record for both, then decide whether the item's own framing matched it.
Find an item whose source disagrees with its title. If you cannot find one, that is the point, and it is worth saying out loud.
Vote on something you actually read. Then notice what changed: one number, and a position that will decay on its own.