THE RULE BOOK
How ranking actually works, in full.
The short version lives on How it works ↗. This page is the complete reference.
1. The basic rule
Real engagement moves a listing up the board. Nothing else does: not payment, not staff opinion, not being first. Every eligible listing starts at zero and rises only through qualified LEFT UPs from real browsing sessions.
2. What LEFT UP ↑ means
LEFT UP ↑ is the one organic action on Left Up. It means “I want more people to see this.” It is one per anonymous browser session, per listing. No accounts, no repeat-clicking your way to the top.
3. What can be ranked
Reviewed, approved community organizations, clubs, events, volunteer opportunities, community projects, creators, media, newsletters, podcasts and resources are eligible for organic ranking once independently reviewed and approved.
4. What cannot be ranked
Candidates, campaigns, political parties, public officials, policies, proposed policies, legislation and ballot measures are permanently excluded from organic scoring, regardless of category or popularity. Unknown or unreviewed classifications never enter ranking either. These entries may only appear in the separate, unranked neutral directory: no rank, no score, no LEFT UP count, no popularity ordering.
5. The four boards
Trending compares LEFT UPS from the last 24 hours with the immediately preceding 24 hours. Today resets at 00:00 Pacific time. This Week resets Monday at 00:00 Pacific time. All Time preserves every qualified LEFT UP. Each board only counts qualified LEFT UPS inside its own window.
6. What affects visibility
Only a qualified LEFT UP ↑ affects organic rank, and it counts once per anonymous session per listing. Visits and shares never add ranking power. Newer listings may carry a NEW badge for 7 days after publication (ADDED TODAY on the day they’re approved), and the top 10 ranked listings on a board carry a TOP 10 badge. Badges are informational only. They don’t change rank.
7. What does not count / abuse prevention
Sponsor impressions and clicks never enter organic scoring, under any circumstance. Detected bot traffic is discarded. A burst of activity on one listing (60+ qualified actions in a minute) triggers automatic review instead of counting. Sessions younger than a second can’t register a guarded action. Sharing a link to yourself, or copying it without it ever being opened, is not measured as growth. We distinguish share initiation from detectable completion.
8. Sponsorship: clearly separated
Every sponsored placement is labeled SPONSORED, shown unnumbered and outside the rankings, and requires independent editorial approval plus an active, paid publication window. Payment, sponsor impressions, and sponsor clicks can never buy organic rank, change an organic score, alter a ranking snapshot, or add to a listing’s LEFT UP ↑ count. See Sponsor discovery ↗ and the sponsorship terms ↗.
9. Moderation / removal
Every nomination and first listing draft requires human review before it can appear publicly. Administrators can approve, reject or suspend a listing at any time, and reclassifying a listing as ineligible clears its engagement history, shares and ranking snapshots immediately. Repeated broken-link signals are tracked, but a failed link check never auto-deletes a listing. A person reviews it first.
10. Sharing and privacy
We use a random, signed browser identifier for deduplication and first-party operational measurement. The identifier is not a verified person and is never used to infer political beliefs, build political-interest profiles, or fingerprint a device. Shared links carry a random referral token so we can tell a real referral from a self-open, without reading anything about who clicked it.
11. Detailed ranking methodology ↓
Organic signal
One qualified LEFT UP contributes one unit of organic support. Visits, shares, sponsor events, payments, listing age, and New Today placement contribute nothing to rank.
Trending formula
Trending score is LEFT UPS in the most recent 24 hours plus any positive change over the immediately preceding 24 hours. Today, This Week, and All Time are plain qualified LEFT UP counts in their windows.
Ties and unranked entries
Equal nonzero scores tie by earliest submission time, then by stable identifier. Zero-score entries remain unranked and are listed newest-first. A listing needs a nonzero score to receive a rank at all.
Snapshots and movement
A ranking snapshot is taken at most once every 60 seconds, across every category and board. Movement compares the current rank to the most recent snapshot at least one minute old, in the same period, category and ranking configuration. No comparable snapshot means no movement arrow is shown. We never invent trend data.