Rules

Published posts of at least 150 characters from Bearletter blogs: Free blogs after their first 7 days, Pro blogs at once. A blog that publishes more than 3 posts in 12 hours is left out until it slows down. To keep a post off, turn off Show on the front page when you publish it (in the file, make_discoverable: false); it stays on your blog as before. Pro does not rank higher: it only lists a new blog sooner.

Votes are the likes readers give a post on its own blog, after reading it, one per reader and post each year. The blog shows every like; the front page counts a like only when all of these hold: the reader opened the post’s page earlier the same day; the like does not come from a cloud or hosting network; it is not the author’s own (likes from the address the author used the dashboard from that day); the reader has given fewer than 10 counted likes in the last day; and, in a post’s first 6 hours, no one else on the same network (an IPv4 /24 or IPv6 /48) has. There are no downvotes.

Ten times the votes make up for one day. Only posts from the last 7 days with at least one counted vote are ranked; a post counts at most 50 votes. The score is worked out when a vote counts and kept with the post, so two posts change places only when someone votes, never with the clock. Ties go to the newer post. A page shows 30 posts and at most one from each blog; a blog’s other posts wait for later pages. No review, payment or person changes the order.score = log10(counted votes, up to 50) + time first published ÷ 1 day

After the ranked posts come posts from the last 30 days with no place among them, newest first, so new writing is seen before anyone has voted and the page is never empty while few readers vote. A vote moves a post up among the ranked ones. Every listed post is in New, newest first, from the moment it is published.

Each listed post is reviewed once after it is published by Jev, a decision model from TypeSafe that answers questions with probabilities and writes nothing. Until then the post is only in New. Jev decides only whether a post may be on the front page; it never decides the order. It is asked, for the post’s title, blog, language and text:

• Spam or promotion (SEO, affiliate marketing, selling things)?
• Mass AI-generated (text produced in bulk by AI)?
• Not personal writing (press releases, brand accounts, publications; a founder writing about what they make is personal)?
• Adult or illegal (adult content or content that is against the law)?
• Harassment (writing aimed at hurting someone)?
• How severe is the worst problem: harmless, mild, moderate, serious, severe?
• How much is real writing: almost no content: only links, reposts or templates; some writing of the author's own, with little substance; original writing with real substance?

A post is kept off the front page when any of the five reaches 0.70 or the severity is serious or severe, and the decision goes into the handling log with its categories, without naming the post. Between 0.50 and 0.70 it is on the front page only once readers vote for it. At the lowest level of real writing it is kept off. A post kept off is never taken down: it stays on its blog as before. All languages share the same thresholds.

Readers can report a post from the front page, with a reason: Spam, AI-generated, Not personal writing, Other. Like votes, a report counts only from a reader who read the post that day and not from a cloud network, up to 10 a day. When readers on 3 different networks report a post, Jev reviews it again with the reasons in front of it and a lower bar: 0.50. Either way the result is logged, and the post is not reviewed again for reports for 7 days.

A blog with 3 posts kept off in 30 days is kept off the front page until fewer than 3 of its posts were kept off in the last 30 days. This is logged too. Blogs that break the Terms can be suspended.

When a post is kept off, its author sees why, in words, above the post in the dashboard. A review that keeps nothing off is not shown, and Jev’s probabilities for a post are shown to no one. The author can ask for another look once for each decision that keeps the post off: Jev reads the post again and keeps it off only at 0.85 or more. It does not read a note from the author, since anyone can write that they wrote a post themselves. The answer comes at once and goes into the handling log. People handle only legal requests, such as notices of illegal content: they can keep a post or a blog off or suspend a blog, with a reason in the log. Nobody demotes or features a post by hand.

The language you pick, and blogs you hide, stay in your browser: nothing is sent to us, and clearing your browser's data clears them.