We’re a small paper
about the internet’s loudest opinions.

Every argument on the internet wants to be a leaderboard. Star ratings flatten everything. Top-ten lists are somebody’s ten. We’re trying the only thing that hasn’t been tried at scale: ask the crowd to choose, two at a time, and let the math do the ordering.

The result is something between a sports league and a magazine. Open rankings sit at the top of the index; settled ones move to the morgue file. ELO scores tick up and down as the duels come in. Letters are permitted in the margin. Champions get a pull quote.

How a duel becomes a leaderboard.

1. 01

   Two contenders, one verdict.

   Every duel is a head-to-head. We don’t ask you to grade on a curve, write a rationale, or give stars. You pick the one that should sit higher. That is the whole interaction.

2. 02

   ELO, borrowed from chess.

   Each contender carries a number. Win a duel, you take points off the loser proportional to how surprising the result was. Beat a favorite, you climb fast. Beat a long-shot, you barely move. Over thousands of duels, the order stops shifting.

3. 03

   Confidence, not consensus.

   We close a ranking when the math is sure of itself, not when the crowd agrees. A 90% confidence interval on every position. If a ranking can’t be settled, it stays open. Some never do.

1. 01

   One vote, one voter.

   You sign in, you vote with your name on it. No anonymous brigading. No bots — at least, none that survive the audit.

2. 02

   No editorial thumb on the scale.

   We don’t weight votes by who you are. A first-time voter and a thousand-vote regular both move the leaderboard the same way.

3. 03

   All ELOs are opinions.

   A leaderboard is a snapshot of who the crowd thinks should win. It is not a fact about the world. We print it like a fact anyway, because it is more interesting that way.