How Content Ranking Works

1. Overview

zoneout uses several ranking algorithms to organize content across the platform. These algorithms are designed to surface engaging and relevant posts while giving you full control over how you browse.

None of our algorithms use personal data for personalization. Your feed is never tailored based on your identity, demographics, or browsing history. All feeds can be switched to a purely chronological ("New") view at any time.

2. Hot Score

The Hot score measures recent engagement on a post. It is the default sort order on most feeds and is calculated per space.

In plain terms, the formula combines upvotes, comments (weighted 2x), and Aura (weighted 3x) into a single engagement number. That engagement is then divided by the time since the post was created — newer content with more engagement ranks higher, while older posts naturally decay in the ranking over time.

Pinned posts in a space always appear above Hot-scored posts regardless of their score.

3. Trending Score

The Trending score identifies content that is gaining traction rapidly. It looks at votes and comments received in the last 3 hours relative to the post's age.

This score only applies to posts less than 48 hours old. Posts older than 48 hours have their trending score set to zero, ensuring that only genuinely fresh and fast-growing content appears in trending sections.

4. Top Score

The Top sort simply ranks posts by their total vote count within a selected time period. You can choose from: today, this week, this month, or all time.

No weighting, decay, or engagement factors are applied — this is a straightforward count of net upvotes in the chosen window.

5. New (Chronological)

The New sort displays posts in pure reverse-chronological order — the most recently created post appears first. No algorithmic ranking is applied.

This view is not personalized in any way. Every user who selects the New sort in the same space or feed will see the exact same order of posts.

6. Space Trending

Spaces (communities) are ranked by their recent activity over the past 7 days. The score takes into account the number of new posts, comments, new members, and active users during that period.

This score is refreshed every 15 minutes and is normalized by the space's total member count, so smaller but active communities can rank alongside larger ones.

7. Sponsored Content

Sponsored posts are always clearly labeled with a "Sponsored" tag so you can distinguish them from organic content.

• A maximum of 2 sponsored posts appear per 20 content items in any feed.
• Sponsored posts are targeted by content category (e.g., technology, gaming, art), not by your personal data, browsing history, or profile information.
• You can always identify sponsored content by the "Sponsored" label displayed on the post card.

8. AI Tool Ranking

AI tools submitted by the community are ranked using a composite score that combines the following factors:

• Upvotes: the number of upvotes the tool has received from users.
• Usage count: how often the tool has been used, weighted at half the value of an upvote.
• Newness bonus: tools less than 14 days old receive a temporary boost to help new submissions gain visibility.
• Featured status: administrators can mark a tool as featured, which gives it additional prominence in the ranking.

Tool scores are refreshed every 15 minutes.

9. Your Control

You can switch between Hot, New, and Top sort options at any time on any feed or space page. The sort preference is applied immediately.

The "New" sort provides a completely non-personalized, chronological feed with no algorithmic influence. If you prefer to see content exactly as it was posted, without any ranking or scoring, New is always available.