What is TapTheHive?

TTH is a premiere smart aggregator. Other aggregators are either slow, too centralized, pander to a different crowd, or try to force their content on you. TTH is set up to adapt to you, and it is designed to fix the ever increasing noise:signal ratio as more of the internet moves to user generated content.

What's does TTH have that the other sites don't?

• Blogging platform: many news aggregators simply grant the users the power to post links with a short title and a summary. TTH is a blogging platform which allows the user to post a body also shown on the comments page. The links are optional.
• Hivecode: TTH supports a markup that is a combination of bbcode, wikicode, and some other lesser known markup concepts. Check the hivecode manual for supported syntax.
• Wikifields: higher ranking users are able to edit titles, summaries, and bodies of posts just like any other wiki. Reversion and differentials are also supported so you can see what exactly was changed, and fix the change if it harmed the post.
• Auto-embedding: links going straight to youtube and other popular embeddable sites will have their video automatically be embedded to the discussion pages.
• Slash-n-burn: on a lot of other aggregators, once you've seen the title and the summary, you'll see the post again every time until it falls off the main page. When you're logged in and you click "more" on the bottom of the page, all posts that loaded on your page will never show again in your main feed. However, if you comment on a post, and someone else comments on the post, that post will re-enter your feed by default (you can disable this).
• Auto-tagging: it's surprising that in this day and age, sites are still using fixed categories which require humans to enter them. Computers can generally figure these out. Our tagging algorithm is getting better all the time.

What are some upcoming features for TTH?

We're looking at a number of features over the next couple month.

• Facebook Connect logins.
• the Hive Scout, a crawler that lets you syndicate your content faster.

What codebase does TTH use?

TTH is custom coded from scratch in PHP and MySQL. It does not use pligg, wordpress, drupal, or any other canned content management system.

How do I score something on TapTheHive?

Log in. Check the icons to the right of the post title or comment.

What does each mark mean?

Unlike other sites, TTH only has 2 marks. All other scoring is behaviorally scanned from your actions.

• Spam: links to junk sites for buying the latest male enhancement, offers for various vice services, and sites that have more advertisements on their page than content deserve the spam-hammer. If enough strong marks build up for a link being spam, the entire domain is banned from mention on TTH both in comments and in posts.
• Inaccurate: this is for the content that is factually wrong. Note that improper titles and summaries are NOT cause for using the inaccurate tag. Just edit the post if that's the case.

What is NSFW?

NSFW is the internet-wide term for "Not Safe For Work," and denotes something you would rather not have your boss walk in on you looking at it.

How do I source things?

When two sources report on the same story, but both are generally credible sources (for example, NYT vs. AP vs. Reuters, etc.), that's merely a dupe. Feel free to post these, as long as you're not just copying and pasting from the article.

However, don't submit blogspam. This is the crap where some blogger copies some of the original article, and maybe gives a short opinion. Frequently, these blog sites grind to a halt as a few visitors come in, usually because of cheap hosting or bloated content management systems. Additionally, people have a tendency to argue for or against a policy standpoint when they have little or no knowledge about that field (i.e. non-geeks arguing about tech, non-lawyers arguing about law).

I just marked something by mistake, or I changed my mind about a mark. What do I do?

Visit your history, find the link in your activity list, and hit "unmark". Or, you can click the unmark icon next to the mark directly with the post or comment.

Is my mark worth the same weight as everyone elses?

Probably not. It can be more, it can be less, or it can be the same. It depends on your reputation.

What's the easiest way to get rep?

Submit good comments, links, and posts. When other reputable people rank them up, your rep will go up too.

I just gave out a ton of marks in a few minutes and my reputation went down. What gives?

Under normal marking circumstances, the vast majority of people will never see any reputation lost for this. This is intended to prevent people from spamming up posts of their friends (which happens all the time on other aggregators).

What are some other benefits of high reputation?

Reputation is the foundation of TapTheHive. As your rep increases, everything you do has more effect on the system. Noticeable benefits include:

• Comment Exposure: your own comments will be seen (by default) by more people.
• Front Page: your posts and submissions will hit the front page faster and more often.
• Heavier Marks: everything you mark will either move up or down more based on your rep. This is a question of whether TTH will take your word on an assertion.
• Less Ads: you'll see substantially less ads. High ranking users will even see no ads.

I just created an account and I'm handing out marks, but it doesn't look like anything is happening. What's the deal?

There is a newbie break-in period where your marks are just not worth much. Keep submitting links and comments and you'll get out of the newbie period faster, although submitting quality comments are the fastest way to rep up. This way SirSpammalot cannot create 30 accounts to mark up all of his own submissions. The scoring algorithm is set up so that once you get out of the newbie break-in period, your score is back calculated so you get full credit for all your previous comments and posts.

Once I get rep, is it permanent?

Generally, no. Your rep is always subject to the marks people give for the content you've posted. Rep decreases over time if you're inactive, but your rep restores once you're active again. This prevents SirSpammalot from making 30 accounts, letting him wait out the newbie break-in period, and then spamming up his own submissions.

How do I view the stats for a post or comment?

You can view the stats of your own posts and comments. By checking the stats, you'll see the number of people who gave various marks. However, you cannot see who those people were, or how much their mark was worth. Theoretically, a post can still have a negative overall score with a thousand different positive marks, and only ten negative marks. That's the point of reputation -- some opinions are more reputable than others.

How do I see what I've marked and visited?

It's all on your history page.

I can see what I visited and what I marked. Can anyone else?

Other users viewing your profile cannot see your marks and what you've visited, but they can see your comments and posts. Admins can look at everything but will generally not disclose this (see the Terms and Policies for more information on this). This is more to protect against gaming rather than some privacy intrusion. If a paid gaming site cannot verify that a gamer marked something, that really puts a monkey-wrench in the gaming business.

What other anti-gaming and anti-spamming measures are there?

Don't create a second account for logging in at the same computer. Not only are there simple technical measures that will out you for this nefarious activity, there are also complex behavioral models that will detect this. If you have family member or friend using the same computer, the system can detect this via the behavioral model.

Can I share my account?

Technologically, yes, but it's ill advised. If you and another person are using a single account simultaneously, you're both going to get logged out over and over again due to session controls. Also, your combined marks are much more likely to set off the hammering trigger and your rep will suffer. When we see two IP addresses fighting over the same login info, the account will likely be suspended temporarily until the password reset function is used.

Can I delete my account?

Somewhat. When you request (and confirm) deletion, all of your posts and comments are assigned to Hades, a psuedo-user that collects everyone's dead threads. Messages you've sent or chattered will be deleted, even from others' inboxes. This CANNOT be undone.

What does TTH do with my email?

TTH will never knowingly and intentionally share your email. Messages can be forwarded to your email based on what you set on your preferences page. Administrative messages will be sent to your email regardless of your privacy settings, but those are used as sparingly as possible (really, no weekly updates or any of that spam).

If you don't have an email address submitted, you cannot use the password reset function and no messages will be forwarded. By default, your preferences are set only so that messages from your friends will be forwarded to your email. Any usage of your email will always be preference based so you can turn it off in the preferences tab.

People keep editing my posts to remove certain words? How can I make them stop?

Certain words and phrases are automatically changed and reworded. For instance, putting "BREAKING!!!" before a post is silly because within a few hours, the post is no longer breaking.

How do I get the maximum exposure possible for a post?

Scores of posts are based on a number of things.

• the reputation of the poster
• the marks given by readers
• the length of the title and summary
• whether the post is merely a roundup or recap

Additionally, users can filter out posts that have been identified with the following:

• sensational writing ("best, amazing, addictive, addicting, absolute, worst, stunning, shocking, amazing, fear, awesome," and some more indicators)
• colloquially addressing the reader ("you, my, me, we, us")
• mere possibilities (rumors, questions, claims that something "could", "may", or "might" happen)
• press releases
• opinions
• lists and compilations (more mature users tend to look at these as linkbait)
• open letters
• ellipses and excessive colons and dashesFurther, registered users can choose to hide comments by anonymous posters.

Who makes your sexy icons?

The icons are a mix of the Pinvoke Fugue icons and the FamFamFam Silk icons.

Any other legal mumbo jumbo?

These are just answers to questions TTH gets asked. These do not constitute any promise of service, quality of service, due process, or any other obligation that TTH is undertaking or will undertake. TTH reserves the right to change the FAQ and Terms and policies at any time.