The whitelist test is over. Here's what we learned and where we need your help.

From Monday April 29 to Sunday May 5, we tested a whitelist. Users could only submit link posts to pre-approved (whitelisted) domains.Overall, we are considering the test a success.Subreddit text (self) submissions exploded. Links to articles with strong bias decreased. Links were to news articles of much higher average quality. Overall, most moderators and most users agreed that the subreddit was the best it had been in a while. We learned a lot more in the past week. For these reasons, even though the whitelist is going away for now, expect it to come back soon better than ever.That being said, there are a number of things we have learned and would like to improve. We would like your feedback on these ideas.Some felt the whitelist was too restrictive. We began the test with high standards, and we relaxed them slightly throughout the week. If we are uncertain about specific independent news organizations, we may be more likely to accept them into the whitelist under a trial basis, and only remove if there is an issue.Many people disagree with the decision to exclude project-specific websites and blogs. We disagree internally about how to handle these, and we would like your help. On one hand, these posts are often the primary sources of information for many important developments. On the other hand, these posts are far more likely to include inaccurate (eg: fake partnership), misleading, hyped-up, or biased content. We are having a tough time navigating the delicate balance between allowing these posts and allowing only independent reports confirming these announcements.We are revamping our user flair system (again), and we are considering tying some perks to the whitelist. For example, posters of consistently good content and discussions may be permitted to submit any link outside of the blacklist. New users can only submit whitelist links. This way, users with good reputation are rewarded with more flexibility, while newcomers are limited to a smaller number of options. This could lessen the downsides of the whitelist while making sure that other submitted content is of similar high quality.We need to further improve the crosspost feature. We intend to limit crossposts to only specific websites, but it is difficult to configure AutoMod the way we want. We will keep testing to make the experience better.People often post non-whitelisted sources in text (self) posts. While this is usually the intended use of this feature, we are looking for ways to better handle people that post a single link as a text post surrounded by gibberish or pointless drivel.Some considered the whitelist application too long. We will most likely drop the second section and remove a question or two from the main application.We appreciate your participation in this test. Let us know if there is anything we missed. For all other feedback, please remember to post in r/CryptoCurrencyMeta.

Submitted May 05, 2019 at 09:49PM