TheTopTens Blog

TheTopTens Blog is our way of shedding some light on some of the "behind the scenes" of the top ten lists. It gives us a chance to explain some of the particulars of the site and to share some of the hidden aspects of TheTopTens.

Slow Approvals Over the Next Couple Weeks

October 13, 2009

We know, we know; how could they possibly get slower than they are already?

Through the end of the month, we will only be able to devote a minimal amount of time towards managing TheTopTens. So while all your new lists, comments, and other submissions will be saved, you may not see them for a little while.

Thank you for your understanding and for your ongoing contributions to TheTopTens. After this brief hiatus, it will be fun to get back to seeing all the entertaining things peop

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New Tool for Managing Comments Added to Your Blog Posts

September 1, 2009

The old way of managing blog comments was a mess so we've been working to make that process a bit better. Starting today, you will be able to view, approve, and delete comments on your blog posts by clicking the "moderate blog comments" link when you are signed in to TheTopTens. This tool should make it a lot easier to keep track of the comments your posts receive since you will no longer need to go to each of your posts and manage the comments from there.

In addition to making it easier to manage the comments, we have also made the decision to no longer automatically post new comments to your blog. Previously, as soon as someone added a comment, it was available for all to see unless you deleted it. Now, all new comments will be marked as 'pending' and will not be displayed on your posts until you approve them. this should cut down on the number of spam blog comments as well as give you more control over your blog.

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New Profile Options + TheTopTens on Twitter

April 16, 2009

The Web is a community and we are thrilled to have our little place in it. And as with all communities, the foundation is communication among it's members. To help make this possible, months ago we added the ability for members of TheTopTens to send each other messages, and that is exactly what you have done ... over 10,000 times.

To help expand the community aspect of TheTopTens, we recently added the ability to create up to a dozen links to your various social networking profiles in your profiles. Now, instead of only having one "Home Page" link in your profile. you can now also add links to your Facebook,, Myspace, Digg, YouTube, and Twitter accounts that people can use to find you on the Net.

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That's One Way to Campaign for Votes

April 10, 2009

I stumbled across this video while looking through our analytics reports. Our reports showed that the site was receiving visitors from YouTube and now I know why. Double points for ingenuity on this one...



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Tips for Creating a Successful Top Ten List

March 2, 2009

There are now well over 2,000 top ten lists on TheTopTens and after looking over a few years worth of data showing millions of visitors, one can see that there are certain characteristics that make any one list more successful that another. Below we have provided some tips we have for creating successful, high quality top ten lists.

1) Create a list with well defined parameters
People are more likely to take an interest in your list if it is clear what types of items do and do not belong. For example, with lists such as the Top Ten Best Tenacious D Songs and the Best Male Golfers of All Time, it is easy for people to choose which items to vote on or which new items they want to add to the list. Lists such as the Top Ten Animals are more difficult for a couple of reasons. First, people can get confused about how they should add new animal to the list. If their favorite animal is a Grizzly Bear, should they add Grizzly Bear, Brown Bear, or just Bear? What if their favorite animal is an African Lion and someone has already added Cat to the list? Do they vote for Cat or add a new item?

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New Feature: Member Blog Posts

August 31, 2008

As a few of you have noticed, members of TheTopTens now have the ability to create their own blog posts. It has taken quite some time since this feature was first suggested by preachinpreach, but the basic version of it is finally here.

Moving forward, the plan is to better integrate your blog posts into the rest of the site, but before doing so, now is as good a time as any to discuss some of the do's and don'ts regarding blog posts.

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Just a Reminder, They are Your Lists, Not Ours

May 28, 2008

The following are messages we have received from visitors to the site. Instead of responding to each person individually, I'm going to simply post them here and remind everyone that we do not dictate the items that are on each list or the order they are ranked in. You do. So don't worry about wasting your time asking us to fix lists or do our homework.

If you disagree with a list, do you part to correct it. Vote on items that need to be ranked higher, add comments to convince others of your opinion, and add items that you feel should be in the list.

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Can't Delete Messages Bug - Fixed

April 21, 2008

We recently received a report that members were unable to delete personal messages sent to them from other members. After looking into the issue, it looks like there was a problem with the way Internet Explorer was displaying the messages page so while the option to delete the message was visible, people could not click on it.

As of a few minutes ago, we updated that page to fix this bug and successfully tested it in Internet Explorer. You should now be able to delete messages but if you ar

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Recent Updates to TheTopTens

February 1, 2008

As you may have noticed, we have been hard at work over the past couple of weeks making tweaks to the front-end and the back-end of the site. The goals of these tweaks have been to make the site run faster and to improve the comment approval process.

The first major update was a change in how the vote link functioned. Before, when you clicked on the vote link on a list, you would be taken to a page that recorded your vote (even if you didn’t see it), and then to the updated list page. Now, as a result of my newly discovered Ajax coding mojo, when you click on the vote link the vote is recorded and the list is updated all without requiring you to reload the page. This should make the voting process much faster.

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What Would Make You Want to Add to TheTopTens?

November 6, 2007

It's an interesting idea that I have toyed with, but now that preachinpreach has brought it up, let’s discuss.

There are a number of loyal contributors to TheTopTens who have made the site what it is today. Launched just two years ago, TheTopTens was a pet project of mine to help me learn more about website development, SQL, SEO, etc. Today, I’m astounded at what the site has become and am excited to see what the future will bring.

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