Why should I register?

You don’t have to register to read the stories on the site, however if you would like to vote for, comment on, or submit stories you need to register. Registration takes less than a minute and we’ll never share your email with anyone.

Another major benefit of registration is that you can “add friends” and watch what stories they vote for, comment on, and submit--like a shared reading list.


What type of things can I submit?

Currently, we’re tracking news items (which also includes interesting websites), videos, photos, and audio files (podcasts, song samples, etc).


How do you submit stories, photos, videos, etc?

We have a very simple two-step process. Once you’re logged in (only registered users can submit stuff to help reduce spam) just click on the submit tab.

The first page will ask you for the url. The second page will ask you for more details and then you can “Preview” your submission. If everything looks good, then just click on the “Submit” button and you’re done.


What are Backpage and Frontpage stories?

The Backpage area of Ningin is where all newly submitted items go. From there users can go screen items as they appear and help determine if the item is worthy for the general Ningin community. A worthy or popular item will make it to the Frontpage for the entire world to see.


How do stories make it to the Frontpage?

Stories or more generally, items, make it to the Frontpage based on a number of factors. Each of these factors is part of a formula to determine popularity. Once an item passes a certain popularity threshold, it will be moved from the Backpage to the Frontpage.


What are tags?

Tags are personal keywords that help you identify the article, photo, video, or audio file you’re submitting. It could be a category, a name, a location, and it could be as specific or as general as you want.

For the purposes of this site, please include the nation or nationality of the people a particular story is about. So if you’re submitting a story about China, you should use China as a tag.

For an even more in-depth explanation of tags, there’s always Wikipedia.


What is a tag cloud?

A tag cloud is a visual representation of a specific result set. This basically means that for a given search criteria, say, all the entertainment news in the last three days, a tag cloud can give you an idea of the frequency and variety of tags within that search and thus the frequency and variety of news items within that search.


How does the scoring system work?

Each and every significant action or contribution is recorded and rewarded. We do this as a means of recognizing those who contribute most to the site and, in the future, plan on providing more features to those heavy contributors.


What do the different color stars mean?

The color-coded star rating of an item is a general guideline of an item’s popularity. It is separated into levels with 5, a red star, being the highest and 1, a blue star, being the lowest.


What type of photos can I upload?

You can upload any photos with the jpg, gif, bmp, or png format. Also uploaded photos must abide by our photo policy which basically means no nudity and nothing offensive.


How do you report a bug?

Reporting a bug is as simple as clicking on the Bug Report link on the bottom of every page. If you’re logged in, the Name and Email field will be filled out for you and all you have to do is provide a description of the bug.


How do I report an abuse, incorrect, or inappropriate item?

Almost all the pages have a little report icon next to its description (report icon). Just click on it and follow the instructions for submitting a report.


Why are there no numeric scores next to the stars?

Unlike other news aggregation sites out there, we think it’s best that you don’t see too much information about an item’s popularity. An important part of the collaborative filtering system that Ningin uses is to ensure that people’s opinions aren’t influenced by those around them. So Ningin gives you just enough to separate the few from the many, but not enough to say this one item is best for you. Eventually, based on your past habits, Ningin will be able to learn more about your interests and be able to make better recommendations.