How the site works

Top 10 Central is a Web site for storing and sharing lists. The lists can be about anything you like, such as the best restaurants in your area, your favourite romantic novelists, the worst adverts you've ever seen, or the most effective political leaders of the past century. The only limitation is your imagination.

Lists can be public or private. A private list is only visible to its creator, who can add and edit entries as they wish. Public lists are available to everyone, which means anyone can comment on the entries in your list, add new entries of their own, and vote for or against existing entries. All lists start out as private, until such time as their creators decide to publish them.

Once you publish your list you will no longer be able to directly edit its content. However you will be able to view your list and add new entries in exactly the same way as anyone else.

When you make a contribution to the site you also create an identity that allows you to access your private lists and have your public lists and comments correctly identified. By default your user name will be 'Anonymous' however you can change that to anything you like, provided the name you choose is not already in use. You can also add a password so that you can log in from any location, whenever you wish.

Adding a new list

Anyone can add a new list to the site by going to the Add new list page or by clicking the 'Add list' button that can be found on any of the category pages. However before you do so, please check that a similar list hasn't already been created by someone else, in which case you might prefer to contribute to theirs. Do bear in mind that the site editor may decide to merge your list with an existing list to prevent duplication of effort if your list is sufficiently similar.

Having chosen a title for your list you can also add a description. You can take this opportunity to explain in more detail what types of item are eligible for your list.

You need to assign your list to at least one category, although you can assign it to the 'Other' category if none of the existing categories seem appropriate. The list of categories is being reviewed all the time and new categories are regularly added. When this happens the site editor will re-assign lists where necessary.

You can choose a second category for your list if appropriate. For example, if you are adding a list entitled 'Top 10 Restaurants in London' then it would make sense to assign it to both the 'Restaurant' category and the 'London' category.

You can also choose additional fields for your list items. In the case of restaurants in London, the main field would obviously be the name of the restaurant. However you might want to add fields for 'Cuisine' and 'Price bracket' or 'District' as well. Contributors don't have to fill these fields in, however they can if they wish.

Having done that you can start adding entries. You need add only one entry, or you can add the full ten. Use the arrow buttons to change the order of the entries.

Once you publish your list you will no longer be able to edit its contents from this page. Alternatively you can 'Save for later' in which case it will be listed amongst your private lists which you will find listed under on your 'My lists' page.

Adding entries to existing lists

Once a list has been published, anyone can add a new entry by pressing the 'Add new item' button. Although private lists can only have up to ten entries, public lists can have many more.

How your votes work

When a list is first created, the items in it are given a 'score' ranging from 1 to 10, depending on their position in the list. If the list contains ten items then the top item will have a score of 10 and the bottom a score of 1; if there are only four items then the top item will have a score of 4 and the bottom item will have a score of 1. Items are also date-stamped with the time the list was first published.

When you subsequently vote for one of the items in the list, its score is incremented or decremented depending on whether you voted for or against, and its date-stamp is updated. If two items share the same score in the same list, then the most recently updated is listed first.

Your identity

In order to enhance your experience of this site, an 'identity' is automatically created for you when you make a contribution to the site. Initially this consists of just a unique identifying number.

You can choose to have this identifying number stored on your computer as a cookie so that we can correctly identify you when you return and give you access to features such as 'My lists'. This is not a good idea if you are accessing the site from a public or shared computer as it means others will be able to edit and take possession of your private lists.

If you wish you can add a name to your identity so that other users can identify you. If you do not do so then your contributions will be attributed to 'Anonymous'. You can change your name on the site whenever you like.

You can add an email address to your identity, in which case you will be automatically sent an email informing you if anyone adds an item to any of your lists, or comments on any of your items. If you no longer wish to receive such emails, simply delete your email address from your identity.

You can also assign a password which will enable you to 'log on' to the site from any computer and be correctly identified. You can change or remove your password at any time. Passwords are stored in an encrypted 'hash' form which means they are not visible to anyone, including ourselves.

See our Privacy policy for more details.