What the whowins Leaders Page Shows

The leaders page is where most visitors meet whowins, and it is also the page founders refresh after taking a seat. It is deliberately plain: products in rows, two numbers per row, a few badges. This post explains each element so you can read it quickly as a visitor and use it well as a founder.

The overall board

At the top of the leaders page sits the overall board, which gathers the top seats across every category into one list. A visitor who wants to see the leading products on whowins without opening each category reads this list. A founder whose product holds a top seat on a category board is seen here as well as on the category, which is one of the reasons top rows are contested.

The overall board is a view, not a separate set of seats. The seat you hold is on a category board; the overall board shows it because of where it is.

The category boards

Below the overall board, each category has its own board. Every row is a seat, and every seat shows the product’s logo, name, one-line description, link, current price and last payment. The boards are listed on the home page too; the leaders page shows the top of each.

Each category board links through to the full board, which extends downward as far as the held seats go. A board never fills up; it grows when it needs to.

The two numbers

Each row carries exactly two amounts. The current price is what it costs to take the seat right now. The last payment is what the holder paid for it. The difference between them is the minimum step, and the current price is the smallest amount that takes the seat.

Nothing else about the seat’s ordinary history is shown: not who paid and not when. The one count that is shown is how many times a seat changed hands inside a challenge, together with what that challenge closed at. The two numbers are the whole public record, and they are enough to decide whether to take the seat. Our walkthrough of how a seat changes hands explains what happens when you do.

Badges

Some rows carry a badge. IN A CHALLENGE marks a seat with a clock running; the seat is pinned to the top of its board while the clock runs and a card for it appears on the challenge page. WON A CHALLENGE marks a listing that held a seat when a clock reached zero; it shows the date and the closing amount and stays with the listing even if the seat later changes hands.

Badges are information. They do not change what it costs to take the seat.

The activity feed

Alongside the boards, the activity feed shows recent seat changes and lines that holders have posted. A seat changing hands appears as a line; a holder in a challenge can post lines that carry the IN A CHALLENGE badge. The feed is the quickest way to see which boards are moving today.

For a founder, the feed is a signal about rivalry. A board whose seats appear in the feed several times a day is contested; a board that rarely appears is quiet. Both can be the right place for a listing, as our post on choosing your first board explains.

What the page does not show

• The identity of the last payer
• The number of times a seat has changed hands outside a challenge
• Exit click counts, which are shown only to the holder of the seat
• Any score, rating or opinion about the products

The absence is the design. A visitor sees products and prices; a founder sees what it costs to be seen. Nothing on the page is decided by anyone’s view of the products.

The product page behind each row

Every row links to a product page as well as to the product’s own site. The product page shows the listing, the seat’s two amounts, the badges for the product’s current position on its board and, if it has one, the WON A CHALLENGE record. Our post on badges and what each one means lists them.

The product page is where a visitor who is comparing goes to see a little more than the row, and it is where a founder checks how the listing looks outside the board. It shows nothing the board decides by, only what the board already shows plus the badges.

Reading the page as a founder

Three things to take from a minute on the leaders page before you pay for a seat:

1. Which rows on your board the overall board shows, since those are seen twice
2. The gap between the current price and the last payment on the rows you want
3. Which listings in the top rows you would click yourself, and why

The third is the one founders skip. The listings that hold top rows for a long time are usually the ones whose line and logo earn the click; our post on writing a listing that earns clicks goes through what they do right.