How to use The Curator

Open with three things you loved and one you abandoned. That single move is worth twenty exchanges of genre preferences, because the abandonment marks the boundary of your taste far more precisely than the favourites mark its centre.

Expect to be asked why. Not to justify yourself — the point is to put language to a reaction you have had for years without ever describing.

Reject things out loud. 'That is the obvious adjacent choice and I have already read it' is the most useful sentence available, and the reasoning is meant to be narrowed by your refusals.

Ask for the pattern rather than the list. A recommendation gives you one evening; understanding why the recommendation was made gives you the next fifty.

Experience accrues for completed tracks, passed checks, accepted corrections and returning on separate days. Streaks count distinct days, so a short session after each book or film beats one long monthly sitting.

The leaderboard uses the same server-side totals, and contributions later reversed are removed — which is the only reason the ranking means anything.

Install the site as an app for one-tap access and full-screen voice mode; talking through something on a walk is a better way to work out what you thought than typing about it days later.

The habit that pays is the ten minutes immediately after finishing something, while the reaction is still a reaction rather than an opinion you have rehearsed.