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Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem?

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Re: Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem?

#4
It could be growth. It could be a lot of things.

I postulate that the necessary quality level is greater now because of the sheer number of articles that get sifted through. What used to make the cut, no longer does. Or, it could be vice-versa.

Re: Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem?

#5
I think it's a function of there being too many items submitted every day, and not enough people checking the "new" page. During busy times of the day, if you don't get 5-10 votes within the first 10-15 mins, you're on the 2nd page of the "new" posts area, and you're never going to make it. I'm afraid the end result is that the only posts that will end up on the front-page are:

  1. Where the author (domain) is well-known
  2. Where the title is link-bait
  3. Where the submitter tries to game the system
All of these are bad for the future of HN. I really like the way reddit handles this, of putting a few new items at the top of the homepage and rotating them, so that more people see them and have the chance to upvote. The way things are going, HN is destined to have a front-page full of only linkbait, spam, and/or posts by rockstars.

Re: Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem?

#6
Sometimes I feel like a bit of a freeloader, since I never click on "new" in order to upvote the decent submissions.

The only suggestions that I have would be (1) to automatically load a handful of "new" submissions in a separate section of the main page (at the expense of destroying the current design and cluttering the page), or (2) giving out karma for upvoting new stories (which is ripe for exploitation by simply clicking randomly).

Re: Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem?

#7

I'm also finding many are [dead] as soon as they are submitted, for no reason that I can see. Then, a short while later, the [dead] is lifted. See my post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659521

More people than in the past are using 'flag' as a generic downvote.

Re: Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem?

#9

I think it's a function of there being too many items submitted every day, and not enough people checking the "new" page. During busy times of the day, if you don't get 5-10 votes within the first 10-15 mins, you're on the 2nd page of the "new" posts area, and you're never going to make it. I'm afraid the end result is that the only posts that will end up on the front-page are: 1. Where the author (domain) is well-kn…

Another idea may be to increase the amount of time that a new post is "boosted" into the main page list. It seems like new posts fall to the 2nd page really quick. So it might be fixable by tweaking parameters.

Re: Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem?

#10
My suggestion would be to randomly feature 5 new articles on the home page (probably below rank 20, so as not to pollute the top 10). This way, they get more visibility than by being only on the "new page", and get a chance to get the clicks they need.
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