I wonder how long this project will run. So many Hacker News interface reimplementations have gone dark over the years.
Success to you!
Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
31–40 of 72 posts
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#32I guess I don't understand what the problem is with the current way of doing things? Like, HN is one of the few communities online now where the content and the conversation seem interesting, varied, and polite.
Whats the core problem you're trying to solve here?
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#33HN needs to separate emotion from reason in upvotes and downvotes. I bet that many readers here confuse the upvote button with "I like it" and the downvote button with "I dislike it" while it should be about "is this comment truthful and informative, does it add something novel to the discussion?" HN could implement this with a cosmetic change: all upvotes and downvotes would show a form to provide explanation. Those…
I think this boils down to: - Users upvote, because they want that story to get MORE attention, BECAUSE they agree - Users downvote, because they want that story to get LESS attention, BECAUSE they disagree So the intent is still attention control, but the reason is (dis)agreement. But in the case of HN, the downvote is a moderation mechanism, instead of a community poll. So this might be confusing to the user. Treat…
Usually (but not always), I upvote not because I agree, but because someone said something that I think was worth reading. Usually (but not always), I downvote not because I disagree, but because someone said something that I think is worth negative attention (trolling, etc.).
But I would love a separate Like/Dislike mechanism. It's a bit painful to upvote an insightful (thus upvote-worthy) comment that expresses a view that I disagree with.
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#34Are you sure / do you have info that HN doesn't use some kind of "holding pen" for stories to have a fixed amount of time to see if they get a certain % of votes before being kicked down the list?
This is a classic problem with forums, and I wonder if HN already has something in place that you might not have factored in (which could then just be tuned better).
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#35As long as we're talking about redoing this, let me suggest letting authors see the names of upvoters (and only upvoters). Quora had this and it did a fair bit to create positive community feelings for me. It also let people signal agreement/support without having to create a comment to do so, which I would find handy.
If this were the system, I'd just stop voting. Which may or may not be a bad thing.
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#36I'd like to see these alternate algorithms implemented. The API exists - and isn't that really the only way to ultimately judge if it's better or worse? Another random idea: have the parameters affecting rankings be visible and adjustable with interactive sliders- so you could customize the various weights to try to attain the ideal mix of stories for you. Or does that defeat the purpose. Is the joy of HN in knowing…
One thing that prevents us from actually implementing the algorithm is that there is some "secret sauce" to HN rankings that is not publicly available. There are flags, vote ring detectors, domain penalties, the second chance queue, and other means by which HN moderators change the rank of stories. And these make a *huge* difference. Our initial implementation of an alternative ranking algorithm was not an improvemen…
> secret sauce
This is a feature FWIW. It prevents blatant gaming of rankings.
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#37I guess I don't understand what the problem is with the current way of doing things? Like, HN is one of the few communities online now where the content and the conversation seem interesting, varied, and polite. Whats the core problem you're trying to solve here?
My biggest gripe, which may not be solvable and isn’t unique to HN, is this vote/point system that ends up as “truth by consensus”. Controversial opinions, which may actually be the correct ones, are hidden and buried and even have their text slowly disappear and fade out which I think is ridiculous.
It promotes groupthink and encourages users to just repeat mainstream opinions.
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#38I guess I don't understand what the problem is with the current way of doing things? Like, HN is one of the few communities online now where the content and the conversation seem interesting, varied, and polite. Whats the core problem you're trying to solve here?
I can tell you one issue I observe as someone living in a different timezone. HN ranking highly depends on timing. As a consequence during hours the US is asleep my impression (I have not investigated this thoroughly) is that front page stories are dominated by old stories and new submissions don't make enough votes to get to the front page. Then once the US wakes, New stories get enough votes and make it to the front page. This leads to biases in the news, which I find unfortunate, because I believe everyone would benefit from news being geographically (for lack of a better word) broader.
I certainly welcome someone playing with different algorithms to see how they affect ranking.
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
it is well calibrated and just today my RSS reader told me a story I thought was a nothingburger would succeed on both metrics and… It did! I was originally going to joke that maybe you should turn your script on to the stock market, but I'm guessing with your background you may have some experience in that regard!
I've tried that and failed but I was using a crappy commercial sentiment analysis engine. These guys succeeded though and wrote a great book about it https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Sentiment-Power-Markets-Finan...
That sounds like the sort of thing I'd enjoy reading - thanks!
Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News
#40There's a related question of "what's the purpose of the ranking algorithm?"
Is it to ensure that the #1 article is strictly "better" (via whatever function) than the #2 and the #2 better than the #3?
Or is it to ensure that at least N of the top 30 (page 1) submissions will tend to be interesting to many users on the site (driving engagement and discussion)?
As a user, I'm a lot more interested in the second goal than I am the first goal. This change seems to serve the first goal much more than it serves the second goal. The reinforcement loop of "on the front page => gets more votes" is a property that supports the second goal more than it supports the first. Looking at the top 30 on social-protocols (this algorithm) vs the front page on HN, I saw 1 additional story on HN that would motivate me to click through (5 vs 4), so not a massive difference.