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Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

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Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#61

Post by manx »

chasebank wrote: post #43
23B1 wrote: post #32

I 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?

The only problem I have with HN is the endless content. I wish you could say, 'Show me stories that reached the front page', then hide or watch each story as you deem. That way I could clear out the front page like I do my inbox.

Some feed readers like feedly have a fifo mode, where you, for example, can go through all the stories which appeared on hacker news best.

Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#62

Post by nick__m »

unethical_ban wrote: post #19

I would like the HN UI to have a "favorite" button equally accessible to the "upvotes" button. I know favorites are a feature, but they require clicking into the comments. I end up using upvote as a bookmark function, not as a method of approving of a post, because that's easier. As it relates to this post, the HN UI encourages the feedback loop this submission is trying to fix. Put a bookmark icon next to the upvote…

If something is interesting enough to be bookmarked it is surely interesting enough to be upvoted !

Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#63

Post by akomtu »

layer8 wrote: post #30
akomtu wrote: post #24

HN 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…

You expect emotional up-/downvoters to be objective and truthful about their up-/downvote motivation?

They'll have to explain their votes, and if the mods deem the reasoning bs, they'll reverse the votes.

Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#65

Post by ClapperHeid »

jwarden wrote: post #52
ClapperHeid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, it might not be what you personally want. But to a lot of people, it’s more important to read/consume something popular... Count me in the "don't care" group. Which is why I always browse HN by "New" [0]. I neither know nor care which stories have been voted to prominence on the default frontpage, nor how this ranking has been determined. I just want to see what's new and select for myself what looks interesting…

I would suggest that one of the reasons you find the submissions on the New page valuable is that submitters are actively seeking out stories they think the HN community would upvote. So the content of the New page indirectly reflects popularity within the HN community.

Not really. There's a hell of a lot of wading through junk, when you browse HN by "New". So much so that I maintain a special uBlock filter list to weed out a lot of crappy domains and keywords.

That's one advantage of browsing by the default frontpage: your fellow HNers have pre-filtered what ends up there, for you. It's also the disadvantage.

Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#67

Post by taubek »

manx wrote: post #3
taubek wrote: post #2

Can I somehow see the historical data for some of mine old submits? I seems to me that on https://news.social-protocols.org/ I can get the data for past 24 hours. I think that you have point with feedback loop.

We just reset the history yesterday and plan to keep data for about one month for now. In the future, it should definitely be possible to retain a much longer time span.

I like the visualization part of upvotes coming in. I always wondered when do votes actually get in.

I've seen a graph approach to finding the most influential users at https://memgraph.com/blog/how-i-found-the-most-influential-u.... Maybe there is something that you could incorporate into your app.

Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#68

Post by jwarden »

jrussino wrote: post #56

Lots of discussion here about this approach and alternatives. Not sure how feasible this is but I think it would be even cooler to turn this into a site where users can define their own custom ranking algorithm and/or select from a set of available algorithms (including the one you're currently using). Maybe even provide a meta-ranking of the most popular ranking algorithms?

Yes we'd like to do that, but the main problem is that we don't have access to some data that goes into HN rankings: flags, penalties, and other moderator actions. These make a huge difference to the quality of front-page content.

But we have thought of allowing users to provide this data on our site. They could flag posts, mark them as duplicate, mark them as being non-technical (HN mods regularly apply penalties to popular news items that are not really about hacking and startups), etc.

Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#69

Post by jwarden »

woollyhat wrote: post #29

I think it would be interesting if users could spend their karma on performing moderator actions, perhaps with some sort of algorithmic exchange rate that converts acquired karma into modcoins. For example, it might cost 1000 modcoins to pin an article to the top of the page for ten minutes. Or perhaps more of a bold change: 2000 modcoins to make the text of your comment glow with a golden hue to make it more noticea…

Yeah we have thought of a model where Karma is a measure of how much "marginal value" you have created for other users by your submissions. If we take upvotes as a proxy for value, we can calculate how many additional site-wide upvotes were generated as a result of you submitting your high-upvote-rate story: the number of upvotes your story received minus the number of upvotes the stories that were displace by your story being ranked above them would have received.

Then, we could allow you to spend a part of that value. That is, you can promote a story with a lower upvote rate, thereby decreasing site-wide upvotes by displacing stories with higher upvote rates. You would only be able to spend some fraction of the value you created, so that after you have spent all your Karma, the net value you have created for other users would still be positive.

Re: Show HN: Quality News – Towards a fairer ranking algorithm for Hacker News

#70

Post by wpietri »

luckylion wrote: post #13
wpietri wrote: post #10

As 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.

Wouldn't that lead to you seeing a pattern in who upvotes you which would make you more likely to upvote their submissions or comments, slowly guiding you towards bubble-forming? And if someone doesn't upvote your "let's not eat babies" comment, do you go after them for being pro-baby-eating?

Bubble-forming is one possible downside of community-forming, yes.
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