21–30 of 82 posts
its cohorts ranked 270 to 282 (by my screenshoot) are of age 1day+ and with ten or more comments
it's weird that post which is new, popular and engaging then sunk to the bottom 275 very fast within hours
I don't understand this blog post. The authors says that HN is great for discussions. Then they go on to suggest a different ranking algorithm? Why? To answer the authors question: I would change absolutely nothing about HN. It's great for discussions as is. Edit: I suppose there is some insinuation that HN doesn't really use the original algorithm, and this is the author's attempt to reconstruct what's going on. Is…
If it works, don't fix it. You'll most likely break it.
In my personal experience, YouTube and Windows 11 are some recent examples of usability degradation due to unnecessary changes.
I don't like this idea. If hacker news comments were so numerous that the best comments by the "best" commenters always got lost in the maelstrom then there could be some sense to it. However, this has not been my experience of hacker news, and this shift towards a reputation based system seems unwarranted.
The actual algorithm seems to take into account post rate in some way. I think the assumption is that high early post rate implies controversial topic. If the ratio is too high it seems to get penalized pretty hard. Maybe downvotes and flaggings of posts is a factor too?
Is there an official reason? I’ve wondered this as well and sort of assumed it was because hackers like having some community aspect and are novelty-seeking so YC created this due to the largesse of PG for the YC group and someone said “why not just make it public so applicants and future YCers can participate.” And job postings were added on to generate some revenue so it wasn’t a pure cost center.
This headcanon reenforces my belief that the best community sites are accessories to something else and that you can’t make money from a community without diminishing its value (since the incentives for monetizing conversation are not the same and I’d guess 90% at odds with good conversation- mainly because bad things draw attention).
I don't understand this blog post. The authors says that HN is great for discussions. Then they go on to suggest a different ranking algorithm? Why? To answer the authors question: I would change absolutely nothing about HN. It's great for discussions as is. Edit: I suppose there is some insinuation that HN doesn't really use the original algorithm, and this is the author's attempt to reconstruct what's going on. Is…
If it works, don't fix it. You'll most likely break it.
Post ranking works pretty well, but as far as discussions go I often see insightful responses sent into low-contrast oblivion whilst a glib comment or quip gets accolades.
Is HN also built with RoR or is it something custom?
> I can't find the official page on why Paul Graham created HN, but to me, HN is the place to find the most interesting links and have a healthy discussion about various topics. In fact, discussions are my favorite part, except for the useless comments. Is there an official reason? I’ve wondered this as well and sort of assumed it was because hackers like having some community aspect and are novelty-seeking so YC cre…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this part of the post answers your question. > Will I ever publicly write about how HN ranks posts if I am Dang (HN moderator)? No, because Pagerank can be manipulated by people despite its reputation. In fact, Pagerank is being exploited for years. Moreover, there are financial incentives for companies to get on the first page in HN.
> Will I ever publicly write about how HN ranks posts if I am Dang (HN moderator)? No Lack of transparency is not a solution, and certainly not one that will sell well in a place where "security by obscurity" is disdained and open source cherished. It's particularly bad when you're dealing with a high profile site filled with intelligent people who would most likely make short work of reverse engineering just enough…