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What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

randomshit.dev

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#21
I was tempted to answer the title with "domainname checks out", but that wouldn't do hackernews any justice.

Although imho it seems really random what makes it to the frontpage i agree that there is always an interesting mix of blog posts, news articles and technical content.

Maybe it also depends on the time of the day (different audiences active, having a slightly different taste)?

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#22
Now I’m curious about the ratio of RSS to front-page readers.

I only read HN (and all “news” content) through NNW or Feedly, so I get strict published order.

This means there are plenty of article I wish weren’t flagged off HN, and plenty with no comments I wish had commentary.

But, overall, I see what’s probably more genetically representative of posts, not the hive mind.

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#23

This is a good rundown but misses the biggest thing, random chance . Depending on time of day the your post will stay on page one of "new" for between 20-40 minutes. It needs about 4-6 upvotes in that time to drop onto the bottom of the homepage, and then with that a chance of more eyeballs. Some people skim page two and look for thing with a couple of votes for closer inspection, but the reality is you have that bri…

Wow, while I knew about the pool, I didn't know there was a page that actually showed it.

Exactly! There is no link on the main hn page to this pool, how are we supposed to visit there? And if nobody visits, what's even the use of having this pool!

Who knows what other hidden nuggets these chosen few Illuminati are hiding!

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#24
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, while I knew about the pool, I didn't know there was a page that actually showed it.

Exactly! There is no link on the main hn page to this pool, how are we supposed to visit there? And if nobody visits, what's even the use of having this pool! Who knows what other hidden nuggets these chosen few Illuminati are hiding!

That's not how it works exactly. It's just that this pool page is a list of all the pages that have been submitted back to the second chance pool by the mods.

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#25
post #18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For curiosity's sake I wanted to estimate the probability of getting to the front page with a show hn. The easy but terrible way is to just look at a few new show hn from yesterday and look at how many got more than 50 points. The answer ~4% (3/79). Please expect gigantic error bars. Links checked: 2/30 from https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew?next=36572237&n=61 1/30 from https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew?next=36…

#3 currently has 25 points, #8 has 14, and #12 has 9 points. Not sure that 50 points is a good measure of whether it has been on the front page. What does that mean anyway, does being on #25 for three minutes count?

You are right "on the front page" is not a good question. The question I wanted to answer is "succeeded in getting significant attention".

50 votes is arbitrary but represents about 5000 views and often means there was some discussion.

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#26
post #25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#3 currently has 25 points, #8 has 14, and #12 has 9 points. Not sure that 50 points is a good measure of whether it has been on the front page. What does that mean anyway, does being on #25 for three minutes count?

You are right "on the front page" is not a good question. The question I wanted to answer is "succeeded in getting significant attention". 50 votes is arbitrary but represents about 5000 views and often means there was some discussion.

So typically, 1% of readers will vote on a post?

It would not surprise me. I occasionally vote on comments, but almost never vote on posts.

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right "on the front page" is not a good question. The question I wanted to answer is "succeeded in getting significant attention". 50 votes is arbitrary but represents about 5000 views and often means there was some discussion.

So typically, 1% of readers will vote on a post? It would not surprise me. I occasionally vote on comments, but almost never vote on posts.

It's just a rule of thumb and varies alot between communities.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1fd2tu/data...

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#29

This is a good rundown but misses the biggest thing, random chance . Depending on time of day the your post will stay on page one of "new" for between 20-40 minutes. It needs about 4-6 upvotes in that time to drop onto the bottom of the homepage, and then with that a chance of more eyeballs. Some people skim page two and look for thing with a couple of votes for closer inspection, but the reality is you have that bri…

The second chance pool is a pretty good example of just how mercilessly random getting on the front page is. Lots of cool and interesting stuff just slips by and gets drowned out the first time it's submitted.

I had a blog post last year that made it to the top of HN thanks to the second chance pool.

I submitted the post to HN on a Saturday and it got I think two upvotes before slipping off of "new" and I figured that was the end of that. But to my surprise I happened to check HN Sunday evening and found that it was near the top. I had no idea that something like that was possible.

Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?

#30
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, while I knew about the pool, I didn't know there was a page that actually showed it.

Exactly! There is no link on the main hn page to this pool, how are we supposed to visit there? And if nobody visits, what's even the use of having this pool! Who knows what other hidden nuggets these chosen few Illuminati are hiding!

As I understand it the way it works is that items from the pool are randomly put on the front page for some fraction of users so you don't have to directly visit the pool page.
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