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Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
41–50 of 248 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#42Are you talking about this website or Ycombinator?
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#43The algorithm was shared in the past. The scoring is pretty simple tbh - the older it is, the less score - the more votes and comments it has, the higher the score - penalties reduce the score ( eg. By moderator) How it works for the end-user: - People browsing in newest, make it visible in the main page. - Most people see the main page Result: interesting topics go to the main page
Additionally: Time of day and day of week seem to matter.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#44A good portion of it is just pure chance. There are relatively few people patrolling new submissions, and if something doesn't get a couple of upvotes in the first hour or so, it just disappears down the memory hole. So, you'll sometimes lose even if your content is good.
Another part of the equation is topic and tone. There's no sophisticated algorithm, but it's an eclectic forum, so if your post sounds like pure marketing or self-promo, it will probably not make it far. You need to offer something of value to readers, not to you.
An interesting quirk of the system is that people who upvote or comment on stories don't necessarily read them. A lot of HN discussion boils down to people reacting to the prompt in the subject line. There are publications that learned how to game this. I don't think it's a template worth following, but it sells...
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#45It’s disappointing that a normal democratic forum run is alien to folks. Of course, there are moderators as we cannot expect everyone to behave :)
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#46This post makes me feel really old. HN is very self-explanatory if you take it for what it is — a discussion forum. It’s a place where some people post ideas, questions, news, or projects and other people respond to them. That’s it. If you post something interesting or meaningful, then people will respond. Your question makes me feel ancient because I fear that the concept of communicating to spark conversation (as o…
Couldn't agree with you more. The internet has, to borrow the word of the moment, become enshittified, and people think that's "normal". People accept that platforms should be centralised, and that they should harvest your data in order to sell it to adtech companies who will then feed it to an industry that learns in real-time how to prey on your darkest fears to sell you things you don't need but might make you fee…
YouTube is easily the best “social network” in terms of having high-quality content with minimal manipulation. And I definitely consider it my main form of media consumption.
You just have to curate your feed and add stuff to playlists, not watch whatever is on the logged-out default home page.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#47HN is hard to game on purpose. So stop looking for the levers and participate, that's all there is to it. I've made friends here, have been helped by people on projects that I was busy with, did the reverse, found friends and business partners and spend way too much time. HN is a very interesting slice of the online world, a place that is unlike the rest, sometimes a bit dry but always interesting and extremely useful. If you're looking at it to try to understand it then you might as well try to understand a rat or a mouse. You won't understand it because it isn't there to be understood, it just is, like any other organism.
The root of HN is a thing called 'startup news', that was changed very quickly and since then HN has been a focal point for techies of all sorts but also lots of other people from all walks of life and from a large variety of countries. It isn't 'one thing' to everybody that participates, just like a hammer is a different thing for a carpenter than it is for a masoner or a farmer.
The fact that after being a member for a couple of years you have this question indicates a lack of participation, not a lack of understanding.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#48[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#49If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
HN is not a nail. Stop trying to hit it.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone understand how Hacker News works?
#50Do you want to know a secret? Sometimes my friends post on social media platform A "Hey, I've just posted on platform B. Upvotes appreciated." Or a newsletter will say "please share this post on…" Or people on Discord / Slack / Matrix will say "people are being mean to me on platform C, where are my defenders at?" HN feels organic - and is pretty well moderated - but it isn't immune to family & friends giving somethi…
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