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Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

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Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#31

Post by timf »

pg wrote: post #24

Stuff falling off the end of the New list before it has time to get voted onto the front page is a perennial problem. It doesn't seem any worse now than it was a year ago. Which is not surprising, because the factor driving the rate of new submissions, the number of users, is also the one driving the rate at which things on the New page get upvoted.

Are you suggesting, by extension, that if there are 300 submissions an hour (instead of per day) and 24 times more users that it will "all work out" and a set of similarly interesting things would pop out?

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#32

Post by brandnewlow »

fortes wrote: post #6
rms wrote: post #4

This is becoming more of a problem now. It is impossible for new stories to get as much attention now as when the site first started, but historically there really haven't been many good stories missed. This Ted talk failed to really make the front page twice. It must have briefly been on the front page but it takes so much more weight now to actually hold that position. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=474875 and…

> What we need is some time of cultural incentive to read the new page, and pages 2/3/4 of the new page. Definitely. I'll admit that I never spend the time to go through the queue, let alone a few pages deep. How does one encourage this behavior? I don't care much about karma, but I guess if others do perhaps you could give extra karma for being one of the early upvoters?

PG should ask YCombinator applicants to help on the new page. If he's got people he funded helping flag spam and rewrite lame headlines, he could probably get candidates to step up a bit on this one.

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#33

Post by jwb119 »

sidsavara wrote: post #12
cx01 wrote: post #11

An interesting idea would be to make a submission cost 1 Karma point. So people would only submit a story if they think it's reasonable that someone might upvote it.

There are two issues with that. One is it makes karma into even more of a competition: 1) Keynesian beauty contest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest 2) I don't think most spammers care about karma anyway, and will likely just continue to submit junk. I think well meaning newbies might be either turned off by it, or try to game it (e.g., make accounts with 3 friends, constantly vote up each others…

the thing is, any news submission site with voting already is a keynesian beauty contest

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#34

Post by rapind »

A lot of the proposed solutions here seem pretty complicated. The one that makes the most sense to me, while definitely not perfect, is to start by limiting new posts to accounts that have existed for a certain interval (maybe even just 30 minutes). That should filter quite a bit of spam and even though it's still easy to get around, at least it will require more effort. It's also very easy to implement.

Then you can experiment with other methods, but I doubt we'd miss many meaningful posts with this kind of limitation.

The other bucket of accounts created for spamming would need a little more sophistication, like maybe a queue limit per day. Still not too crazy.

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#35

Post by sidsavara »

jwb119 wrote: post #33
sidsavara wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two issues with that. One is it makes karma into even more of a competition: 1) Keynesian beauty contest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest 2) I don't think most spammers care about karma anyway, and will likely just continue to submit junk. I think well meaning newbies might be either turned off by it, or try to game it (e.g., make accounts with 3 friends, constantly vote up each others…

the thing is, any news submission site with voting already is a keynesian beauty contest

Agreed, but requiring karma be wagered on a submission I think turns it into even more of a game

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#36

Post by rms »

timf wrote: post #31
pg wrote: post #24

Stuff falling off the end of the New list before it has time to get voted onto the front page is a perennial problem. It doesn't seem any worse now than it was a year ago. Which is not surprising, because the factor driving the rate of new submissions, the number of users, is also the one driving the rate at which things on the New page get upvoted.

Are you suggesting, by extension, that if there are 300 submissions an hour (instead of per day) and 24 times more users that it will "all work out" and a set of similarly interesting things would pop out?

Actually I think the front page would be marginally more interesting at the consequence of many more stories going unnoticed. I'm also not convinced that it is possible for there to be 24 times more stories -- is there really that much relevant news out there? With 24 times more users I think we would see 5-6 times more submissions.

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#37

Post by latortuga »

jm4 wrote: post #7
timf wrote: post #2

My only thought is to think about limiting submission rights to a certain/higher karma threshold.

It would certainly cut down on a lot of garbage. Most of the posts I flag (mostly spam links) are from users who have only been registered for a few minutes. On the other hand, you could have long-time lurkers with no karma that are unable to submit and that could be a problem. You couldn't base it on length of time registered instead of karma either because then spammers would register accounts and sit on them befor…

As a long time lurker, the reason I even fit in that category is because I don't submit stories but rather enjoy reading the conversation.

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#38

Post by cabalamat »

jm4 wrote: post #7
timf wrote: post #2

My only thought is to think about limiting submission rights to a certain/higher karma threshold.

It would certainly cut down on a lot of garbage. Most of the posts I flag (mostly spam links) are from users who have only been registered for a few minutes. On the other hand, you could have long-time lurkers with no karma that are unable to submit and that could be a problem. You couldn't base it on length of time registered instead of karma either because then spammers would register accounts and sit on them befor…

> you could have long-time lurkers with no karma that are unable to submit and that could be a problem

I think think that's a problem. If someone is just a lurker they aren't really fully a member of the community the way a poster is. And when has posted plenty of comments, gotten up-arrows for some and down-arrows for others, they have a better idea of what community standards are.

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#39

Post by cabalamat »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #8
timf wrote: post #2

My only thought is to think about limiting submission rights to a certain/higher karma threshold.

Karma >= 2 would probably be sufficient. It rules out people who have not interacted with the community at all, without turning HN into some exclusive "members only" club.

I think it should be at least karma >= 50

Re: Ask HN: New links queue almost at 24 hours, what now?

#40

Post by timf »

rms wrote: post #36
timf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting, by extension, that if there are 300 submissions an hour (instead of per day) and 24 times more users that it will "all work out" and a set of similarly interesting things would pop out?

Actually I think the front page would be marginally more interesting at the consequence of many more stories going unnoticed. I'm also not convinced that it is possible for there to be 24 times more stories -- is there really that much relevant news out there? With 24 times more users I think we would see 5-6 times more submissions.

> is there really that much relevant news out there?

I was trying to use hyperbole to make a point (personally I think dilution's already occured). But yeah, look at digg.

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