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Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

danluu.com

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Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#31

Post by 300bps »

Udo wrote: post #29
1200bps wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not hellbanned - where everything I posted was instantly dead. To be honest the only thing I'm sure of is that I was slowbanned. I timed page loads 10 times with the slowbanned account and they averaged about 11 seconds. Then page loads with not being logged in averaged about 1 second. Then page loads with a new account averaged about 1 second as well. The junky thing is that the account was almost 7 months old…

There isn't anything in that account's immediate history that looks like grounds for bannination, on the contrary. Are you sure it's a slowban, not some technical problem? I'd try to email the admins to find out more.

I'm pretty confident it's a slowban. Logging in with this account again, I go from instant page loads to 12 second page loads - only on HN of course.

After re-reading the terms of use of the site, I emailed pg on 11/22 stating that I believed I was slowbanned and that I didn't believe I had violated any terms of use. I hadn't spammed ever (I have nothing to sell), I don't participate in flame wars. I didn't get a response so I emailed him again on 11/27 just saying it's clear I was slowbanned and that it would be nice to know why but that I guess that's not going to happen. I figure there are a few possibilities:

1. I said one thing one time that rubbed someone the wrong way

2. An admin thought it would be funny to give someone who uses the username 300bps a slowban thereby effectively causing their web experience to be equivalent to a 300 bps modem

Who knows? Seems random to me to be honest.

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#32

Post by Udo »

300bps wrote: post #31
Udo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't anything in that account's immediate history that looks like grounds for bannination, on the contrary. Are you sure it's a slowban, not some technical problem? I'd try to email the admins to find out more.

I'm pretty confident it's a slowban. Logging in with this account again, I go from instant page loads to 12 second page loads - only on HN of course. After re-reading the terms of use of the site, I emailed pg on 11/22 stating that I believed I was slowbanned and that I didn't believe I had violated any terms of use. I hadn't spammed ever (I have nothing to sell), I don't participate in flame wars. I didn't get a res…

Again, I don't know what HN uses slowbans for, but my guess would be it's for technical reasons rather than content. It's an interesting issue that got me googling. There doesn't seem to be a real point of contact where people can appeal account moderations on HN. It seems to me that emailing pg doesn't scale very well, which might be the reason why you didn't get an answer.

And I found this, somewhat self-absorbed, blog entry by Michael O. Church about pretty much the same thing you're describing:

http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/heres-why-pau...

I think it's weird that people think HN admins, or specifically pg, owe them an apology - but it does show how serious people are taking their accounts. On the flip side it's not at all clear how seriously HN takes its more seasoned users. All things being equal, I trust the admins to statistically do the right thing because there are probably a lot of hidden variables we're not aware of.

However, there seem to be a lot of young and/or low-karma accounts who do just fine while being hostile, personal, and all-around detrimental. Maybe there is an algorithmic problem that causes more seasoned accounts to accrue "flag debt" or whatever without a sufficient method of decaying those flags.

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#33

Post by 1200bps »

Udo wrote: post #32
300bps wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty confident it's a slowban. Logging in with this account again, I go from instant page loads to 12 second page loads - only on HN of course. After re-reading the terms of use of the site, I emailed pg on 11/22 stating that I believed I was slowbanned and that I didn't believe I had violated any terms of use. I hadn't spammed ever (I have nothing to sell), I don't participate in flame wars. I didn't get a res…

Again, I don't know what HN uses slowbans for, but my guess would be it's for technical reasons rather than content. It's an interesting issue that got me googling. There doesn't seem to be a real point of contact where people can appeal account moderations on HN. It seems to me that emailing pg doesn't scale very well, which might be the reason why you didn't get an answer. And I found this, somewhat self-absorbed,…

When you're first banned in any way it's pretty easy to get upset about it. Stating that someone owes you an apology is silly, but I know from personal experience that it is not a great feeling.

The thing that I remind myself of though is that if HN didn't have counterintuitive rules that it would likely be more like reddit which I think would be a bad thing.

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#34

Post by kens »

This sounds like a cool idea that solves a real problem, but I'm not convinced it will work. The main blocker for an article is getting the first two or three votes fast enough to get from the new page to the front page. If you look at my article on HN scoring [1], most successful articles shoot up quickly and then slowly drop, so randomization is mostly going to just put declining articles back on the front page for a bit, which doesn't really help the reader or articles.

To be effective, the randomization needs to be focused on newish articles. I like danmaz's idea of adding a random new article to the front page. Best would be combining ideas and using weighted randomness to add a new article to the front page, so a vote or two would boost an article's chance of getting the random slot.

(Another thing that would help is if the More link didn't time out after a couple minutes, so readers could go to the second page more reliably.)

[1] http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really...

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#35

Post by baby »

I've put some thoughts into it as well. By doing that you create a new problem :

pushing crappy stories to the frontpage and scaring new users away. For a website like HN that doesn't need or want new users that's a good thing. But for a reddit, hypem, etc... the best solution, IMO, is to trust people browsing /r/new to do the work for the others.

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#36

Post by sologrrl »

dserban wrote: post #28
1200bps wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can see, HN already has randomized algorithms. I just had to create a new account because my six-month old 3,000+ karma account just got slowbanned and silentbanned for apparently no reason. Out of nowhere, anywhere from 6 to 14 seconds to load the front page (or any other HN page) when logged into that account.

Interesting. The HN community appreciates diversity and unbiased, well-reasoned debate. Maybe you were too strong of an advocate of a certain technology stack / platform to the detriment of all others? What is your old account? Edit: typos.

Good guess https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=300bps+microso...

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#37

Post by 300bps »

sologrrl wrote: post #36
dserban wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The HN community appreciates diversity and unbiased, well-reasoned debate. Maybe you were too strong of an advocate of a certain technology stack / platform to the detriment of all others? What is your old account? Edit: typos.

Good guess https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=300bps+microso...

So I had 555 comments, 42 of which contained the word Microsoft. I had 5 submissions, none of which were about Microsoft.

Is your conclusion that I was slowbanned because 0% of my submissions were about Microsoft and 7.5% of my comments mentioned Microsoft?

If someone who doesn't work at Microsoft and has no affiliation with them whatsoever other than to use their products is banned for mentioning Microsoft so infrequently, then this place is a ridiculous echo chamber.

EDIT: My last comment mentioning Microsoft was over 3 weeks ago and honestly it's more about stock performance of multiple companies than it is about anything to do with Microsoft.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6745233

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#39

Post by sologrrl »

300bps wrote: post #37
sologrrl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good guess https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=300bps+microso...

So I had 555 comments, 42 of which contained the word Microsoft. I had 5 submissions, none of which were about Microsoft. Is your conclusion that I was slowbanned because 0% of my submissions were about Microsoft and 7.5% of my comments mentioned Microsoft? If someone who doesn't work at Microsoft and has no affiliation with them whatsoever other than to use their products is banned for mentioning Microsoft so infreq…

Sorry I have no idea, it's all an opaque blackbox. This is just idle speculation, take it with a bucket of salt. Maybe your account crossed some automated threshold for spam, voting rings, etc. Readers of the site cannot say for sure.

Related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6596038

Edit: Some posters keep posting for months after not realizing that they're banned for posting a single comment in ugly threads. E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=donalmacc

Re: Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms

#40

Post by ColinWright »

tehwalrus wrote: post #8
ColinWright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is unfortunate that you have to read the footnotes > to understand the article - on a first read of the text > I was completely lost. I'm not the author, but I'm intensely interested in effective communication. You've taken the trouble to comment, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to walk through the item and explain where you got to in the main body that you thought was unclear, and where you were lost. I…

The first three are in English, sure, I'm talking about the last two paragraphs. I understood the problem, almost from the title - I was interested mostly in the proposed solution. In particular, the last 2-3 sentences where a complex procedure is defined in a few inline code snippets - and then the author continues as if the result is obvious. It reminds me very much of when I read overly mathematical scientific pub…

The fact that you're a PhD student might help to explain this. My experience is that most people just won't care, but will be reassured by seeing real code in the text. They will skim without understanding, but getting the idea that there is a concrete process being explained.

You (somewhat like me in this instance) will want to understand what's actually happening. For that case the author has in fact provided more detail, relegated to a footnote. You decry this, but you (and I) are in a significant minority in this instance. We want to understand it properly, but I suspect the vast majority or readers won't. Or if they do, not yet.

Your comment is useful, and I will keep it in mind next time I write something. For reference, when I want to tuck away technical details I do it in side-bars so it's there to be read alongside the main text.

Here:

* http://www.solipsys.co.uk/HowHighTheMoon.pdf

* http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/TheBirthdayParadox.html

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