I'd like to see a negative multiplier for Substack and Medium posts for the pop-up spam.
I'm pretty sure that already exists. Any post that doesn't link or links to sites like GitHub, Substack and Medium are downranked.
Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
11–20 of 82 posts
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would happen is that the old accounts would accumulate "CommentRank" and the new users would always be sorted to the bottom. This is good for search, since we are looking for "the" answer, the site, a limited number of best pages for a topic etc., but it's quite bad for discussion; a bad take from Animats would forever be above a good comment from a greenhorn.
I thought about it while writing this post. It would be useful to have a decay factor for PageRank. In simple words, if someone wants to maintain their PR score, they need to actively engage in the HN community.
You can put epicycle around epicycle, but there's a lot of computational efficiency in a score which can be calculated from an integer and a timestamp.
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#13I 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 that what I was missing?
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would happen is that the old accounts would accumulate "CommentRank" and the new users would always be sorted to the bottom. This is good for search, since we are looking for "the" answer, the site, a limited number of best pages for a topic etc., but it's quite bad for discussion; a bad take from Animats would forever be above a good comment from a greenhorn.
I thought about it while writing this post. It would be useful to have a decay factor for PageRank. In simple words, if someone wants to maintain their PR score, they need to actively engage in the HN community.
> if someone wants to maintain their PR score, they need to actively engage
Wouldn't that encourage people to "actively engage" even when they have nothing to say just to keep their score?
Goodhart's law comes into mind here. People who want to stay relevant on this site will take your measure as their target. There's no system that can't be gamed if you know the rules. But the more "rock solid" you try to make those rules, the more you embed intrinsic discrimination between participants. You put "Proof of Work" in the rules and you alienate newcomers while all the rest do "busywork".
Your own comments and submissions would sink like a stone because you didn't engage enough, regardless of how interesting your points are.
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#15I 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.
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#16Is HN also built with RoR or is it something custom?
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought about it while writing this post. It would be useful to have a decay factor for PageRank. In simple words, if someone wants to maintain their PR score, they need to actively engage in the HN community.
> if someone wants to maintain their PR score, they need to actively engage Wouldn't that encourage people to "actively engage" even when they have nothing to say just to keep their score? Goodhart's law comes into mind here. People who want to stay relevant on this site will take your measure as their target. There's no system that can't be gamed if you know the rules. But the more "rock solid" you try to make those…
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.
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#18I 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…
Yes, this is just a thought experiment, and the ranking algorithm is based on discussions.
> Given that discussions are my favorite part, why don't we apply PageRank for every user based on the upvotes they receive for the comments they leave on any post, and replace the P (points) value in the current version of the HN algorithm?
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#19I 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.
Re: Hacker News Ranking Algorithm
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if someone wants to maintain their PR score, they need to actively engage Wouldn't that encourage people to "actively engage" even when they have nothing to say just to keep their score? Goodhart's law comes into mind here. People who want to stay relevant on this site will take your measure as their target. There's no system that can't be gamed if you know the rules. But the more "rock solid" you try to make those…
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 of the algorithm to understand how it works.