I almost have a different issue. I feel like I miss big news here, even though I check in multiple times a day. When using the "past" menu item, there's stuff on top there I never saw on top on HN. Does thing stay shorter on top than they did before? Didn't feel it was such a problem a few years back.
Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
31–40 of 59 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#32I've never succeeded in getting even a single upvote on links I submit. I've stopped bothering, there seems to be no point. It's not the quality of the links either. It just doesn't have a high chance of getting through. I've actually seen links that I submitted land to the front page a day or so later when somebody else resubmitted them. You basically need to get lucky with the right people actually looking at the n…
Huh, I thought HN actually prevented you from resubmitting the same URL for a certain period of time (at least a few weeks). I always thought people added some query parameter or something to get around that restriction to resubmit.
Not if other people resubmit them.
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#33/newest is tricky because it's inherently the opposite of what most people read the front page for. What's a little worse is that there are actually disincentives to visit it - like many people, I have showdead on which is essentially harmless for comment pages because dead comments are rare. It shows all the spam in /newest so on top of looking at a stream of unfiltered submissions, you also have to look at all the…
In contrast to /asknew which is almost spam-free. Since /asknew was introduced about half a year ago (?) I have the feeling 'Ask HN' posts do reach more often the front page. This might back up your point because people seem to go to /asknew (and leaving an upvote/comment there) more often (less spammy experience).
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#34I've never succeeded in getting even a single upvote on links I submit. I've stopped bothering, there seems to be no point. It's not the quality of the links either. It just doesn't have a high chance of getting through. I've actually seen links that I submitted land to the front page a day or so later when somebody else resubmitted them. You basically need to get lucky with the right people actually looking at the n…
I expected you to have submitted around 100 links without any of them getting traction, but you have submitted three, and complaining that none of them hit the frontpage? HN might be a small place compared to many other social media, but it's not that small, countless of links are submitted every day, and yes, it's not simple to get a story to the frontpage but it's not that hard if it's interesting either. It also depends on what sources you're submitting from, that could have something to do with it, as the submission you've done are not from "popular" domains, so people won't even give them a chance (specifically, I think techcrunch is penalized automatically as they usually have very poor articles).
According to my profile page, I've made almost 200 submissions since Sept 2019, with many of them ending up on the frontpage. Even if the "success" (I wouldn't call hitting the frontpage success even) rate is low, even ending up on the second or third page sometimes yield interesting discussions, which is my main goal with doing submissions to HN in the first place.
> One interesting enhancement that would help with that and that also addresses the problem of duplicates is to simply count duplicate link submissions as an upvote on the original. Most popular links have numerous duplicates before and after that did not make it. Some links actually make it to the front page multiple times.
This already happens. I'm not sure what the threshold in time is, but sometimes I make a submissions and it takes me automatically to a story that is a few days old and adds a upvote to it.
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#35You might not be visiting New but someone is. And/or enough ppl are submitting naturally new stuff to cause stuff to float up. It works pretty well for notable and fresh things (and then even old stale rehashed stuff that the new-watchers constantly upvote also pushing it onto the rest of our radars)
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#36I almost have a different issue. I feel like I miss big news here, even though I check in multiple times a day. When using the "past" menu item, there's stuff on top there I never saw on top on HN. Does thing stay shorter on top than they did before? Didn't feel it was such a problem a few years back.
I felt the same way, until I found out about /lists (https://news.ycombinator.com/lists) and subsequently /best (https://news.ycombinator.com/best). Best is literally the best part of HN for me as it moves slower and contains the "Highest-voted recent links". Give best a try, and I'm sure you'll feel like you miss less.
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#37I almost have a different issue. I feel like I miss big news here, even though I check in multiple times a day. When using the "past" menu item, there's stuff on top there I never saw on top on HN. Does thing stay shorter on top than they did before? Didn't feel it was such a problem a few years back.
/active is the best for this I feel.
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#38I often come to HN for the discussions, not for the links themselves, and unfortunately that's something missing in "New". It happens quite often that the submission itself is not terribly interesting (e.g. a blog post ranting about some database engine), but nonetheless it spawns a fascinating discussion, filled with first-hand anecdotes and other insights. So when I browser "New" I usually upvote submissions that h…
Same here. I come to HN to sense the heartbeat of the industry. What are the opinions, the controversies, the trends, the public sentiment. It's not even the technicalities that interest me herer.
> the public sentiment
Mostly the same here, but I also realize HN is such a tiny slice of the public that sometimes you get a opinion it feels like is generally agreed upon because every single HN user subscribes to that idea, but when you come out in the afk world it turns out most people just don't give a shit about it.
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#39/newest is tricky because it's inherently the opposite of what most people read the front page for. What's a little worse is that there are actually disincentives to visit it - like many people, I have showdead on which is essentially harmless for comment pages because dead comments are rare. It shows all the spam in /newest so on top of looking at a stream of unfiltered submissions, you also have to look at all the…
In contrast to /asknew which is almost spam-free. Since /asknew was introduced about half a year ago (?) I have the feeling 'Ask HN' posts do reach more often the front page. This might back up your point because people seem to go to /asknew (and leaving an upvote/comment there) more often (less spammy experience).
It might be the luck of the draw but I see four pre-deaded comments in /asknew now vs five in /newest. It looks about the same, again, with the caveat it might just be a coincidence.
I'll also admit I'm an unrepentant, flaming hater of Ask HN, its parents, its parents' friends and the people who owe them money.
Re: Ask HN: Should HN users be incentivized to use/visit newest submissions?
#40If you're worried about missing quality new stories because they skyrocket or maybe don't hit front as fast etc, and you're on Twitter there's some handy bots collecting posts at thresholds like 20 and 50 upvotes over the course of a day that are handy for what's good
https://twitter.com/betterhn20