See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1162965
pg's comment, with just 17 points, is placed above brh's comment, which has 110 points. Both the comments are from 262 days ago.
Why is this so?
Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#2Is it because pg's comment has a more developed (and karmaful) subthread?
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#3Is it because pg's comment has a more developed (and karmaful) subthread?
sum(pg's thread) = 80 points
sum(brh's thread) = 130 points
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#4Link for easy clicking : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1162965
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#5Average comment karma of the poster plays a significant role in determining comment order.
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#6Interestingly, the author of the 110 point comment has no submissions and only one comment - that one.
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#7Possibly still due to the time decay function. I don't know exactly when each comment was created, but pg's comment may have been more recent (within 24 hours). I haven't looked at the inner workings, but I imagine that upvotes might also be weighted more for how recent they are. Example: pg's comment may have received 17 upvotes within a minute of posting, and his post was 4 hours after brh's, and brh's upvotes happened slower, or before pg's comment.
This is all speculation. Maybe someone who has looked at the code could confirm or debunk this.
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#8More comments on pg's thread.
As an experiment; let's upvote chaosmachines comment to 5 add 1 comment, leave mine get mine to 3 & add 3 comments.
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#9The karma points are probably weighted by user, so that users with higher karma carry more weight per point.
Re: Ask HN/PG : Why are comments ordered like this?
#10Possibly still due to the time decay function. I don't know exactly when each comment was created, but pg's comment may have been more recent (within 24 hours). I haven't looked at the inner workings, but I imagine that upvotes might also be weighted more for how recent they are. Example: pg's comment may have received 17 upvotes within a minute of posting, and his post was 4 hours after brh's, and brh's upvotes happ…
I not certain, I am under the belief that the function that is applied to the comments pages is very closely related to the function that is applied to the main page.
I.e. a bit of time decay, overall karma activity (Karma score + comment karma score), number of sub threads, etc.