Comment by x0054 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by x0054 | Hacker News Reader

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I feel that a lot of HN visitors do not at all check out the "new" page. How about another solution, where the front page shows a box on top with last 3 submissions from the new page, so that every new post get's at least some exposure, and get's a chance to get up voted once or twice. Each new post would be shown 2-5 times in the new box on the front page (depending on the volume of traffic to the front page vs. volume of new submissions).

So, for instance, let's say there are 9 new posts in the "queue" and there are 3 concurrent visitors to the front page. Visitor A will see links 1-3 from the new queue, visitor B will see links 4-6, etc. After being shown at least 3 times to front page visitors the link get's dropped from the new queue if it did not gather a single up vote. However, if it does get an up vote, that also resets it's show counter, and it has 3 more chances to gather another up vote.

The number of showings (lives) can be adjusted based on the ratio of new submissions to front page visitors. But I suspect that that ratio is more than high enough to accommodate 3-5 showings.

I feel like this would be a relatively easy system to implement, and could result in better overall content. Thoughts?

That would work great for people like me. I often forget that the "new" page even exists. Having the "new" stories in their own box separated from the rest of the front page would be helpful in considering these stories (e.g., one might be more skeptical of these stories).

I would make one suggestion: On each page load, randomly select three stories to display from those submitted within the last 60 minutes, instead of selecting the stories using the algorithm outlined above. If there is a problem with too many people submitting too many garbage/spammy stories, perhaps that problem can be solved by considering downvotes or flags (i.e., an affirmative action that the story isn't good) rather than a simple lack of upvotes (which could happen from people simply not taking a look at the story).

I personally think this is probably a good solution for visibility. If the issue is visibility of new submissions, random promotion of them to the front page seems like a valid solution.

Though it might also mean that scores will be more variable for new submissions, and that may have an impact on front-page/2nd-page variability and bounciness, which doesn't seem like it would be friendly to casual users.

Hmm, well the way I was imagining it, every new post will get the same amount of promotion, but it's true that it is random in that you never know who you are going to show it to. Some people might pay attention to the New Posts box, some may not.

We ran experiments with placing random items from /newest on the front page. It worked poorly. The median story is far too low in quality for this to work—you're basically dumping a bunch of junk on the front page. This doesn't encourage users to tastefully consider the stories, it just provokes annoyance: what is this junk doing on the HN front page? In a best-case scenario, people tune out the bad stories, but that defeats the purpose of having them sift for the good ones, and meanwhile you've partly spoiled the front page.

We didn't roll this out to everybody, but we did enough to conclude that it isn't a good way for HN to solve this problem.

Understandably, people would be upset if they had random articles from the new page inserted into the main feed on the front page. However, if the articles are in a separate box on top, and there are just 3-5 of them, they would have correct expectations. This way new articles get some exposure, but that exposure does not come with unreasonable expectations.

We did this on reddit (and they still do). It works really well.

I just use the comments page to find interesting discussions.

> I feel that a lot of HN visitors do not at all check out the "new" page.

My simple reason: It doesn't have an RSS/Atom feed.

I would just fold it it without putting it into a new box. It'll be more organic that way and you'd be able to tell if it's new by upvotes anyway.

Of course I don't look at the "new" page. It is full of crap.

I have it open right now and I count: 5 [dead] stories; 2 stories about Microsoft following Netlix's lead on leave; 2 stories from linkedin.com; Captain America appears to be joining Twitter as head of security (I didn't know that Hydra had threatened them); and no headlines that interest me.

That's a pretty selfish attitude, no? You get a lot, or at least some, value out of the HN community, and yet you do not contribute to it in the way that really matters. Sure, commenting on articles is important, but it's also important to at least some times donate your time and sift through the garbage on the "new" page and up vote the jams. How else do you think quality articles end up on the front page for you to read? Magical pixies?

With the system outlined in my original post everyone could very easily contribute to HNs ranking system without spending too much time on it. Worst case, you have to look at 3 crappy article titles, that's not that bad.

I assume the front page gets assembled from vote rings, favours from friends, and people stumbling onto the same stuff and submitting it.

I had one article up on the front page for a while, and I am pretty sure no one else cared to submitted because it's on a really obscure subject, and I didn't bother getting my "vote ring" involved in it :) Though I am pretty sure that having lot's of friends in SF with HN accounts would help get up on the first page. I wonder if HN monitors for this and ignores up votes if they notice a distinct pattern.

If that were true, we'd never get the best stories, which are the out-of-the-way but fascinating things that most of us haven't heard of before.

When I switched from lurker to a registered user and submitted my first link it hit the front page. Took me by surprise. The same happened again with my third submission a few months later. There were no voterings or favours from friends involved (I don't know anyone in real life who reads HN, let alone has an account), it just happened.

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