Someone please explain this? | Hacker News Reader

Someone please explain this?

imgur.com

2 pointsjames12347 comments

I think you're talking about number of rating points and how the algorithm does not sort them by points. This is correct, the algorithm for HN for example, relies on vote-ups, gravity "time for decay", and some other factors to calculate sequence of top listings. Total vote ups is just one factor whose strength decreases over time.

Addendum:

    (= gravity* 1.8 timebase* 120 front-threshold* 1
       nourl-factor* .4 lightweight-factor* .17 gag-factor* .1)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781417 == Thread where Paul Graham chimed in

I mostly agree.

A simplified formula is: upvotes / time^2 * penalties

where penalties are a lot of small and big penalties that are added to the story automatically or by the mods.

The most relevant penalties that are not added by the mods are:

* automatic penalties for some sites that usually have off topic stories

* penalty for flamewars and controversial stories, when they have much more comments than upvotes

* penalty for getting too many flags by users

In this case, I guess the story got enough flags to get some penalization, but not enough flags to get killed.

For a nice black box analysis off the penalties, you can read the article wrote by kens: http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really... (original submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6799854 (920 points, 1460 days ago, 190 comments)) (It was written 4 years ago, so many details may have changed, but I think that the general idea is still correct.)

What is there to explain? Ordering is "heat" based, not strictly number of up votes. The high point total things in red are 20 hours old vs the 28 pointer which is only a couple of hours old. Therefore they have about the same amount of heat.

The thing in blue is politics, which according to the rules is off topic. I can't think of an explanation for why someone posted it.

probably users flagging it, given the topic (already heavily discussed political topic, submission adding no new info to the debate) and that previous submissions of it had been flagged completely. If you want an authorative answer, e-mail the mods.

It's a jpeg in a resolution so poor it is difficult to read what has been highlighted. So no, can t explain it at all.

https://i.imgur.com/syMwVDT.png

This is the same thing, still totally unclear what you want explained to you.

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