Ask HN: Are posts about Reddit actively suppressed? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are posts about Reddit actively suppressed?

9 pointsFreddie1116 comments

I've noticed that several posts about Reddit get many upvotes but never make it to the front page anymore or get pushed down immediately. Looks like there is an auto-suppression in place.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36412619

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36421483

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36423313

View on HN

Yeah, trending topics are sometimes downranked to prevent front page spam. This is apparently a known thing HN does.

I think it is organic - specifically feels more like fatigue to me. Couple of people are still interested in the topic, but many are over it so it gets replaced by other trending things fast

I noticed some of the highly voted posts are not making it to the front page of HN.

36412619 is by a new user. I figured that may have had something to do with it.

Yes, that was my assumption as well. I was frustrated to see it reach a high of rank 33 and not make the front page.

I later submitted a news article which got flagged despite having additional information. The same issue was met by the third link in this post .

Update / correction: There is a penalty on Reddit topics: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36435312>

================================================================================

Previously:

HN's policy is that there is less official (mod-based) moderation where a YC connection exists, a point dang reiterated specifically concerning Reddit within the past week: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36366909>

There have been a tremendous number of Reddit submissions in the past month (621 as I write this), as compared with 2,629 in the past year, which puts the preceding 11 months at a mean of 182 Reddit submissions.

Keep in mind that front page space is highly limited on HN. There are 30 slots per day (though there's some intra-day movement on and off those), or 10,950 front page stories per year.

I've been in the process of gathering and running some statistics and analysis of historic Reddit front-page activity, and even as of a few days ago, pro-rated for the year (and ignoring the fact that the floodgates really only opened just over three weeks ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36141083>), 2023 is trending to exceed the high-water mark for front-page Reddit mentions set in 2012, of 46.[1]

(It takes about a half hour for me to update stats, I'll reply with current numbers when I have them.)

Mostly, I suspect it's a matter of the front page being hard to land, probably combined with fatigue on the topic. And I'm not without a horse in this race as I've just submitted an item of my own on the subject.

Update: Here's the mentions-by-years breakdown, as of 2023-6-21:

Given that we're 47% of the way through 2023, the pro-rated tally for the year would be about 62 FP stories, well above not only the recent trend (teens to twenties) but 134% of the all-time peak in 2012.

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Notes:

1. Earlier analysis from 8 days ago, here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36321773>

Of course they aren ... muffle muffle ... silence

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