Ask HN: Do we need more users to browse /newest on HN? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do we need more users to browse /newest on HN?

11 pointsnotRobot11 comments

I think so. I work with a group that was researching ways to improve the hacker news ranking algorithm. We concluded that there were "false positives" and "false negatives" -- stories often did or did not make the home page based more on timing and luck than the actual content of the story. Read more here: https://github.com/social-protocols/news

However, we concluded that the biggest problem is false negatives -- good stories that never made the home page -- because of submissions to /newest that simply don't get enough *attention*. There are too many stories and not enough eyeballs. As a result, there is not enough data to know if a story would do well if it were shown on the front page or not.

You can see this from the fact that there are many stories that are submitted multiple times, and 4 out of 5 submissions get only 1 or two no upvotes, and then the 5th makes the front page and gets hundreds. Sometimes it's due to timing factors -- the story has become relevant for some reason -- but often its just luck.

I started browsing from /newest a long time ago when I got curious, and upon looking, realized how many good articles I was missing out on.

It means a lot more scrolling, but the quality of what I did read improved notably.* Not all great posts are made by the popular users.

* It also made me aware of how many not-so-good and lazy posters are out there, but that's all part of the deal.

Why read anything else. I'm not interested in consensus knowledge. I'm not here for reddit-but-tech with occasionally outrageous news articles. I want to walk on the metaphorical beach and see what oddities wash up.

Besides, if you are here for gentrified reddit and upvotes, you want to read newest anyway so you can get in early on the comment game, because posting when something has 50 comments already is a waste of time.

I more or less only use that endpoint to read posts

When I first came to HN, I read the front page until I discovered 'newest' : https://news.ycombinator.com/newest

which is where I spend most of my time now, I also view; 'comments' : https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments

'Active Threads' : https://news.ycombinator.com/active and 'Top Links' : https://news.ycombinator.com/best

And, I check out just a fraction of Dan's work load at 'dang Comments' : https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang

What does active threads represent?

This is the List of most HN links : https://news.ycombinator.com/lists

With a brief Descriptor.

Thanks

Why is that important?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newest is full of crap, and it's even worse if you have showdead enabled.

But it's important to take a look to discover stories that are not getting attentions. Some are very good but unlucky, and it's very sad that disappear without notice. Some are nice personal projects that are not going to change the world, but a few comments and upvotes will make the submitter happier (assuming the project is good enough).

Anyway, my problem with the front page is that it's too mainstream, and once the discussion has 100 comments it's usually not technical enough, so I prefer more obscure stories in https://news.ycombinator.com/newest

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