4 ms·

I think HN is great and has some of the best discussion on the web, at least for tech related stuff. One thing I do think is broken is the ranking system. Here

by orf 10y ago

I think HN is great and has some of the best discussion on the web, at least for tech related stuff. One thing I do think is broken is the ranking system. Here is my comment: 'It's too... exponential. A post seems to get either 0-5 votes, or 100 from hitting the frontpage. Implement a feature that puts 'highly' rated new stories (3-5 votes) in a slot on the frontpage for a sample of users, giving them a chance to explode.' Posts either die or reach the frontpage, where they have a run with lots of upvotes and comments. Unless a post hits the threshold of the frontpage then it doesn't get noticed at all. Edit: Didn't expect to be the top comment, clearly some people agree. I've had a few frontpage submissions on HN and there is a nack to it. You find the right title and you submit at the right time, and if you don't get more than 3-4 votes you delete and re-submit again a bit later. Once it gets 5 votes unless your post isn't that good it will hit the frontpage and stay for a while. Passing that threshold is the hard bit and I think a lot of quality articles don't hit that threshold and don't get seen. Which is a shame. I know they already do something like what I'm suggesting but there are 30 rows on the frontpage, couldn't 4-5 'new' articles be randomly interspersed rather than 1?

grey-area 10y ago
Upvoted so that you stay at the top forevermore. Same thing happens with comments after they pass a threshold of votes.
andrewstuart2 10y ago
It's also very hard for quality comments to get visibility after a certain point. The points seem to be weighted a little too heavily in the comment sorting algorithm which makes it hard for newer posts to stay at the top. This could also just be that most people who may have voted have already checked the comments and don't come back. Perhaps I should have suggested a "new highly-rated comments!" indicator as a useful feature. It doesn't seem like I can go back and edit my response, though, without taking the whole quiz again, and I don't want to skew results.
- bachmeier 10y ago
  I agree, but I'd go further and say commenting here is largely a waste of time. If you make a comment on r/programming, others will respond and you can have a reasoned discussion, with trolls getting downvoted. If you disagree with someone, you can state your position and others will jump in and state theirs. Responses on HN are generally few in number, and if you challenge a high karma user, he and a few of his friends will downvote you with no intelligent discussion. I'd say the comment system here has resulted in a pissing contest where the goal is to say something really cute so that you get upvotes. There are good discussions, but they happen in spite of the comment system, not because of it.
  - scrollaway 10y ago
    Funny, I'd say the exact same thing with the variables reversed. Commenting on reddit is a waste of time. Here however, fresh comments actually get promoted to the top very regularly, which gives them a chance to be seen. I much prefer the ranking here than on Reddit.
  - nkurz 10y ago
    When I look at the dead and grayed out comments (you can turn on "showdead" in your profile to see the dead ones), I usually consider them to be lower quality than the comments that have not been downvoted and flagged. Do you feel otherwise? If so, could you link to some examples?
  - uola 10y ago
    I've heard from multiple people who had their projects (software, electronics, organizations) make the rounds in online communities that HN was the worst experience.
guelo 10y ago
I'm pretty sure the algorithm already does something like that.
robert_tweed 10y ago
They did implement something like this a few months ago. Rising new comments are randomly shown on the frontpage. Try refreshing the frontpage a few times and you'll see various submissions with ~5 upvotes appearing and disappearing at random. I agree it could be better though, and I like the idea of putting them in a highlighted section rather than randomly sprinkling them in the middle of the page where they don't stand out.
DiabloD3 10y ago
The interesting thing is, I'm frequently on the front page, and am in the top 100 list for HN. I don't time posts, and I almost randomly post them. Yet, here I am. I've had posts that crossed the 5 vote threshold and didn't make it to the front page.
- koide 10y ago
  Are you sure you post at random? Have you measured it? It could be that, besides posting interesting content, your time zone and life style just naturally maps to the majority of voters.
  - DiabloD3 10y ago
    Maybe. But I've posted at 4am, 4pm, noon, midnight, 8pm, 8am, and all the hours in between. It'd be neat if someone posted a graphic of my posting times.
mixedbit 10y ago
Another idea: if a new submission (but not older than some threshold, maybe 24h?) did not reach the front page, each up-vote resets the submission time. Now if a story is noticed and upvoted when it is already reaching the bottom of the 'new' category, it is unlikely that it will accumulate enough votes fast enough to reach the front page.
eevilspock 10y ago
The thing is, it's complicated. No one can confidently predict the interplay of all the algorithm factors and user behavior. Hacker News should be hackable (and it's ironic that it's not). The only way to evolve a better system is though lot's of empirical experiments. But because you need a large userbase to do a proper experiment, we've been limited to a dozen or so experiments to-date (HN, reddit, slashdot, etc). Making HN hackable would eliminate this chicken and egg problem. See how much experimentation the Netflix Challenge enabled. Hacker News of all places should enable creative hackers, math studs and inspired experimenters to test their ideas. For this to happen Hacker News needs to make vote data available in the public API, or if that is a no-go, go with another option such as accepting experimental code to run in a sandbox and and allowing it to present an alternate front page and comment rankings. I'd prefer votes becoming public for other reasons though. HN and all its users, and even Paul Graham, know that a better solution for promoting quality knowledge sharing and healthy discourse is needed. What better way to come up with a better way than to let its userbase of hackers hack away at it? If Hacker News were hackable, there would be a blossoming of alternate front pages and comment ranking, and users would vote with their feet, err... clicks.
greenyoda 10y ago
"and if you don't get more than 3-4 votes you delete and re-submit again a bit later" The HN FAQ[1] says: "Please don't delete and repost the same story, though. Accounts that do that eventually lose submission privileges." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
baccheion 10y ago
I posted an "ask hn" related to this (something your post reminded me to do): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422909 There definitely needs to be a more fluid/integrated means to discover new stories. The home page could be split down the middle, showing new stories to the right, or there could be a more feature-rich (and visible/accessible/usable/seductive/natural/etc) "upvote" page that allows searching, browsing, and filtering through submissions to discover ones to vote on. There could also be a slight weighting of votes (though not much) to create a bias toward more reliable (or longstanding) voters, or to infer which submissions the currently viewing user is likely to upvote. The bias likely has to be slight, as one part of the game is to show the global/absolute top stories, while also getting in stories the specific user is likely to find "upvote worthy." Also, randomly surfacing new submissions to get a sampling of up or down votes seems essential. This would allow a greater spread/certainty when a submission does make it to the front page, and would also be fairer to promising submissions (they won't die prematurely due to lack of opportunity to be upvoted). It would also minimize gaming of the system and the relevance of "time of day." Also, the gravity concept is good (so stories eventually die), but it's a bit too absolute/aggressive. There should also be normalization by total number of impressions and up/down votes, such that raw volume doesn't overwhelm quality with lower volume. That is, even if confidence intervals are used (which I don't really like), then up/down votes are an estimate of overall up/down vote percentages, which is what's relevant (the submissions most likely to be upvoted (meaning "best") are what should be shown first). Also, maybe volume matters somewhat (many votes implying a lot of interest), but it's better to separate this out and factor it in independently. For example, each signed in user that clicks on a link has a probability/likelihood they'll vote, so that could convert their impressions into an expectation which could then be compared to reality (how many upvotes are actually recorded). The higher the upvotes (compared to what was expected), the better the submission. This can then be combined with the other scoring methods (and slight personalization-- maybe a certain percentage of front page entries are personalized and the rest based on absolute rankings, rather than having everything be personalized, or breaking them up into separate sections) to stabilize, refine, and make more accurate submission ranking/sorting. There isn't a problem with a downvote button. And there isn't even a problem with it being abused (it being abused negatively affecting rankings is a sign the ranking algorithm is poor). The problem is with downvotes not being properly factored in (and weighed up or down depending on the source of the vote, and the user viewing the resulting front page articles). In fact, adding a downvote button would make it easier to rank new submissions (and it's also straightforward to filter (or normalize) out abusers of upvotes or downvotes). Also, maybe passive actions could be factored in (or things could be added that would serve as good "signals" for "front page worthiness") to increase the overall number of votes, such that a handful of users don't control what makes it to the front page and to allow each article score to be more reliable/accurate.

by orf 10y ago

grey-area 10y ago

Upvoted so that you stay at the top forevermore. Same thing happens with comments after they pass a threshold of votes.

andrewstuart2 10y ago

It's also very hard for quality comments to get visibility after a certain point. The points seem to be weighted a little too heavily in the comment sorting algorithm which makes it hard for newer posts to stay at the top. This could also just be that most people who may have voted have already checked the comments and don't come back. Perhaps I should have suggested a "new highly-rated comments!" indicator as a useful feature. It doesn't seem like I can go back and edit my response, though, without taking the whole quiz again, and I don't want to skew results.

bachmeier 10y ago
I agree, but I'd go further and say commenting here is largely a waste of time. If you make a comment on r/programming, others will respond and you can have a reasoned discussion, with trolls getting downvoted. If you disagree with someone, you can state your position and others will jump in and state theirs. Responses on HN are generally few in number, and if you challenge a high karma user, he and a few of his friends will downvote you with no intelligent discussion. I'd say the comment system here has resulted in a pissing contest where the goal is to say something really cute so that you get upvotes. There are good discussions, but they happen in spite of the comment system, not because of it.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  Funny, I'd say the exact same thing with the variables reversed. Commenting on reddit is a waste of time. Here however, fresh comments actually get promoted to the top very regularly, which gives them a chance to be seen. I much prefer the ranking here than on Reddit.
- nkurz 10y ago
  When I look at the dead and grayed out comments (you can turn on "showdead" in your profile to see the dead ones), I usually consider them to be lower quality than the comments that have not been downvoted and flagged. Do you feel otherwise? If so, could you link to some examples?
- uola 10y ago
  I've heard from multiple people who had their projects (software, electronics, organizations) make the rounds in online communities that HN was the worst experience.

guelo 10y ago

I'm pretty sure the algorithm already does something like that.

robert_tweed 10y ago

They did implement something like this a few months ago. Rising new comments are randomly shown on the frontpage. Try refreshing the frontpage a few times and you'll see various submissions with ~5 upvotes appearing and disappearing at random. I agree it could be better though, and I like the idea of putting them in a highlighted section rather than randomly sprinkling them in the middle of the page where they don't stand out.

DiabloD3 10y ago

The interesting thing is, I'm frequently on the front page, and am in the top 100 list for HN. I don't time posts, and I almost randomly post them. Yet, here I am. I've had posts that crossed the 5 vote threshold and didn't make it to the front page.

koide 10y ago
Are you sure you post at random? Have you measured it? It could be that, besides posting interesting content, your time zone and life style just naturally maps to the majority of voters.
- DiabloD3 10y ago
  Maybe. But I've posted at 4am, 4pm, noon, midnight, 8pm, 8am, and all the hours in between. It'd be neat if someone posted a graphic of my posting times.

mixedbit 10y ago

Another idea: if a new submission (but not older than some threshold, maybe 24h?) did not reach the front page, each up-vote resets the submission time. Now if a story is noticed and upvoted when it is already reaching the bottom of the 'new' category, it is unlikely that it will accumulate enough votes fast enough to reach the front page.

eevilspock 10y ago

The thing is, it's complicated. No one can confidently predict the interplay of all the algorithm factors and user behavior. Hacker News should be hackable (and it's ironic that it's not). The only way to evolve a better system is though lot's of empirical experiments. But because you need a large userbase to do a proper experiment, we've been limited to a dozen or so experiments to-date (HN, reddit, slashdot, etc). Making HN hackable would eliminate this chicken and egg problem. See how much experimentation the Netflix Challenge enabled. Hacker News of all places should enable creative hackers, math studs and inspired experimenters to test their ideas. For this to happen Hacker News needs to make vote data available in the public API, or if that is a no-go, go with another option such as accepting experimental code to run in a sandbox and and allowing it to present an alternate front page and comment rankings. I'd prefer votes becoming public for other reasons though. HN and all its users, and even Paul Graham, know that a better solution for promoting quality knowledge sharing and healthy discourse is needed. What better way to come up with a better way than to let its userbase of hackers hack away at it? If Hacker News were hackable, there would be a blossoming of alternate front pages and comment ranking, and users would vote with their feet, err... clicks.

greenyoda 10y ago

"and if you don't get more than 3-4 votes you delete and re-submit again a bit later" The HN FAQ[1] says: "Please don't delete and repost the same story, though. Accounts that do that eventually lose submission privileges." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

baccheion 10y ago

I posted an "ask hn" related to this (something your post reminded me to do): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422909 There definitely needs to be a more fluid/integrated means to discover new stories. The home page could be split down the middle, showing new stories to the right, or there could be a more feature-rich (and visible/accessible/usable/seductive/natural/etc) "upvote" page that allows searching, browsing, and filtering through submissions to discover ones to vote on. There could also be a slight weighting of votes (though not much) to create a bias toward more reliable (or longstanding) voters, or to infer which submissions the currently viewing user is likely to upvote. The bias likely has to be slight, as one part of the game is to show the global/absolute top stories, while also getting in stories the specific user is likely to find "upvote worthy." Also, randomly surfacing new submissions to get a sampling of up or down votes seems essential. This would allow a greater spread/certainty when a submission does make it to the front page, and would also be fairer to promising submissions (they won't die prematurely due to lack of opportunity to be upvoted). It would also minimize gaming of the system and the relevance of "time of day." Also, the gravity concept is good (so stories eventually die), but it's a bit too absolute/aggressive. There should also be normalization by total number of impressions and up/down votes, such that raw volume doesn't overwhelm quality with lower volume. That is, even if confidence intervals are used (which I don't really like), then up/down votes are an estimate of overall up/down vote percentages, which is what's relevant (the submissions most likely to be upvoted (meaning "best") are what should be shown first). Also, maybe volume matters somewhat (many votes implying a lot of interest), but it's better to separate this out and factor it in independently. For example, each signed in user that clicks on a link has a probability/likelihood they'll vote, so that could convert their impressions into an expectation which could then be compared to reality (how many upvotes are actually recorded). The higher the upvotes (compared to what was expected), the better the submission. This can then be combined with the other scoring methods (and slight personalization-- maybe a certain percentage of front page entries are personalized and the rest based on absolute rankings, rather than having everything be personalized, or breaking them up into separate sections) to stabilize, refine, and make more accurate submission ranking/sorting. There isn't a problem with a downvote button. And there isn't even a problem with it being abused (it being abused negatively affecting rankings is a sign the ranking algorithm is poor). The problem is with downvotes not being properly factored in (and weighed up or down depending on the source of the vote, and the user viewing the resulting front page articles). In fact, adding a downvote button would make it easier to rank new submissions (and it's also straightforward to filter (or normalize) out abusers of upvotes or downvotes). Also, maybe passive actions could be factored in (or things could be added that would serve as good "signals" for "front page worthiness") to increase the overall number of votes, such that a handful of users don't control what makes it to the front page and to allow each article score to be more reliable/accurate.