3 ms·
True -- at the right threshold one upvote can mean the difference between a post sinking without a trace or making it to the front page and gaining many more vo
by tominous 10y ago
True -- at the right threshold one upvote can mean the difference between a post sinking without a trace or making it to the front page and gaining many more votes and views. In that way one upvote can trigger much more than 100 views.
- gwern 10y ago"The importance of a single vote is easy to illustrate: On Hacker News, a popular post can receive 500 votes, which can generate ~50,000 visits depending on how interesting the title is. (I’m pulling data from Algolia.) Using simple math, this equates to" Not even the half of it. I ran an experiment on /newest once, and just a single random upvote (mine) had a substantial effect on the odds that a submission would reach the front page, and since a front page appearance is worth anywhere from 5-20,000 pageviews, my single upvote was driving thousands of pageviews! And I've noticed when submitting my links and then browsing /newest for other meritorious links, this phenomenon doesn't appear to have gone away.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoThat's what I was talking about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13677501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13677501 Same thing seemed to happen to me whether coincidentally a bunch of simultaneous votes or some algorithm based on karma. I know I was more careful with upvotes on new stories afterward.
- gwern 10y agoYes, it's possible my high-karma makes my votes worth more. In retrospect, I probably should've done it with a lightly-used account. On the other hand, the implications for me are still the same - I know I take more time to do upvoting on /newest than I did before!