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"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
by 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!