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That's an interesting comment. I'm still trying to 'work out' the Hacker News crowd (even though I've been here almost two years!). I've submitted plenty of th

by spxdcz 16y ago

That's an interesting comment. I'm still trying to 'work out' the Hacker News crowd (even though I've been here almost two years!). I've submitted plenty of things that get to #1, or front page, but can't seem to find much consistency in what people like / don't like. Not as obviously as Reddit/Digg/Slashdot, anyway - which is a good thing! I'm very pleased that HN isn't as one-dimensional as some other sites; it's what keeps me coming back. But it is weird, what becomes popular and what doesn't. For example, I submitted this particular story, which I was a bit unsure about (like you say, more suited to Reddit), but still people vote it up. Other times, I can submit content that I think is genuinely interesting/fascinating, that is much more technical and comprehensive than this rather silly BBC/URL story, and it doesn't get a single vote. Maybe it's the time of day / day of the week. On that note, does anyone know of any data repositories for Hacker News front page items? An API or raw-data download that can be analyzed? I remember someone a few months ago doing some analysis on the best time of day to submit, but was wondering if there was any public data out there, or whether I should start spidering/collecting my own?

mahipal 16y ago
An API? That's a sad joke. (I say that bitterly as someone who's been knee-deep in the HTML structure of HN for the past few days, trying to parse out data for my own app.) I talked to someone in #startups a little while ago who was developing a server-side API for HN, but last I heard it wasn't done. There's a few sites that are sort of "HN aggregators." Unfortunately I've lost the links, but there was one that used a simple algorithm to accumulate the top stories of HN. It would scan the front page every N minutes and give each story X points based on its ranking at the time. Does anyone remember that one? At any rate, the best you could get from those sites would be a friendlier HTML structure that doesn't feel like 1994. You'll probably have to parse some HTML yourself.

by spxdcz 16y ago

mahipal 16y ago

An API? That's a sad joke. (I say that bitterly as someone who's been knee-deep in the HTML structure of HN for the past few days, trying to parse out data for my own app.) I talked to someone in #startups a little while ago who was developing a server-side API for HN, but last I heard it wasn't done. There's a few sites that are sort of "HN aggregators." Unfortunately I've lost the links, but there was one that used a simple algorithm to accumulate the top stories of HN. It would scan the front page every N minutes and give each story X points based on its ranking at the time. Does anyone remember that one? At any rate, the best you could get from those sites would be a friendlier HTML structure that doesn't feel like 1994. You'll probably have to parse some HTML yourself.