4 ms·
Why not simply mix some 'new' randomly into the front page at some ratio? If one or two of the stories in the front page were (different) new stories for each v
by jbert 16y ago
Why not simply mix some 'new' randomly into the front page at some ratio? If one or two of the stories in the front page were (different) new stories for each visitor, you'd solve the "front page or bust" problem.
You'd sacrifice a bit of "quality" from the front page, at the gain of a more variety and more exposure for new stories - entirely tunable by the ratio.
- alextgordon 16y agoOr display both in two columns. Frontpage on the left. New on the right.
- jbert 16y agoWell, the idea would be that the casual viewer couldn't distinguish the 'new' from the front page and so would treat them the same. Otherwise people will ignore new as they do now. (Point score could be left off of the front page to help this).
- alextgordon 16y agoI think the problem is not that people are wilfully ignoring it, rather it's just not prominent enough. When I open HN, I am immediately seduced by an interesting headline (or point score) of a frontpage story. I don't have time to make a conscious decision to visit /newest. There's no way it's getting precedence over "12 ways to speed up your Erlang programs with NoSQL". If new and the frontpage got equal treatment, then I'd be seduced by interesting headlines of frontpage and new stories equally. Meaning the good new stories would have a better chance of being upvoted. I wouldn't like to see frontpage and new stories merged into the same list, since a great deal of new stories are spam or otherwise devoid of interest.
- jacquesm 16y agoThat would help to some extent but because of the different traffic ratios it would also significantly increase the pay-off for a spammer.
- jbert 16y agoThat's tunable again tho. Not all front pages need some new mixed in - you can adjust both the amount of new and the proportion of 'contaminated' front pages.