11 ms·

Hacker News Points Inflation

117 points by refrigerator 8y ago

craigkerstiens 8y ago
I can't help but be amused in the irony that this says it requires more points than prior to hit the front page, yet appeared on the front page with only 3 points.
- sctb 8y ago
  The role of time in ranking is not relevant to the concerns of the article but is very relevant to the submission.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the front page in order to gather points. Wouldn't work for Reddit, but works rather well for HN. I have noticed that when I use a mobile app to browse HN, I'm far more willing to keep going past the front page, if only because it doesn't require clicks to do so. I'd suggest an option for forever-scroll presentation for the article list. EDIT: A quick Google search turned up this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484616 EDIT2: Sadly broken, scrolls once then I get an error in the console. I may end up fixing it and forking.
  - drcharris 8y ago
    Try http://hckrnews.com/ http://hckrnews.com/, infinite scroll works nicely.
    - expiredtofu 8y ago
      Definitely agree, hckrnews is my main method of browsing Hacker News. It's nice to get a chronological view that keeps track of when I last visited.
      - nefitty 8y ago
        The mobile version doesn't have a color scheme picker. It's harsh going from HN to hckrnews because of the white background.
  - loup-vaillant 8y ago
    > The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the front page in order to gather points. I wasn't aware of that… My own HN submissions never made it to the front page without gathering two upvotes first. Those are pretty hard to get without a voting ring (err, two friends). There's the "new" page all right, but new stories come so fast there that it never lasts more than an hour. Once you get past the "front page" threshold however, points tend to flood in. The second vote is probably worth several dozen votes on average. Reddit sub-forums however lets new submissions land in the front page directly. Unsurprisingly, this makes voting pattern much more predictable (at least on r/programming and r/crypto, which are basically the only forums I go to).
    - derekp7 8y ago
      I think a hybrid approach would be to show the new submissions list after the front page list, after the fold (maybe having a delimiter separating them). That way new stories still get exposure to everyone by default (of course, this should also be a user option where they can turn this on or off, but default to on).
      - hokus 8y ago
        Make new into the front page then unlock access to the real HN by reading X articles for Y seconds and upvoting Z of them. Then have 1000 euro/month pro accounts to bypass having to work for your precious.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    > The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the front page in order to gather points. I have never seen anything on the homepage with < 3 points.
    - dang 8y ago
      That's indeed the minimum.
  - imron 8y ago
    > I'd suggest an option for forever-scroll presentation for the article list As long as it's off by default. Infinite scroll is a major time sink.
  - taneq 8y ago
    > I'd suggest an option for forever-scroll presentation for the article list. As long as it's optional - if I get to the bottom of the front page, that's my trigger to stop wasting time here and get back to work. :P
- paulpauper 8y ago
  3 is the minimum to get the front page. from there it either rises or falls.
- bartread 8y ago
  I've noticed that at weekends articles require fewer points to hang around for longer on the homepage as well. I should probably stop reading HN on weekends really because the clear reason for this is that the people who aren't reading (and voting things up) have a life.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    Probably opposite: browsing during the day means people are blowing off their jobs to use HN.
  - milesvp 8y ago
    What's interesting is I feel like the diversity of front page posts seems higher on a typical saturday night. It also feels a lot more like HN felt a decade ago on a typical workday.
- godelski 8y ago
  As of right now (5:20 EST) it has 47 points. And the suggested median is 150 (110-250+ in error). FAR from the median front page score.
  - xander2011 8y ago
    There may be some flagging of the topic which will negate the upvotes.
nwatson 8y ago
I assume HN readership has grown, with readers probably giving out roughly on average the same number of up-votes they used to for story submissions per any time unit (maybe some variability). The number of points it takes for a story to beat out sibling stories should then also increase. There may be other effects such as a wider-variety-of-stories-being-submitted than from before that would perhaps squash per-story-votes-needed-to-stay-on-front-page. One might say "but there are more stories being submitted too" -- but the unique number of these wouldn't go up linearly as the number of readers goes up, since they're pulling from roughly the same universe of possible stories-of-interest. EDIT: paragraph about "more stories submitted"
rdlecler1 8y ago
Given HN’s high traffic rate it could implement a simple genetic algorithm to randomly display a couple of new articles, selecting with clicks & comments. Could limit this kind of seeding to posters who have had previous posting success.
- andai 8y ago
  Using keywords as DNA?
  - swyx 8y ago
    that would get easily, easily gamed...
lisper 8y ago
It's harder to get on the home page than it used to be, but not because point inflation. It's because there are more submissions than ever before, but still the same number of stories on the home page.
- paulpauper 8y ago
  A lot of new account with low reputations submitting stuff. I think a lot of it is automated
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    I turned on “see dead” for a day, and my impression is that s lot of spam is caught. I think it would be very hard to spam this site for long, automated or otherwise.
- at-fates-hands 8y ago
  This is why I went from just reading/commenting on the front page stories, to actually starting on the New tab and then working to the front page. I also see a ton of upvoted stories on the front page with no comments. I always thought the focus of HN was the thoughtful conversations that took place around topics, not the accrual of fake internet points.
  - IncRnd 8y ago
    > I always thought the focus of HN was the thoughtful conversations that took place around topics, not the accrual of fake internet points. Apparently, ranking is only a function of the time since submittal and the # of points. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html: > The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - htgb 8y ago
pmoriarty 8y ago
"The median today, in 2018, is around 150 points -- double what it was when I joined the site in 2011. With a bit of hand-waving, we might be able to claim that "HN points are worth half as much in 2018 as they were in 2011"." This is to be expected if HN has a larger userbase now than in the past. More people voting means more points are given to popular posts.
TelAvivHacker 8y ago
Why do y'all worry about points anyway? It's not like you can exchange them for Bitcoin.
metalliqaz 8y ago
This seems like a straightforward consequence of a growing user base. Am I wrong?
- gnicholas 8y ago
  I think you're right, but I think psychology comes into play as well, which complicates things. That is, if I see something with 800 points and read/enjoy the article, I'm less likely to upvote than if it has only 200 points. I have similar feelings about photos on FB, which I'm more likely to "like" if it has only a few reactions than if it has over 100 already. I don't know if others have similar feelings about when to upvote things, but if my thought process is not uncommon then it could dampen the impact of a growing user base. It's sort of like the bystander effect, but for internet platforms.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    There's a pretty noticeable effect in HN comment karma where the same comment is probably worth an upvote if it's at zero or negative ("this didn't deserve to be downvoted"), but not if it isn't ("didn't deserve to be upvoted, either"). Like the phenomenon you describe, this suggests that a lot of people are trying to use their vote to move the total vote towards what they think it should be, rather than purely expressing an up-or-down opinion independent of the existing vote.
    - retsibsi 8y ago
      > a lot of people are trying to use their vote to move the total vote towards what they think it should be, rather than purely expressing an up-or-down opinion independent of the existing vote I definitely do this on reddit, and probably on HN too. I don't know if such a thing exists, but I would use a widget that gave me an 'upvote iff karma < 1' button.
    - Karunamon 8y ago
      I can’t help but think part of this, at least when it comes to downvoted comments, is that the downvoting is very obvious due to the progressive graying. You’re more likely to notice something and ask yourself “wtf? There’s nothing wrong with this comment. clicks up arrow” than if the low score was just a number.
kizer 8y ago
Our beloved HN is experiencing unrestrained inflation. Paul Graham, please insitute austerity measures immediately!!!
- asadlionpk 8y ago
  sadly pg left some years back.
  - kizer 8y ago
    :( I did not know.
- howeyc 8y ago
  I have a solution, inflate the size of the first page to correlate with number of active users.
  - hokus 8y ago
    Isolate usergroups by year of registration. i.e. If you sign up in 2018 by default you end up on the 2018 user HN. Then have next to the next button buttons to go to the next/previous year. That way old people can finally talk about the zx spectrum, the commodore 64 and IBM mainframes without disrupting the more interesting hipster conversations.
- ssambros 8y ago
  If I am not willing to spend time on karma earning posts and comments, can I please have at least 10 karma delivered to my account weekly to compensate for the inflation?
- hokus 8y ago
  Austerity! Of course! That we can all just live here for free has to be the main flaw of the system. Few here earn their keep. Yes, I'm looking at you HN reader! Lets set up a stock exchange for articles and with a stock exchange I mean a gambling platform. Have all the fun mechanics like hedging, shorting, double or nothing etc That said we the association of comment manufacturers deserve better marketing and higher margins. Something for nothing is a terrible idea. Our time isn't free. Lets make opening a page cost micro points per comment posted and introduce cheap mega-downvotes.
anonu 8y ago
> Is it harder to get to the HN front page now than it used to be? This is a very difficult question to answer. Could just be a phenomenon of: 1. lots more submissions 2. larger user base 3. user base with wider interests - and limited front-page slots to fill in
handbanana 8y ago
I don't know what's on the front page, ever. Because I use hckrnews.com and filter by all
ProAm 8y ago
I also think the moderators have the ability to increase or decrease gravity on submissions as they see fit. Makes sense but I do not think an algorithm controls 100% of submission placement.
- scarface74 8y ago
  The only submission I've ever had that got any traction was because of a "second chance" where the moderators intervened.
anotherevan 8y ago
The trick to getting on the front page of Hacker News is to submit an article about Hacker News, isn't it?
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Even better: submit an article about getting to the front page of Hacker News.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jamesrom 8y ago
>With a bit of hand-waving, we might be able to claim that "HN points are worth half as much in 2018 as they were in 2011". A lot of handwaving indeed. The value of a point is surely a function of clicks. If there's more visitors today than 2011, then you could reasonably argue a HN points are worth more.
applecrazy 8y ago
Amazing analysis! I've wanted somebody to do this post for a while now (I even have a comment on it![0]). [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410684
sandrobfc 8y ago
It does make sense that it's harder to get to the front-page now. There are more submissions than ever before and there's got to be some way to filter what matters and what doesn't. This also means that a lot of good articles get lost in new, but it's not as troublesome as it would be if a lot of bad articles ended up on the front-page. That's what curation means.

117 points by refrigerator 8y ago

I can't help but be amused in the irony that this says it requires more points than prior to hit the front page, yet appeared on the front page with only 3 points.

sctb 8y ago
The role of time in ranking is not relevant to the concerns of the article but is very relevant to the submission.
vinceguidry 8y ago
The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the front page in order to gather points. Wouldn't work for Reddit, but works rather well for HN. I have noticed that when I use a mobile app to browse HN, I'm far more willing to keep going past the front page, if only because it doesn't require clicks to do so. I'd suggest an option for forever-scroll presentation for the article list. EDIT: A quick Google search turned up this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484616 EDIT2: Sadly broken, scrolls once then I get an error in the console. I may end up fixing it and forking.
- drcharris 8y ago
  Try http://hckrnews.com/ http://hckrnews.com/, infinite scroll works nicely.
  - expiredtofu 8y ago
    Definitely agree, hckrnews is my main method of browsing Hacker News. It's nice to get a chronological view that keeps track of when I last visited.
    - nefitty 8y ago
      The mobile version doesn't have a color scheme picker. It's harsh going from HN to hckrnews because of the white background.
- loup-vaillant 8y ago
  > The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the front page in order to gather points. I wasn't aware of that… My own HN submissions never made it to the front page without gathering two upvotes first. Those are pretty hard to get without a voting ring (err, two friends). There's the "new" page all right, but new stories come so fast there that it never lasts more than an hour. Once you get past the "front page" threshold however, points tend to flood in. The second vote is probably worth several dozen votes on average. Reddit sub-forums however lets new submissions land in the front page directly. Unsurprisingly, this makes voting pattern much more predictable (at least on r/programming and r/crypto, which are basically the only forums I go to).
  - derekp7 8y ago
    I think a hybrid approach would be to show the new submissions list after the front page list, after the fold (maybe having a delimiter separating them). That way new stories still get exposure to everyone by default (of course, this should also be a user option where they can turn this on or off, but default to on).
    - hokus 8y ago
      Make new into the front page then unlock access to the real HN by reading X articles for Y seconds and upvoting Z of them. Then have 1000 euro/month pro accounts to bypass having to work for your precious.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the front page in order to gather points. I have never seen anything on the homepage with < 3 points.
  - dang 8y ago
    That's indeed the minimum.
- imron 8y ago
  > I'd suggest an option for forever-scroll presentation for the article list As long as it's off by default. Infinite scroll is a major time sink.
- taneq 8y ago
  > I'd suggest an option for forever-scroll presentation for the article list. As long as it's optional - if I get to the bottom of the front page, that's my trigger to stop wasting time here and get back to work. :P
paulpauper 8y ago
3 is the minimum to get the front page. from there it either rises or falls.
bartread 8y ago
I've noticed that at weekends articles require fewer points to hang around for longer on the homepage as well. I should probably stop reading HN on weekends really because the clear reason for this is that the people who aren't reading (and voting things up) have a life.
- mhneu 8y ago
  Probably opposite: browsing during the day means people are blowing off their jobs to use HN.
- milesvp 8y ago
  What's interesting is I feel like the diversity of front page posts seems higher on a typical saturday night. It also feels a lot more like HN felt a decade ago on a typical workday.
godelski 8y ago
As of right now (5:20 EST) it has 47 points. And the suggested median is 150 (110-250+ in error). FAR from the median front page score.
- xander2011 8y ago
  There may be some flagging of the topic which will negate the upvotes.

nwatson 8y ago

I assume HN readership has grown, with readers probably giving out roughly on average the same number of up-votes they used to for story submissions per any time unit (maybe some variability). The number of points it takes for a story to beat out sibling stories should then also increase. There may be other effects such as a wider-variety-of-stories-being-submitted than from before that would perhaps squash per-story-votes-needed-to-stay-on-front-page. One might say "but there are more stories being submitted too" -- but the unique number of these wouldn't go up linearly as the number of readers goes up, since they're pulling from roughly the same universe of possible stories-of-interest. EDIT: paragraph about "more stories submitted"

rdlecler1 8y ago

Given HN’s high traffic rate it could implement a simple genetic algorithm to randomly display a couple of new articles, selecting with clicks & comments. Could limit this kind of seeding to posters who have had previous posting success.

andai 8y ago
Using keywords as DNA?
- swyx 8y ago
  that would get easily, easily gamed...

lisper 8y ago

It's harder to get on the home page than it used to be, but not because point inflation. It's because there are more submissions than ever before, but still the same number of stories on the home page.

paulpauper 8y ago
A lot of new account with low reputations submitting stuff. I think a lot of it is automated
- Semirhage 8y ago
  I turned on “see dead” for a day, and my impression is that s lot of spam is caught. I think it would be very hard to spam this site for long, automated or otherwise.
at-fates-hands 8y ago
This is why I went from just reading/commenting on the front page stories, to actually starting on the New tab and then working to the front page. I also see a ton of upvoted stories on the front page with no comments. I always thought the focus of HN was the thoughtful conversations that took place around topics, not the accrual of fake internet points.
- IncRnd 8y ago
  > I always thought the focus of HN was the thoughtful conversations that took place around topics, not the accrual of fake internet points. Apparently, ranking is only a function of the time since submittal and the # of points. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html: > The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - htgb 8y ago

pmoriarty 8y ago

"The median today, in 2018, is around 150 points -- double what it was when I joined the site in 2011. With a bit of hand-waving, we might be able to claim that "HN points are worth half as much in 2018 as they were in 2011"." This is to be expected if HN has a larger userbase now than in the past. More people voting means more points are given to popular posts.

TelAvivHacker 8y ago

Why do y'all worry about points anyway? It's not like you can exchange them for Bitcoin.

metalliqaz 8y ago

This seems like a straightforward consequence of a growing user base. Am I wrong?

gnicholas 8y ago
I think you're right, but I think psychology comes into play as well, which complicates things. That is, if I see something with 800 points and read/enjoy the article, I'm less likely to upvote than if it has only 200 points. I have similar feelings about photos on FB, which I'm more likely to "like" if it has only a few reactions than if it has over 100 already. I don't know if others have similar feelings about when to upvote things, but if my thought process is not uncommon then it could dampen the impact of a growing user base. It's sort of like the bystander effect, but for internet platforms.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  There's a pretty noticeable effect in HN comment karma where the same comment is probably worth an upvote if it's at zero or negative ("this didn't deserve to be downvoted"), but not if it isn't ("didn't deserve to be upvoted, either"). Like the phenomenon you describe, this suggests that a lot of people are trying to use their vote to move the total vote towards what they think it should be, rather than purely expressing an up-or-down opinion independent of the existing vote.
  - retsibsi 8y ago
    > a lot of people are trying to use their vote to move the total vote towards what they think it should be, rather than purely expressing an up-or-down opinion independent of the existing vote I definitely do this on reddit, and probably on HN too. I don't know if such a thing exists, but I would use a widget that gave me an 'upvote iff karma < 1' button.
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    I can’t help but think part of this, at least when it comes to downvoted comments, is that the downvoting is very obvious due to the progressive graying. You’re more likely to notice something and ask yourself “wtf? There’s nothing wrong with this comment. clicks up arrow” than if the low score was just a number.

kizer 8y ago

Our beloved HN is experiencing unrestrained inflation. Paul Graham, please insitute austerity measures immediately!!!

asadlionpk 8y ago
sadly pg left some years back.
- kizer 8y ago
  :( I did not know.
howeyc 8y ago
I have a solution, inflate the size of the first page to correlate with number of active users.
- hokus 8y ago
  Isolate usergroups by year of registration. i.e. If you sign up in 2018 by default you end up on the 2018 user HN. Then have next to the next button buttons to go to the next/previous year. That way old people can finally talk about the zx spectrum, the commodore 64 and IBM mainframes without disrupting the more interesting hipster conversations.
ssambros 8y ago
If I am not willing to spend time on karma earning posts and comments, can I please have at least 10 karma delivered to my account weekly to compensate for the inflation?
hokus 8y ago
Austerity! Of course! That we can all just live here for free has to be the main flaw of the system. Few here earn their keep. Yes, I'm looking at you HN reader! Lets set up a stock exchange for articles and with a stock exchange I mean a gambling platform. Have all the fun mechanics like hedging, shorting, double or nothing etc That said we the association of comment manufacturers deserve better marketing and higher margins. Something for nothing is a terrible idea. Our time isn't free. Lets make opening a page cost micro points per comment posted and introduce cheap mega-downvotes.

anonu 8y ago

> Is it harder to get to the HN front page now than it used to be? This is a very difficult question to answer. Could just be a phenomenon of: 1. lots more submissions 2. larger user base 3. user base with wider interests - and limited front-page slots to fill in

handbanana 8y ago

I don't know what's on the front page, ever. Because I use hckrnews.com and filter by all

ProAm 8y ago

I also think the moderators have the ability to increase or decrease gravity on submissions as they see fit. Makes sense but I do not think an algorithm controls 100% of submission placement.

scarface74 8y ago
The only submission I've ever had that got any traction was because of a "second chance" where the moderators intervened.

anotherevan 8y ago

The trick to getting on the front page of Hacker News is to submit an article about Hacker News, isn't it?

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Even better: submit an article about getting to the front page of Hacker News.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jamesrom 8y ago

>With a bit of hand-waving, we might be able to claim that "HN points are worth half as much in 2018 as they were in 2011". A lot of handwaving indeed. The value of a point is surely a function of clicks. If there's more visitors today than 2011, then you could reasonably argue a HN points are worth more.

applecrazy 8y ago

Amazing analysis! I've wanted somebody to do this post for a while now (I even have a comment on it![0]). [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410684

sandrobfc 8y ago

It does make sense that it's harder to get to the front-page now. There are more submissions than ever before and there's got to be some way to filter what matters and what doesn't. This also means that a lot of good articles get lost in new, but it's not as troublesome as it would be if a lot of bad articles ended up on the front-page. That's what curation means.