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Ask HN: Why are submissions staying on the front page for longer?
I've noticed over the last few months that things submitted to HN that reach the front page have been staying there for a day or two. It seems (maybe it is just my perception) that a year ago a submission would only stay on the front page for a few hours and at max a day. Am I imagining things? If I'm not imagining it, what is causing things to stay on the front page? An influx of users, maybe?
- lifeisstillgood 8y agoI have noticed something similar - I just put it down to a "slow news day". Frankly it means I am getting some work done :-)
- cityhomesteader 8y agoI've noticed that as well. Just a guess, but certain news organizations are given "special treatment" lately. Almost everyday, I see a post from select news sources with 1 or 2 upvotes and no comments very high on the frontpage. Also, is it just me or has hacker news slowly shifted from being about technology to more politics? And a final observation, what's with the neverending submissions about facebook?
- megaman22 8y agoThere's a few very common news outlets that are always on the front page with not-very-interesting stories that I've resorted to just flagging and hiding automatically. Especially when you realize they trot out the same story or opinion piece every three weeks, it gets really tiresome. If I don't do this, sometimes more than a third of the front page is garbage pieces from these half dozen or so outlets.
- creep 8y ago>facebook The nature of tech communities is that we tend to value privacy, so I think perhaps the Facebook issue is pushed here vigorously by zealot-types to try and "win the team" or by agents who have vested interest in seeing Facebook destroyed. It's a bandwagon thing mostly though.
- aaronarduino 8y agoI agree HN has been becoming more about politics and non-tech focused submissions. I'm wondering if this change in content is due to the community or HN's ranking algorithm. Either way, I'm starting to look for a more tech-focused community.
- at-fates-hands 8y ago>> Almost everyday, I see a post from select news sources with 1 or 2 upvotes and no comments very high on the frontpage. I've noticed this a lot lately as well. I always think, "I wonder how this got to the front page with zero comments, but a ton of upvotes." Any of those posts seem suspicious to me since the MO for HN seems to be if it's good, it should generate some discussion on its way to the front page. Unless they're trying to circumvent the algorithm that pushes stories with more comments than upvotes? >> Also, is it just me or has hacker news slowly shifted from being about technology to more politics? Yes. I'm seeing more and more political stuff, which is NOT the reason I come here. If I want a political flame war, I can go over to Reddit. TBH, I don't come as often anymore because it seems everything gets turned into something political.
- yorwba 8y ago> if it's good, it should generate some discussion on its way to the front page. That is not how HN works. Posts start on the "new" page, once they get three upvotes they show up on the front page, then they get more attention and, if there are enough upvotes to make the submission stay, a discussion develops. If you don't like the topics that show up on HN, try submitting more interesting stories and occasionally check the "new" page to upvote other submissions.
- dang 8y ago> Also, is it just me or has hacker news slowly shifted from being about technology to more politics? People have been saying this for about as long as HN has existed, but it isn't true. HN is a mix, it's always been a mix, and the proportion of politics in the mix has gone down somewhat. Why do people perceive the opposite? Because of the cognitive bias where whatever you dislike stands out more. The users who wish HN would have more politics believe that the trend is just the opposite way (a la 'political stories are being increasingly suppressed' and so on). For anyone who wants details, I wrote a detailed post about this a few weeks ago with tons of examples, so I could link back to it when this issue inevitably comes up again. It's here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. p.s. There's no special favorable treatment of any publication on HN. We do penalize sites that have been the source of too many off topic or lightweight submissions in the past.
- aaronarduino 8y agoHas that proportion of politics gone down on the front page or just over all of HN?
- dang 8y agoI'm talking about the front page because, for better or worse, it's approximately all that anyone looks at.
- wrp 8y agoAlthough the political/technical balance may have stayed the same, I expect that the recent trend to keep old posts on the front page longer would heighten any perception of bias. I for one have been finding coming to HN much less rewarding lately. I have to search more pages to find interesting posts.
- dang 8y agoIt would be helpful if you'd include the newest page in your search routine and vote for interesting things.
- Macie44 8y agoI am so sorry. I am totally new HN platform.I can not submit posts HN. Please Help me.
- whatsstolat 8y agoYou probably need some upvotes first. Be patient
- charlyjaja 8y agothis motherfuckers selling out
- pvg 8y agoYou can just mail the mods and ask instead of asking a zillion people who almost certainly can't possibly know.
- sxates 8y agoIf something changed, it's nice for everyone else to be made aware as well. I had noticed the same thing.
- pvg 8y agoNot really. It's pointless meta, imagine if every change, real or imagined, clogged up the site. And there's a good chance mods who can answer it won't even see it, they can't see everything but they read all their email. This got sensibly flagged off. If you want to know, ask the mods. If something super-interesting has changed, you can always write a thing about it and post it and see how it fares.
- tropshop 8y agoMeanwhile, "Demand for Ruby on Rails is Still Huge" is about the hit the 3rd page with 157 comments and only 3 hours old... I guess anything Ruby is old news on HN
- txcwpalpha 8y agoWasn't that exact article already on HN's front page a few days ago when the article was first posted, or was I dreaming? I just assumed that the HN algorithm pushed down reposts.
- Deimorz 8y agoThat post has more comments than votes, which seems to be a factor that HN's ranking system uses to push posts off the front page faster. I think that's a terrible decision that punishes posts that generate a lot of discussion, but it seems to be how it works.
- foepys 8y agoThat's being done to remove posts where flame wars are ongoing.
- yorwba 8y agoDiscussion without corresponding upvotes usually indicates that people didn't like the original article that much and are mostly commenting to complain or rebut.
- NikolaNovak 8y agoBut... doesn't more votes with few comments just mean people like or agree with the idea/title, but might not even have read it and it doesn't generate meaningful discussion? :-/ I find that trivially true statement, or those that seeming to appeal to our values / beliefs, get a lot of upvotes without people even following the link, let alone contributing thoughtful comments. Whereas I come to HN to read insightful comments almost more than underlying articles - I find it fascinating when an Apollo engineer or a ML researcher or a physicist etc contribute their perspective on a topic :)
- usermac 8y agoIf this is here tomorrow, your summation is verified.
- brad0 8y agoHonestly I prefer this system. There’s definitely some pseudo curation happening, which I like. Some interesting things I’ve picked up: - If a submission is interesting but doesn’t get picked up for whatever reason (posted at the wrong time or there was other big news at the time) mods will get in contact with you and ask you to repost. - More comments than votes seems to sink the article quickly. It’s generally a controversial topic which isn’t engaging and inspiring in the right way. - there are a number of mod specific flags other than the above that affect the position of articles. From what I remember reading there’s 6 such flags. Would love to know what they are I’m guessing the algorithm is a sort based on time * points then modifying it based on hidden flags
- cityhomesteader 8y agoSeems like the antithesis of what a "hacker" news site should be. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoMaybe a new tab of results would be useful, like “discussed” or something. I usually find the posts that generate more comments than votes to be the most valuable and interesting.
- yorwba 8y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active More options can be found at https://news.ycombinator.com/lists https://news.ycombinator.com/lists
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoI'm curious why 'active' (and 'lists' itself) is not in the default tab of options across the top of the page.
- 8y ago
- minimaxir 8y agoRelatedly, submissions have been making the front page with only a few points (3-4), and from what I can tell, it's at random (I've seen a lot of bad posts fit this criteria, then quickly fall off once they are flagged). It's a bit of an unstable equilibrium and I'm not fond of it. Placement on the front page is a very finite resource.
- dang 8y agoSubmissions have always made the front page with three votes, depending on how new they are vs. how stale the front page is. That hasn't changed in years. There's also the second-chance pool that we put stories into, which get randomly placed on the front page (this is described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 and links back from there), and the repost invites we occasionally send out when we notice a great post that's more than a few days old.
- minimaxir 8y agoThat's true, although I've noticed it occur much more recently (admittingly that's a selection bias)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- curtis 8y agoAlgolia's "Last 24h" view is often a nice alternative to the HN front page. It's more stable and it's also a good way to find articles/discussions that drew a lot of attention and then got flagged. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page... (it's not working at the moment for some reason) The "Past Week" view is still working: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoAlso https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ is nice.
- captain_perl 8y agoBecause the YC alumni moved to their internal social network, BookFace. HN is for rubes now.