3 ms·
> Take this comment thread on PostgeSQL 11: That example doesn't seem to support your point. 211 upvote with only 54 comments seems like a thread with a very
by mmt 8y ago
> Take this comment thread on PostgeSQL 11:
That example doesn't seem to support your point.
211 upvote with only 54 comments seems like a thread with a very high votes-to-comments ratio as well as a high absolute number of upvotes, so I would expect the algorithm to rate it highly.
Perhaps, enough readers looking at the thread and enjoying the article or the discussion would leave an upvote, even if they don't leave a comment. However, in the "squabbly" threads, commenters seem to overrun upvoters, and quickly at that.
I've seen some where someone was creating new HN accounts to circumvent HN's comment rate-limiting, due to wanting to respond on so many sub-threads. It's difficult to imagine that kind of fervor resulting in thoughtful discourse or even conforming to HN's guideline regarding being more substantive when more divisive. As such, a high comment-count velocity would be a good "negative" measure, but, absent that, just comment count is a good enough heuristic.
> If you filter that out, I might as well just go to my feedly.
Personally, I don't think I'd use it as an exclusive filter, but, perhaps, as a next step after the HN front page (but before the HN page 2).
- lettergram 8y agoI think this post itself is a great example. At the moment, there's a post about vaccines above this post. It has had very little discussions, isn't really about "hacking". Literally the first comment is complaining how it's lacking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17997400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17997400 In the OP's link, the vaccine article appears above this post by a wide margin. It shouldn't.
- mmt 8y ago> It has had very little discussions, That can be viewed as a very good thing, considering the word "vaccine" can be a lightning-rod fod flamewars, even on HN. > isn't really about "hacking" It's about science and how it's funded, which is routinely a topic of interest here, and is well within the guidelines: "That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." > In the OP's link, the vaccine article appears above this post by a wide margin. It shouldn't. Ah, but I disagree. The discussion in this thread is very "meta" and could easily be characterized as annoying, even though I don't (yet) personally find it to be.
- shadowsun7 8y agoI’m the author of hnconf and I personally find this meta thread rather annoying. It gratifies me to see that it’s ranked really lowly on my site! ;)