7 ms·

Nice work, very informative. This is an issue that I feel has the potential to kill HN in the long run. It is steadily growing closer and closer to being imposs

Nice work, very informative. This is an issue that I feel has the potential to kill HN in the long run. It is steadily growing closer and closer to being impossible to hit the front page without gaming the system. The thing is that these submissions are coming in because there are more people, so in theory there should be a way to balance the increased submission rate with an increased voting rate as well. But how?

epochwolf 16y ago
require 200 karma for submission?
- petercooper 16y ago
  Even requiring 3 or 4 karma would wipe out nearly all the deads (which I have turned on, sometimes good front page stuff gets deaded..) and 50 karma would get the page down to about half.
- kgermino 16y ago
  The biggest problem with setting a minimum, particularly one that high is that it is extremely difficult to get a lot of karma from comments alone, especially for new users without name recognition.
  - cglee 16y ago
    That's the point: raise the bar by forcing the new users to hang around and get a feel for the culture before submitting. On top of that, acquiring 200 karma points on HN definitely doesn't fall into the "extremely difficult" category.
    - gommm 16y ago
      Yes but I think a lower amount like 50 would probably be enough or at least a good test before trying an higher threshold..
  - gaustin 16y ago
    200 karma is not an onerous burden. I've been reading HN for years, but only started posting comments regularly in the past couple of months (maybe two or three posts per week). Right now, I'm over 100, and I'm not that insightful. If I had something to say and paid more attention to posting in threads that are likely to be popular, I'm sure I'd have much more karma.
- pmichaud 16y ago
  The issue with that is when people post ASk HN stuff anonymously, which I think is valuable. Maybe figure out a way to create anonymous posts that don't have the limitation?
PostOnce 16y ago
Reddit puts a random new link at the top of the page. To get votes, it has to be visible, to be visible it has to be on the front page. It's just a question of layout and maybe simple filtering based on karma or account age or whatever. Could just intersperse 5% of the front page with random new links, or take a cue from reddit and put one at the top, or divide the page into two panes, or alternate lines of new and top links, in different colors (one darker, one lighter), or on every n-th login/visit, take the user to the new page instead of the front page.
moconnor 16y ago
The issue isn't the amount of time a post is on the new page for, it's how many people get to see it before it falls off the page. So long as the number of people viewing the new page at any one time increases proportionally to the number of new submissions, a reduced time on the page won't be a problem. It's exposure to potential upvotes that's important, not total exposure time. That said, increased competition for the limited range of spots on the front page may eventually be a 'problem', but only if you think having too much excellent material as a problem and not an opportunity ;)
revorad 16y ago
How about balancing the increased submission rate with more items on the front page?

epochwolf 16y ago

require 200 karma for submission?

petercooper 16y ago
Even requiring 3 or 4 karma would wipe out nearly all the deads (which I have turned on, sometimes good front page stuff gets deaded..) and 50 karma would get the page down to about half.
kgermino 16y ago
The biggest problem with setting a minimum, particularly one that high is that it is extremely difficult to get a lot of karma from comments alone, especially for new users without name recognition.
- cglee 16y ago
  That's the point: raise the bar by forcing the new users to hang around and get a feel for the culture before submitting. On top of that, acquiring 200 karma points on HN definitely doesn't fall into the "extremely difficult" category.
  - gommm 16y ago
    Yes but I think a lower amount like 50 would probably be enough or at least a good test before trying an higher threshold..
- gaustin 16y ago
  200 karma is not an onerous burden. I've been reading HN for years, but only started posting comments regularly in the past couple of months (maybe two or three posts per week). Right now, I'm over 100, and I'm not that insightful. If I had something to say and paid more attention to posting in threads that are likely to be popular, I'm sure I'd have much more karma.
pmichaud 16y ago
The issue with that is when people post ASk HN stuff anonymously, which I think is valuable. Maybe figure out a way to create anonymous posts that don't have the limitation?

PostOnce 16y ago

Reddit puts a random new link at the top of the page. To get votes, it has to be visible, to be visible it has to be on the front page. It's just a question of layout and maybe simple filtering based on karma or account age or whatever. Could just intersperse 5% of the front page with random new links, or take a cue from reddit and put one at the top, or divide the page into two panes, or alternate lines of new and top links, in different colors (one darker, one lighter), or on every n-th login/visit, take the user to the new page instead of the front page.

moconnor 16y ago

The issue isn't the amount of time a post is on the new page for, it's how many people get to see it before it falls off the page. So long as the number of people viewing the new page at any one time increases proportionally to the number of new submissions, a reduced time on the page won't be a problem. It's exposure to potential upvotes that's important, not total exposure time. That said, increased competition for the limited range of spots on the front page may eventually be a 'problem', but only if you think having too much excellent material as a problem and not an opportunity ;)

revorad 16y ago

How about balancing the increased submission rate with more items on the front page?