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I'm not complaining, but just wondering why there was zero interest in this when I submitted it yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20801761 https:/

by nonbel 7y ago

I'm not complaining, but just wondering why there was zero interest in this when I submitted it yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20801761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20801761

dmix 7y ago
This is such a common phenomenon with some very obvious answers...
- nonbel 7y ago
  Well the general answer is that the HN algorithm didn't put it on the front page (or at least not for long enough). It is just that there is obviously interest on this site in this topic, yet it failed to gain any traction. So there is room for improvement in the algo.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    As dang has explained [1], there's a lot of randomness around what makes it to the front page, but if it's a big, current story, it will be posted by enough different people that it will make it there soon enough. It sucks when you were first to submit it but miss out on the karma, of course, but such is life. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20randomness%20front&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20randomness%20front&s...
    - nonbel 7y ago
      "Randomness" doesn't explain anything. That is just the modern day version of "the gods willed it".
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        Your original submission got one upvote. Which means that one person who happened to be looking at the "New" page when it was submitted thought the title was interesting enough to look at the article and then upvote it. Maybe it because it was a low-traffic time of day, or people were focused on other things, or ... who knows? If, instead of one person, it happened to be be two or three, it would have made it to the front page and you would've received all the karma from further upvotes. The thing that makes the difference between one upvote vs 2-3 is a whole lot of unknowable factors that is reasonable to put down to "randomness". That's how HackerNews has worked for all of the 10+ years I've been using it. What alternative explanation do you propose? Like I said, it sucks when you miss out on the karma, but if you strongly believe it's a solid article you can resubmit it or email the mods and ask them to put it in the second-chance pool, which they're always happy to do if it's good content.

by nonbel 7y ago

I'm not complaining, but just wondering why there was zero interest in this when I submitted it yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20801761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20801761

dmix 7y ago

This is such a common phenomenon with some very obvious answers...

nonbel 7y ago
Well the general answer is that the HN algorithm didn't put it on the front page (or at least not for long enough). It is just that there is obviously interest on this site in this topic, yet it failed to gain any traction. So there is room for improvement in the algo.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  As dang has explained [1], there's a lot of randomness around what makes it to the front page, but if it's a big, current story, it will be posted by enough different people that it will make it there soon enough. It sucks when you were first to submit it but miss out on the karma, of course, but such is life. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20randomness%20front&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20randomness%20front&s...
  - nonbel 7y ago
    "Randomness" doesn't explain anything. That is just the modern day version of "the gods willed it".
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      Your original submission got one upvote. Which means that one person who happened to be looking at the "New" page when it was submitted thought the title was interesting enough to look at the article and then upvote it. Maybe it because it was a low-traffic time of day, or people were focused on other things, or ... who knows? If, instead of one person, it happened to be be two or three, it would have made it to the front page and you would've received all the karma from further upvotes. The thing that makes the difference between one upvote vs 2-3 is a whole lot of unknowable factors that is reasonable to put down to "randomness". That's how HackerNews has worked for all of the 10+ years I've been using it. What alternative explanation do you propose? Like I said, it sucks when you miss out on the karma, but if you strongly believe it's a solid article you can resubmit it or email the mods and ask them to put it in the second-chance pool, which they're always happy to do if it's good content.