4 ms·

Ask HN: Is there a guaranteed exposure for each HN post?

2 points by matijash 7y ago

Does HN somehow give a "chance" to each post to survive, or if you are unlucky and other posts just pile on top of yours too quickly you just drown?

gus_massa 7y ago
Each post goes to the newest page https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest . Please go there from time to time an upvote good stories (and flag spam). The stories in the front page are sorted by "penalties * upvotes / time^1.5" (Where penalties are a lot of automatic an manual penalties added by the mods and the flags of the users.) (And the number 1.5 is only an approximation. I don't know the current value of "gravity".) Using this calculation, to get to the front page, post currently must get 3 or 4 upvotes in the first hour. There is also the second chance pool, that sends a story to the front page for a short time. More details in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 The mods use a mix of manual and automated criteria to add stories to this pool. The details change from time to time and are part of the secret sauce, so take this as a rough approximation. And remember to go to the newest page and upvote good stories https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest
- matijash 7y ago
  wow, thank you for such a detailed explanation! I didn't know about flagging, will become active in /newest and do it. I suppose spam that should be flagged is the usual stuff - ads, repeating content etc.?
  - gus_massa 7y ago
    You need 200 points to flag. Get one now! Use the flag button wisely when you get enough points. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > What to Submit > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. 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. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. A small amount of repost are ok. About ads: Some post are almost an infomercial. If it is interesting it is ok. If it is just "buy me" repeated one hundred time no. Some post are about personal projects or a starting business looking for feedback. If it is interesting it is ok. Hey! Dropbox begun as a personal project and was posted here by the author before it was cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

2 points by matijash 7y ago

Does HN somehow give a "chance" to each post to survive, or if you are unlucky and other posts just pile on top of yours too quickly you just drown?

gus_massa 7y ago

Each post goes to the newest page https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest . Please go there from time to time an upvote good stories (and flag spam). The stories in the front page are sorted by "penalties * upvotes / time^1.5" (Where penalties are a lot of automatic an manual penalties added by the mods and the flags of the users.) (And the number 1.5 is only an approximation. I don't know the current value of "gravity".) Using this calculation, to get to the front page, post currently must get 3 or 4 upvotes in the first hour. There is also the second chance pool, that sends a story to the front page for a short time. More details in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 The mods use a mix of manual and automated criteria to add stories to this pool. The details change from time to time and are part of the secret sauce, so take this as a rough approximation. And remember to go to the newest page and upvote good stories https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest

matijash 7y ago
wow, thank you for such a detailed explanation! I didn't know about flagging, will become active in /newest and do it. I suppose spam that should be flagged is the usual stuff - ads, repeating content etc.?
- gus_massa 7y ago
  You need 200 points to flag. Get one now! Use the flag button wisely when you get enough points. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > What to Submit > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. 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. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. A small amount of repost are ok. About ads: Some post are almost an infomercial. If it is interesting it is ok. If it is just "buy me" repeated one hundred time no. Some post are about personal projects or a starting business looking for feedback. If it is interesting it is ok. Hey! Dropbox begun as a personal project and was posted here by the author before it was cool. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863