4 ms·

Yayagram was submitted nearly a dozen times before it got attention, but when it did get attention it was extremely well received. Is it just that the ratio of

Yayagram was submitted nearly a dozen times before it got attention, but when it did get attention it was extremely well received. Is it just that the ratio of submitted stories to people browsing new is too high, causing a low chance of any particular story to be looked at? If I had novel ideas on improving this I'd write it out, but I think others have already suggested things like randomly mixing new stories into the hot pages.

dang 5y ago
We tried randomly mixing in new stories onto the front page - it was a disaster. The median new submission is pretty crappy, and readers reacted with "how the #@!? did this make the front page", as if we had placed a turd in their breakfast cereal. "We were just trying to test if you would like it" turns out not to be a very popular answer. I've written about this several times in the past, but the only one I can find right now is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868928. IIRC, the second-chance pool was our next experiment after that one. It has worked much better. The difference is human judgment or, if you will, taste. It's not easy to come up with new mechanisms that might help with this problem. Every software mechanism we've tried allows many things through that don't pass muster. Community mechanisms, as soon as you open them up, get overwhelmed by people trying to game them to promote their own stuff. There's a feedback loop with that: the more interesting HN is, the more attractive it is to a high-quality audience, and therefore the more attractive a target it becomes for manipulation, which makes the site less interesting again. So there's a cap on how good it can ever get (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22can%20ever%20get%22&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).
- pineconewarrior 5y ago
  You are doing god's work, my dude. Great insight about community dynamics, too
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > We tried randomly mixing in new stories onto the front page When you mixed new stories onto the front page, were they clearly marked as new or could they easily be mistaken for upvoted content? Maybe this could be a karma gated opt-in feature that individual users can enable?
  - dang 5y ago
    I think they were marked as new, but I don't quite remember.
- wheybags 5y ago
  One thing that could be nice is giving established users an occasional nudge to have a look at /new (and a quick explanation of why it's important people do go there). Like, maybe if they haven't been to /new in a week, show a little banner suggesting they give it a go. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could even try to throttle the nudges according to the amount of posts being submitted at the time, so you drive more eyeballs to new when there's more stuff to be reviewed. I know it took a long time for me to start looking at new, a little nudge would have made me start much earlier.
  - monoideism 5y ago
    This is a great idea, dang. I know I could use a nudge, as well.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
Wow. To me that shows how much luck there is in hitting the front page of HN, even if what you're posting is interesting.

dang 5y ago

We tried randomly mixing in new stories onto the front page - it was a disaster. The median new submission is pretty crappy, and readers reacted with "how the #@!? did this make the front page", as if we had placed a turd in their breakfast cereal. "We were just trying to test if you would like it" turns out not to be a very popular answer. I've written about this several times in the past, but the only one I can find right now is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868928. IIRC, the second-chance pool was our next experiment after that one. It has worked much better. The difference is human judgment or, if you will, taste. It's not easy to come up with new mechanisms that might help with this problem. Every software mechanism we've tried allows many things through that don't pass muster. Community mechanisms, as soon as you open them up, get overwhelmed by people trying to game them to promote their own stuff. There's a feedback loop with that: the more interesting HN is, the more attractive it is to a high-quality audience, and therefore the more attractive a target it becomes for manipulation, which makes the site less interesting again. So there's a cap on how good it can ever get (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22can%20ever%20get%22&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).

pineconewarrior 5y ago
You are doing god's work, my dude. Great insight about community dynamics, too
shkkmo 5y ago
> We tried randomly mixing in new stories onto the front page When you mixed new stories onto the front page, were they clearly marked as new or could they easily be mistaken for upvoted content? Maybe this could be a karma gated opt-in feature that individual users can enable?
- dang 5y ago
  I think they were marked as new, but I don't quite remember.
wheybags 5y ago
One thing that could be nice is giving established users an occasional nudge to have a look at /new (and a quick explanation of why it's important people do go there). Like, maybe if they haven't been to /new in a week, show a little banner suggesting they give it a go. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could even try to throttle the nudges according to the amount of posts being submitted at the time, so you drive more eyeballs to new when there's more stuff to be reviewed. I know it took a long time for me to start looking at new, a little nudge would have made me start much earlier.
- monoideism 5y ago
  This is a great idea, dang. I know I could use a nudge, as well.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

Wow. To me that shows how much luck there is in hitting the front page of HN, even if what you're posting is interesting.