4 ms·

Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33497012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33497012

by hokumguru 4y ago

scarmig 4y ago
I'm pretty surprised that one fell off the front page so fast.
- metadat 4y ago
  People flag things they don't like, and it increases the decay rate.
  - unityByFreedom 4y ago
    That seems too easy to game.. how many flags does it take?
    - metadat 4y ago
      Shrug, it helps reduce "unwanted" content in the community. I'm sure it depends on a few different factors (upvote, comments, possibly keywords). Mods can also pin or de-list stories as they see fit. It also depends who does the flagging, more karma == more power. If one abuses the function I imagine mods can / will [silently] neuter the account to have less (or no) effect. There was also an interesting story recently about hacking HN ranking. The author created a bunch of accounts and got stories delisted from the frontpage by having too many noob accounts give a story an upvote over a short time period, apparently this triggered an anti-spam mechanism. At some point it seems like a waste of time with poor ROI. You can make a story go away, so what? It's not like it'd work indefinitely, if it became widely abused the mods will catch on and modify the system. I think the goal of HN is to have fun and interesting conversations, and connect with people. Excessive manipulation would be harmful with no real upside. Here's the link: https://reverseengineeringtogether.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/how-i-managed-to-take-down-arbitrary-posts-on-hacker-news/ https://reverseengineeringtogether.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33255477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33255477 Hehe, it got death by flagging. That's pretty funny.
      - pvg 4y ago
        It also depends who does the flagging, more karma == more power. Pretty sure this is not true. The easiest way to 'manipulate' what's on the front page is to just send the mods an email about posts that could use a bit of a downward shove. Pre-announcements, dupes, etc regularly get tossed out. The front page would be all dupes and rage if that didn't happen.
        metadat 4y ago
        100%, I email Dang quite frequently when I see fucked up shit. Not sure whether he likes me or not, because I've also been the source of problems sometimes. Nevertheless, he's consistently polite and helpful :) As for the flagging, it's what I've seen claimed but don't know for sure. Thank you for the reality check, @pvg!
        pvg 4y ago
        They should add 'there is no secret cabal of high karma users' to the FAQ. That'll clear that misconception up right away!
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- pvg 4y ago
  It's a prenouncement sort of thing and the convention is to discuss such things when they actually happen mostly because otherwise you end up having the same discussion N times. 'preparing to notify' is classic announcement-of-announcement and those get downweighted routinely.
- shagie 4y ago
  HN tries to downweight posts that get too much engagement too fast. This is described in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089 After the rate of posting cools down a bit (from not being on the front page), it can bubble back up.
  - jcollins1991 4y ago
    thank you sooooo much for sharing this, because I've been on here for what seems like forever and never had this explained... resolves one of my bigger gripes about behaviour of the ranking algorithm, I only wish details / stories like this were more widely shared
    - shagie 4y ago
      There are a lot of features that are out there that are lightly documented / only hinted at in the "this is how it works". https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m... You might also like to add the second chance pool to your pages to browse rather than just the front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool

Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33497012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33497012

scarmig 4y ago

I'm pretty surprised that one fell off the front page so fast.

metadat 4y ago
People flag things they don't like, and it increases the decay rate.
- unityByFreedom 4y ago
  That seems too easy to game.. how many flags does it take?
  - metadat 4y ago
    Shrug, it helps reduce "unwanted" content in the community. I'm sure it depends on a few different factors (upvote, comments, possibly keywords). Mods can also pin or de-list stories as they see fit. It also depends who does the flagging, more karma == more power. If one abuses the function I imagine mods can / will [silently] neuter the account to have less (or no) effect. There was also an interesting story recently about hacking HN ranking. The author created a bunch of accounts and got stories delisted from the frontpage by having too many noob accounts give a story an upvote over a short time period, apparently this triggered an anti-spam mechanism. At some point it seems like a waste of time with poor ROI. You can make a story go away, so what? It's not like it'd work indefinitely, if it became widely abused the mods will catch on and modify the system. I think the goal of HN is to have fun and interesting conversations, and connect with people. Excessive manipulation would be harmful with no real upside. Here's the link: https://reverseengineeringtogether.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/how-i-managed-to-take-down-arbitrary-posts-on-hacker-news/ https://reverseengineeringtogether.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33255477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33255477 Hehe, it got death by flagging. That's pretty funny.
    - pvg 4y ago
      It also depends who does the flagging, more karma == more power. Pretty sure this is not true. The easiest way to 'manipulate' what's on the front page is to just send the mods an email about posts that could use a bit of a downward shove. Pre-announcements, dupes, etc regularly get tossed out. The front page would be all dupes and rage if that didn't happen.
      - metadat 4y ago
        100%, I email Dang quite frequently when I see fucked up shit. Not sure whether he likes me or not, because I've also been the source of problems sometimes. Nevertheless, he's consistently polite and helpful :) As for the flagging, it's what I've seen claimed but don't know for sure. Thank you for the reality check, @pvg!
        pvg 4y ago
        They should add 'there is no secret cabal of high karma users' to the FAQ. That'll clear that misconception up right away!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
pvg 4y ago
It's a prenouncement sort of thing and the convention is to discuss such things when they actually happen mostly because otherwise you end up having the same discussion N times. 'preparing to notify' is classic announcement-of-announcement and those get downweighted routinely.
shagie 4y ago
HN tries to downweight posts that get too much engagement too fast. This is described in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089 After the rate of posting cools down a bit (from not being on the front page), it can bubble back up.
- jcollins1991 4y ago
  thank you sooooo much for sharing this, because I've been on here for what seems like forever and never had this explained... resolves one of my bigger gripes about behaviour of the ranking algorithm, I only wish details / stories like this were more widely shared
  - shagie 4y ago
    There are a lot of features that are out there that are lightly documented / only hinted at in the "this is how it works". https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m... You might also like to add the second chance pool to your pages to browse rather than just the front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool