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Aside: each and every post about Wordpress on HN over the past couple of days has been downweighted basically to oblivion (I expect this one to vanish from anyw
by gwerbret 2y ago
Aside: each and every post about Wordpress on HN over the past couple of days has been downweighted basically to oblivion (I expect this one to vanish from anywhere near the front page very soon). Is there a reason for this? The topic is rapidly evolving and is relevant to the HN community.
- awb 2y agoCheck out “how are stories ranked” in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Overheated discussions get demoted. I think the idea is that the comments should support discussion of the content, but not usurp it.
- suzzer99 2y ago> How are stories ranked? > The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way. > Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action. It could also be moderator action. My most viral submission suddenly dropped from the top story to page 8, despite having far more points than anything else on that page, and only being a few hours old. I suspect this happened because it was a negative post about Amazon. The comments were not overheated. Most posters agreed with my sentiment.
- akrotkov 2y agoI believe the comment-to-upvote ratio is triggering an automated down-weighing on most of them.
- hyperbrainer 2y agoDo note that there is barely any comments on any. So, maybe that is a factor.
- ars 2y agoThere's no such thing as downvoting a post on HN, only a comment. There's flagging a post, but that would show up next to the post - do you have any examples?
- Zak 2y agoModerators can reduce the position of a post on the front page.
- gwerbret 2y agoModerators can downweight posts to drop their rankings. Here are 3 examples: https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=41791369 https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=41791369 https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=41815614 https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=41815614 https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=41821336 https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=41821336 Note the orange line indicating rank, which in every case shows a very sudden and precipitous drop in the rank of each post.
- Fej 2y agoThose threads appear to be stoking the drama more than anything. HN's stated goal is to satisfy intellectual curiosity, and even if the post topic itself is of interest, if the discussion isn't substantive then the system is probably working as intended (regardless of whether it's the flamewar detector or a manual downweight).
- suzzer99 2y agoI guess these only go back so far? I was hoping to see the graph on my post, which dropped like a stone after a few hours. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40992654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40992654)
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoMultiple submissions seen by many and lots of discussion. Stuff moves fast. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821400 And that's just on this development. Each stage of this crazy story has had plenty of views and discussion here.
- yellow_lead 2y agoWhen the comment to upvote ratio is too high, posts are down weighted to prevent flamewars, apparently.