4 ms·

HN has a "second chance queue" for posts that the powers-that-be believe could've/should've gotten more attention but didn't. Happened to one of my posts once,

HN has a "second chance queue" for posts that the powers-that-be believe could've/should've gotten more attention but didn't. Happened to one of my posts once, which was confusing as all hell at first but made sense once I learned about it.

datavirtue 2y ago
Feature in search of a problem
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Not really. Interesting posts can get buried easily just because they were posted at a bad time and people don't delve that far into the second or further pages. It's been going for almost 9 years now. I think it's a good idea.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Ok but why do they falsify all the comment timestamps?
    - a_t48 1y ago
      Probably a limitation of the hotness/sorting algo.
    - rtkwe 1y ago
      To complete the illusion of freshness I guess. I don't see a big issue with doing that as part of the feature.
      - kjkjadksj 1y ago
        The big issue is you reply to a comment from an hour ago but never get a reply, because that comment was actually made two weeks ago and the original commenter is not reviewing those old posts for new replies. This leads to a silencing of discussion in the worst way where one party has no idea they aren’t getting heard and the other party has no idea they are being spoken to.
        layer8 1y ago
        Without changing the timestamp, you couldn’t reply at all, and the upvotes/recency ranking wouldn’t work appropriately for old comments vs. new ones.
        rtkwe 1y ago
        I was wondering about that not knowing exactly how age affected the ranking of comments. Does seem like it'd be way easier to just fake the whole thing. I wonder if they show up as newer in the individual users' comment views too?
      - elpocko 1y ago
        Deliberately putting bogus timestamps on user actions seems fraudulent. I do not want this website to say I did something minutes/hours ago even though I wasn't even here in a week's time. I think this should be illegal, and it probably is in parts of the world according to some GDPR statute. You can't display made-up facts about a user. It's insane in any case and it triggers unpleasant psychological effects when it happens. Everyone here is obsessed with putting the correct year in post titles for some reason, but falsifying the timestamps of entire comment threads is okay and defensible?
- Centigonal 2y ago
  The fact that previously undiscovered posts sometimes get upvoted and make it to the front page after getting their "second chance" demonstrates the feature's utility.
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago
    You see that all the time with social media and reposts though. Sometimes the reposts hit sometimes not. In either case falsifying the record and making it seem like there is active discussion when most of the original comments have moved on already is a bit of a stupid feature. Second chance queue is basically dang getting unilateral authority to be an empowered reposter and probably looking at internal data when the site is most active to drop the stale post back in.
KORraN 2y ago
But this should not change the time when the thing (comment, link) has been posted, should it?
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Yea that’s what I found surprising: the re-timestamping of the article and the comments.
  - neom 2y ago
    The system is described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061616
- yellowapple 2y ago
  I agree that it shouldn't, but for whatever reason (possibly a limitation of HN's underlying software, or for algorithmic/engagement reasons) it does.
- layer8 1y ago
  It does so that the ranking algorithm still works appropriately, and so that you can still reply, which otherwise you can’t for a day-old comment.

datavirtue 2y ago

Feature in search of a problem

rtkwe 2y ago
Not really. Interesting posts can get buried easily just because they were posted at a bad time and people don't delve that far into the second or further pages. It's been going for almost 9 years now. I think it's a good idea.
- immibis 2y ago
  Ok but why do they falsify all the comment timestamps?
  - a_t48 1y ago
    Probably a limitation of the hotness/sorting algo.
  - rtkwe 1y ago
    To complete the illusion of freshness I guess. I don't see a big issue with doing that as part of the feature.
    - kjkjadksj 1y ago
      The big issue is you reply to a comment from an hour ago but never get a reply, because that comment was actually made two weeks ago and the original commenter is not reviewing those old posts for new replies. This leads to a silencing of discussion in the worst way where one party has no idea they aren’t getting heard and the other party has no idea they are being spoken to.
      - layer8 1y ago
        Without changing the timestamp, you couldn’t reply at all, and the upvotes/recency ranking wouldn’t work appropriately for old comments vs. new ones.
        rtkwe 1y ago
        I was wondering about that not knowing exactly how age affected the ranking of comments. Does seem like it'd be way easier to just fake the whole thing. I wonder if they show up as newer in the individual users' comment views too?
    - elpocko 1y ago
      Deliberately putting bogus timestamps on user actions seems fraudulent. I do not want this website to say I did something minutes/hours ago even though I wasn't even here in a week's time. I think this should be illegal, and it probably is in parts of the world according to some GDPR statute. You can't display made-up facts about a user. It's insane in any case and it triggers unpleasant psychological effects when it happens. Everyone here is obsessed with putting the correct year in post titles for some reason, but falsifying the timestamps of entire comment threads is okay and defensible?
Centigonal 2y ago
The fact that previously undiscovered posts sometimes get upvoted and make it to the front page after getting their "second chance" demonstrates the feature's utility.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  You see that all the time with social media and reposts though. Sometimes the reposts hit sometimes not. In either case falsifying the record and making it seem like there is active discussion when most of the original comments have moved on already is a bit of a stupid feature. Second chance queue is basically dang getting unilateral authority to be an empowered reposter and probably looking at internal data when the site is most active to drop the stale post back in.

KORraN 2y ago

But this should not change the time when the thing (comment, link) has been posted, should it?

ryandrake 2y ago
Yea that’s what I found surprising: the re-timestamping of the article and the comments.
- neom 2y ago
  The system is described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061616
yellowapple 2y ago
I agree that it shouldn't, but for whatever reason (possibly a limitation of HN's underlying software, or for algorithmic/engagement reasons) it does.
layer8 1y ago
It does so that the ranking algorithm still works appropriately, and so that you can still reply, which otherwise you can’t for a day-old comment.