4 ms·

How the Lobsters front page works

81 points by g0xA52A2A 9mo ago

written-beyond 9mo ago
How does the HN front page work?
- esseph 9mo ago
  There are existing posts about this.
- pelagicAustral 9mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking-algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking...
elphard 9mo ago
How difficult is it to get invited to join Lobsters?
- pelagicAustral 9mo ago
  Fork the repo, deal with an open issue and humbly ask if you could get an invite... seems like that could be the ticket.
  - elphard 9mo ago
    Thanks! That's an interesting approach for filtering new joiners.
- gerikson 9mo ago
  Disregard sibling comment From the about page > The quickest way to receive an invitation is to talk to someone you recognize from the site. If you wrote a link that was posted, please reach out in chat, we'd love to have you join the community. Finally, if you can't find anyone you know in the invitation tree and didn't author something posted to the site, consider getting to know the community in the chat room. Chat: https://lobste.rs/chat https://lobste.rs/chat I used to be active in chat and invited many users but I'm not that active now.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- zipy124 9mo ago
  Not very difficult if you have an online presence somewhere you can use as proof that you will act in good-faith. Having a hacker news account for instance can make joining as easy as sending someone an e-mail (as I did) and asking. It is a website much more built upon trust, and so if you invite someone and they get banned for something, you are directly connected to that. For more see: https://lobste.rs/about#invitations https://lobste.rs/about#invitations and the user invite tree https://lobste.rs/users https://lobste.rs/users
andy99 9mo ago
I recently learned Bear blog (a small blogging platform, posts on which often appear on HN) has a “discover” section with a front page style ranking. Their algorithm is on the page This page is ranked according to the following algorithm: Score = log10(U) + (S / (B * 86,400)) Where, U = Upvotes of a post S = Seconds since Jan 1st, 2020 B = Buoyancy modifier (currently at 14) See https://bearblog.dev/discover/ https://bearblog.dev/discover/
Aurornis 9mo ago
This is a good exploration of the algorithm. In my experience, Lobsters has much more active moderator involvement in a more opinionated way than HN. Much of what’s referred to as moderation here is user-driven via flagging and votes, whereas on Lobsters the moderators are injecting more of an opinionated style into the site. For example, requiring the “vibecoding” tag on all stories about AI even though very few of them are about vibecoding. In theory the Lobsters moderation log is also public, but in practice when someone gets banned if you try to find the post that triggered the banned it will have been edited away by the mods and replaced with their opinion of what was said in a follow up comment. I stopped visiting as much after watching someone get banned for a rather benign comment which the mods edited away and then claimed it said something egregious about a culture war topic, which it did not. The site also puts up a banner at the top of your page if you receive enough negative votes. The banner invites you to delete your account as the last sentence (or it did in the past). In practice, if you comment something that isn’t the popular and accepted opinion on the site, no matter how diplomatically, you could end up with the banner stuck on your page views for a while. There have been some high profile and valuable contributors to the site who abandoned it after getting stuck with this banner for posting informative content that nevertheless triggered some downvotes. It’s an interesting site, but in my experience the algorithms are only a small part of it. The experience there is more heavily aligned toward groupthink and the “right” opinions than even HN and differing opinions are much less welcomed.
- bicx 9mo ago
  Thanks for resolving my internal dialog about returning to Lobsters. I’ll just stick around here as always.
  - Aurornis 9mo ago
    > Thanks for resolving my internal dialog about returning to Lobsters. I still load it from time to time, but the value of going there seems to diminish year over year. Every story that gets traction on Lobsters is already posted to HN now. Many of the commenters I valued on Lobsters have given up on the site and left. I catch myself starting to comment there and then deleting it because I’m worried about going too much against the acceptable narrative for each topic on the site, no matter how gently worded and hedged I make the comment.
sadeshmukh 9mo ago
Dumb question. Why the negative modifier on hotness, when higher hotness could correspond to higher rank?
- gerikson 9mo ago
  Apparently, to simplify sorting.
jms703 9mo ago
Yes but how do I get an account lol
- gerikson 9mo ago
  https://lobste.rs/about#invitations https://lobste.rs/about#invitations

81 points by g0xA52A2A 9mo ago

written-beyond 9mo ago

How does the HN front page work?

esseph 9mo ago
There are existing posts about this.
pelagicAustral 9mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking-algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking...

elphard 9mo ago

How difficult is it to get invited to join Lobsters?

pelagicAustral 9mo ago
Fork the repo, deal with an open issue and humbly ask if you could get an invite... seems like that could be the ticket.
- elphard 9mo ago
  Thanks! That's an interesting approach for filtering new joiners.
gerikson 9mo ago
Disregard sibling comment From the about page > The quickest way to receive an invitation is to talk to someone you recognize from the site. If you wrote a link that was posted, please reach out in chat, we'd love to have you join the community. Finally, if you can't find anyone you know in the invitation tree and didn't author something posted to the site, consider getting to know the community in the chat room. Chat: https://lobste.rs/chat https://lobste.rs/chat I used to be active in chat and invited many users but I'm not that active now.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
zipy124 9mo ago
Not very difficult if you have an online presence somewhere you can use as proof that you will act in good-faith. Having a hacker news account for instance can make joining as easy as sending someone an e-mail (as I did) and asking. It is a website much more built upon trust, and so if you invite someone and they get banned for something, you are directly connected to that. For more see: https://lobste.rs/about#invitations https://lobste.rs/about#invitations and the user invite tree https://lobste.rs/users https://lobste.rs/users

andy99 9mo ago

I recently learned Bear blog (a small blogging platform, posts on which often appear on HN) has a “discover” section with a front page style ranking. Their algorithm is on the page This page is ranked according to the following algorithm: Score = log10(U) + (S / (B * 86,400)) Where, U = Upvotes of a post S = Seconds since Jan 1st, 2020 B = Buoyancy modifier (currently at 14) See https://bearblog.dev/discover/ https://bearblog.dev/discover/

Aurornis 9mo ago

This is a good exploration of the algorithm. In my experience, Lobsters has much more active moderator involvement in a more opinionated way than HN. Much of what’s referred to as moderation here is user-driven via flagging and votes, whereas on Lobsters the moderators are injecting more of an opinionated style into the site. For example, requiring the “vibecoding” tag on all stories about AI even though very few of them are about vibecoding. In theory the Lobsters moderation log is also public, but in practice when someone gets banned if you try to find the post that triggered the banned it will have been edited away by the mods and replaced with their opinion of what was said in a follow up comment. I stopped visiting as much after watching someone get banned for a rather benign comment which the mods edited away and then claimed it said something egregious about a culture war topic, which it did not. The site also puts up a banner at the top of your page if you receive enough negative votes. The banner invites you to delete your account as the last sentence (or it did in the past). In practice, if you comment something that isn’t the popular and accepted opinion on the site, no matter how diplomatically, you could end up with the banner stuck on your page views for a while. There have been some high profile and valuable contributors to the site who abandoned it after getting stuck with this banner for posting informative content that nevertheless triggered some downvotes. It’s an interesting site, but in my experience the algorithms are only a small part of it. The experience there is more heavily aligned toward groupthink and the “right” opinions than even HN and differing opinions are much less welcomed.

bicx 9mo ago
Thanks for resolving my internal dialog about returning to Lobsters. I’ll just stick around here as always.
- Aurornis 9mo ago
  > Thanks for resolving my internal dialog about returning to Lobsters. I still load it from time to time, but the value of going there seems to diminish year over year. Every story that gets traction on Lobsters is already posted to HN now. Many of the commenters I valued on Lobsters have given up on the site and left. I catch myself starting to comment there and then deleting it because I’m worried about going too much against the acceptable narrative for each topic on the site, no matter how gently worded and hedged I make the comment.

sadeshmukh 9mo ago

Dumb question. Why the negative modifier on hotness, when higher hotness could correspond to higher rank?

gerikson 9mo ago
Apparently, to simplify sorting.

jms703 9mo ago

Yes but how do I get an account lol

gerikson 9mo ago
https://lobste.rs/about#invitations https://lobste.rs/about#invitations