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Ask HN: HN popular algorithm
Do you know or can figure out the algorithm HN uses to put posts on frontpage? It looks like a secret sauce between number of votes + comments + (YC company related)!important; but I am curious to know the closest real answer. Any ideas?
- dmgrow 14y agoYou can find some posts and related information here: http://www.quora.com/Hacker-News/How-do-you-get-on-the-frontpage http://www.quora.com/Hacker-News/How-do-you-get-on-the-front... There was a post back in 2010 with the formula which PG verified. It's probably changed slightly but not substantially since.
- pizza 14y agoAccording to the link in dmgrow's comment, it's Score = (P-1) / (T+2)^G where P is the number of votes, T is the time in hours since submission, and G is a power that controls the steepness/rate of decline in ranking, so popularity is decreases exponentially over time. I'm sure that YC-affiliated posts have a different ranking algorithm, considering you can't vote on them. Some other cool algorithms are: del.icio.us / delicious.com 's: ranked by upvotes in the last hour. I like the elegance of this solution a lot :) reddit's "best" feature: compares the rates at which comments are upvoted to generate the probability that a comment is a good one, which is how posts with fewer votes can be ranked better than posts with more votes. It works well, in my opinion.