I would like to see a scoring algorithm that dampens (if not totally eliminates) time-of-day effects. Essentially, clock time shouldn't be a factor at all: just

I would like to see a scoring algorithm that dampens (if not totally eliminates) time-of-day effects. Essentially, clock time shouldn't be a factor at all: just some other synthetic 'tick'. That tick is probably 'sitewide votes' (but might be 'legitimate votes' or 'net upvotes' or 'homepage views'). Secondarily, I would like to see a decay function that gives an older story with a current surge as much credit as a new story with similar recent surging. (For example, imagine story A submitted at hour 0 which receive no votes for 6 hours. At hour 6, story B is submitted. Between hour 6 and hour 7, story A gets 12 upvotes, and story B only 8. Over the current-comparable period, A is hotter... but I'm pretty sure the HN algorithm and most similar sites penalize A for the earlier-submission time. And yet due to things like headline corrections, the eventual arrival of a story's natural audience, etc. the A story may in fact now be 'better', in those attention-deserving qualities that the ranking/decay function is trying to detect.)