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Ask HN: How does a 0-comment, 3-upvote github.com url reach the front page?
There has been a lot of discussion about how HN's ranking algorithm affects position [1]. Supposedly there's an automatic penalty for some domains, including github.com.
I've posted some of my projects here hosted on github and have gotten something like 6 comments and 10 upvotes while still on the "New" page. None of them ever made it to the front page. Yet other github.com projects make it to the front page with 0 comments and only 3 upvotes [2] (could have been less before I saw it).
I don't want to come off bitter (I'm not), but there's a bad smell of favoritism and manual moderator selection here for lack of a better explanation :(
Any insight would be helpful, as I enjoy participating in the community here and want to continue doing so.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6799854
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811490
- trumbitta2 13y agoThat's something I found myself wandering about sometimes...
- goldenkey 13y agoMe too. On the other hand, I like the variety and fast-pace of HN as compared to reddit. There is a lot more chance to see a wide variety of non-favorited stuff here. Spice is the nice of life :-)
- danso 13y agoAFAIK, 3 votes is the minimum before something is pushed into the front page queue, though if there are enough hot stories, a 3 vote story may only show up on the second page. Usually 3 votes under 20 min is enough velocity to get to the front page. Number of comments does not seem to help a ranking...some of he best submissions don't have comments for an hour or so
- redtexture 13y agoHow about a pre-holiday Thanksgiving day of travel in the U.S. with subdued posting to Hacker News, hence a speculatively anomalously quiet posting and front- and second-page activity for the day?
- JacobAldridge 13y ago3 votes (which is actually only 2 upvotes) in quick succession after posting will give a story good momentum of votes over time (gravity). That will get it to the front page. As I now understand it, HN will recalculate that story when the next upvote is received (though there is a random selection recalculation to mitigate this as well). So a story may temporarily benefit from 2 quick upvotes (moving it to the front page) followed by no additional upvotes for some time (preventing recalculation). But if the love stops, eventually it will drop like a stone.
- pg 13y ago"I've posted some of my projects here hosted on github and have gotten something like 6 comments and 10 upvotes while still on the "New" page." You have posted 3 stories with github urls, and they got 1, 1, and 2, points respectively. https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=leeoniya https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=leeoniya
- leeoniya 13y agoyeah, sorry. the others were Show HNs, which cant contain both a link and some text. which should make a stronger point for not being penalized and having 10 points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512834 but there are others that are not github submissions which reached more points and comments than i have seen for many front page posts. if this is, in fact, a velocity algo doing its thing, i would say it needs tuning. i also dont think the fact that low voted submissions get massively upvoted after hitting the front page is meaningful validation of the current algo's effectiveness. personally, i've seen a lot of genuinely interesting articles fall through the cracks of the "New" sieve despite people's obvious interest.