3 ms·

Ask HN: Posts being unjustly removed from front page?

• jqueryin 13y ago
  Here's the accompanying Twitter conversation that led to me posting: https://twitter.com/jerols/status/408977497255337984 https://twitter.com/jerols/status/408977497255337984 Here's the initial blog post that was removed: $36,297 IN 24 HOURS: BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE APP DESIGN HANDBOOK LAUNCH http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-stats/ http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-stats/
• danso 13y ago
  Here's the highest upvoted version of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6712226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6712226 It seems to have been submitted a few times in short succession: https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%2436%2C297+IN+24+HOURS https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%2436%2C297+IN... It's possible that the original submission just wasn't noticed, so a couple of submitters tried resubmitting it, and a wary mod treated it as spam.
  • jqueryin 13y ago
    That trailing slash diff is an interesting case. I feel as though the system should've been able to pick up on that one and attribute the point to the original submitted article.
• brudgers 13y ago
  Seeing as the original story was posted over a month ago timing definitely is a factor. There's nothing unjust about it, timing [or luck if you like] plays a role. That's just the way HN works. ALL-CAPS in the recent submission may have played a role - it's the sort of thing which might trigger a spam filter. More importantly, the statement that "several posts" were taken off the front page lends itself to the possibility that some of the posts did not make the front page organically - i.e. the complaint is consistent with using standard social media promotional techniques on HN.
  • jqueryin 13y ago
    Let me start by saying that the outcome I'd like to see from this discussion is an agreement that there's still room for improvement regarding moderation and the underlying HN algorithm. Specifically, the case of two URLs being submitted with and without a forward slash shouldn't be allowed. The follow up submission should have attributed points to the initial submission and the post shouldn't have been flagged. 1) The story was removed shortly after time of post. Specifically, the story was submitted to HN the day the blog post came out. It's irrelevant that I decided to discuss this issue a month later and not conducive to the discussion; I just thought it was worthy to bring up that the post was removed where others e-book sale posts have continuously risen to the top of HN rankings. 2) The original post mentioned wasn't submitted in all caps as per danso's link to hnsearch. If you visit the blog, it's likely all caps titled due to text-transform:uppercase, not because the author chose to uppercase the title. 3) Several posts never made it to the front page. There was one post with 16 upvotes at time of removal which would've been the only post on the main page. The fact that users submitted posts with and without a trailing slash is very important here; it indicates there may have been a broader issue with HN's spam prevention system.
    • brudgers 13y ago
      Let me be clear, the fact that this particular complaint emphasizes what happened to other "e-book sale posts" reinforces my suspicion that the underlying reason for the complaint is that HN squashed a social media effort to promote a particular e-book. My reason for making this clarification is that I don't think the HN ranking algorithm is in particular need of improvement, so we are unlikely to reach agreement. However, for completeness, the reason I do not think it is broken is exactly because it squashed the sort of post about which those with an interest cry "unfair" and reference other "e-book sale posts" as a point of comparison. I will add, that if I were trying to design a system intended to foil the use of HN for social media promotion, I would consider a honey-pot strategy which would allow a comparison of two streams of submissions.
• arh68 13y ago
  Unjustly? The front page is automated: it is not a human entity. It has no notion of fairness or justice. Do you understand all of the technical reasons why posts are penalized off the front page? Do you have improvements to the ranking? Or is this merely a rant? Sometimes things get unfortunately demoted. Life goes on.
  • jqueryin 13y ago
    The front page is far more than automated my dear friend. While automation indeed plays a key role, PG and a select number of YC alum handle moderation of the site. As with most sizable sites that handle comment/post moderation, I'm under the assumption the system automation flags certain posts and perhaps auto manages others. The key being that certain tasks require human intervention as machine learning only gets you so far. The automation aspect likely makes some very well educated guesses, but there's always the aspect of confidence intervals not being met and probabilistically performing incorrect actions.
• j_s 13y ago
  http://hnrankings.info/6712226/ http://hnrankings.info/6712226/
  • jqueryin 13y ago
    Have you learned anything from the site in regards to some of the noticeable drops seen by a fraction of top 20 postings? It seems like a percentage of them follow a very linear 30 minute drop onto page 2.
    • j_s 13y ago
      Mostly just wanted to confirm you know about this site tracking the articles. It is hard to tell whether the percentage you mention are nuked by an admin or the penalty kicks in after enough users flag the post... I'm far from an expert.
• chrisbennet 13y ago
  My view is that PG base given us a place to call attention to things that you think might be interesting to other folks. While it is nice to get some validation that others agree with you, I don't think that should be the aim of the poster. Instead I think one should post to HN as a charitable act and not whine if you or your post doesn't get the attention you think it deserves. IMO, it is a gift to the community not a "look at me" opportunity.