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Daniel Gackle ('gruseom) is an absurdly great choice as moderator. Hear. Hear. His submission list https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gruseom https://

Daniel Gackle ('gruseom) is an absurdly great choice as moderator. Hear. Hear. His submission list https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gruseom https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gruseom is a fine example of articles that "gratify intellectual curiosity." This leadership adjustment bodes well for the future of HN as a community for thoughtful discussion.

mbrutsch 13y ago
Wow, those are great posts. Pity I never saw most of them on the front page...
k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "His submission list https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gruseom https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gruseom is a fine example of articles that "gratify intellectual curiosity."" While I agree with you it's interesting that only one submission in the last 84 days has had significant up votes. What does that say about the people on HN or the kind of stories they are looking to find here?
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  It seems like the problem might be that there's such a short amount of time to discover good content that gets submitted. During peak times, a submission can be pushed off the first page of /newest within ~20 minutes. If that's a problem, then one solution might be to change the number of items displayed on the new page from 30 to 120. I wouldn't be surprised if the first page of /newest gets 5x to 10x more views than the second page. People like scrolling; people click much less frequently. So upping the number of posts shown on the new page to 120 should give better content more time to be discovered. Another idea is to tweak the new page so that the first page of /newest shows every new submission for exactly two hours. That is, page 1 would consist of submissions that are 1 minute to 2 hours old. Also, maybe some kind of reminder to check the new page every so often would help, but that's probably a bit heavy-handed.
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    You're just explaining variance. But since no more than a handful of his 100+ posts made it to the front page, it seems pretty clear that they are not what HN selects for.
    - sillysaurus3 13y ago
      Not necessarily. Variance is a powerful force. 100+ samples may sound like a lot, but it's often insufficient. My favorite book on this topic is http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/index.html http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/index.html, in particular the sections on statistical power.
  - rdl 13y ago
    One of the things I sort of hate is when ~10 articles on the same topic get posted at the same time -- honestly, WaPo and NYT and CNN might not be blogspam about a press release or major news event, but there's often little need to read all of them (or rather, enough overlap that the best article would be a synthesis). HN stories being anchored by a single URL kind of makes it impossible to put all the topical articles in one big story.
  - gwern 13y ago
    > I wouldn't be surprised if the first page of /newest gets 5x to 10x more views than the second page. My guess is way way less (not that /newest gets any traffic as it is). I regularly visit /newest to contribute a bit of voting, and I don't think I've ever bothered with the second page.
    - waterlesscloud 13y ago
      There's no point in visiting the second page. Even if you upvote something there, it's the only upvote it will get.
- revelation 13y ago
  I think it speaks mostly about the state of the "new" section. Submitting a worthwhile article is a very fickle undertaking, skewed by timezones and the fact that few people visit the section, or remember to upvote after reading a long article. I could imagine a variant of the endorsement system for submissions, where you can endorse users and have their submitted stories automatically get your vote. But that seems rather open to gaming.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    I thought someone collected data and found that timezones don't matter too much (times where fewer people are reading also have fewer other submissions to compete with.) It doesn't seem like many people visit the news feed at all. Personally I imagine the most important features are picking a popular article that multiple people will try to submit (each new submission upvotes the original article instead) and maybe people who have friends with HN accounts. The title probably also makes a large difference. Some people have suggested improvements to HN's sorting algorithm which would favor more "exploration" than relying on people to go through the new section.[1] [1] http://www.bayesianwitch.com/blog/2013/why_hn_shouldnt_use_randomized_algorithms.html http://www.bayesianwitch.com/blog/2013/why_hn_shouldnt_use_r...
    - nkurz 13y ago
      It doesn't seem like many people visit the news feed at all. Yes, and thus the rare souls that venture there have a ridiculously disproportionate impact on what gets the front page. Almost makes you wonder if it would make sense to keep access to the 'new' page as a special privilege for experienced and trusted users. Or at least hide it behind some tiny text link so those newbies don't ruin the party!
      - tunap 13y ago
        I upvoted a story on the new feed about the Inmarsat's approach to estimating the missing Malaysian plane's location that I found highly informative. Hours later that day when I noted the usual Telegraph mc-article rising up, not a single upvote on the better article(IMO) had been recorded. Perhaps it was a time delay as there is 1 upvote now. Shame, it seemed like the perfect article to elicit meaningful discussion on HN. Maybe Part 2 or Part 3 will someday...if they're proven correct, which is up for debate still. HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7430634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7430634 DirectLink http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/2014/03/mh370-satcoms-101/ http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/2014/03/mh370-satcoms-10...
- dang 13y ago
  There's a great deal of randomness with this stuff, so one has to be careful about drawing conclusions. If you guys look back further you'll see I've had more than my share of hitting the front page with things that are interesting and off the beaten track. That said, we do have some ideas for counteracting that randomness, and it would be sweet if they work. I'd also be pleased to hear any suggestions on this. HN's (semi-)openness to interesting historical and literary material is one of my favorite things about it, and as long as I'm doing this job that won't change. My favorite, by the way, of all the things I posted recently that didn't get any attention, is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259.
  - 11001 13y ago
    >My favorite, by the way, of all the things I posted recently that didn't get any attention, is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259. Off topic. So, what's the opinion on RD Laing currently in the scientific community? I remember reading "A divided self" and wondering the whole time, is the whole world mad? Or is the author mad? Or is it both?
vojnovski 13y ago
+1 on this. Impressed by the submission list.

mbrutsch 13y ago

Wow, those are great posts. Pity I never saw most of them on the front page...

k-mcgrady 13y ago

>> "His submission list https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gruseom https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gruseom is a fine example of articles that "gratify intellectual curiosity."" While I agree with you it's interesting that only one submission in the last 84 days has had significant up votes. What does that say about the people on HN or the kind of stories they are looking to find here?

sillysaurus3 13y ago
It seems like the problem might be that there's such a short amount of time to discover good content that gets submitted. During peak times, a submission can be pushed off the first page of /newest within ~20 minutes. If that's a problem, then one solution might be to change the number of items displayed on the new page from 30 to 120. I wouldn't be surprised if the first page of /newest gets 5x to 10x more views than the second page. People like scrolling; people click much less frequently. So upping the number of posts shown on the new page to 120 should give better content more time to be discovered. Another idea is to tweak the new page so that the first page of /newest shows every new submission for exactly two hours. That is, page 1 would consist of submissions that are 1 minute to 2 hours old. Also, maybe some kind of reminder to check the new page every so often would help, but that's probably a bit heavy-handed.
- jessriedel 13y ago
  You're just explaining variance. But since no more than a handful of his 100+ posts made it to the front page, it seems pretty clear that they are not what HN selects for.
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    Not necessarily. Variance is a powerful force. 100+ samples may sound like a lot, but it's often insufficient. My favorite book on this topic is http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/index.html http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/index.html, in particular the sections on statistical power.
- rdl 13y ago
  One of the things I sort of hate is when ~10 articles on the same topic get posted at the same time -- honestly, WaPo and NYT and CNN might not be blogspam about a press release or major news event, but there's often little need to read all of them (or rather, enough overlap that the best article would be a synthesis). HN stories being anchored by a single URL kind of makes it impossible to put all the topical articles in one big story.
- gwern 13y ago
  > I wouldn't be surprised if the first page of /newest gets 5x to 10x more views than the second page. My guess is way way less (not that /newest gets any traffic as it is). I regularly visit /newest to contribute a bit of voting, and I don't think I've ever bothered with the second page.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    There's no point in visiting the second page. Even if you upvote something there, it's the only upvote it will get.
revelation 13y ago
I think it speaks mostly about the state of the "new" section. Submitting a worthwhile article is a very fickle undertaking, skewed by timezones and the fact that few people visit the section, or remember to upvote after reading a long article. I could imagine a variant of the endorsement system for submissions, where you can endorse users and have their submitted stories automatically get your vote. But that seems rather open to gaming.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  I thought someone collected data and found that timezones don't matter too much (times where fewer people are reading also have fewer other submissions to compete with.) It doesn't seem like many people visit the news feed at all. Personally I imagine the most important features are picking a popular article that multiple people will try to submit (each new submission upvotes the original article instead) and maybe people who have friends with HN accounts. The title probably also makes a large difference. Some people have suggested improvements to HN's sorting algorithm which would favor more "exploration" than relying on people to go through the new section.[1] [1] http://www.bayesianwitch.com/blog/2013/why_hn_shouldnt_use_randomized_algorithms.html http://www.bayesianwitch.com/blog/2013/why_hn_shouldnt_use_r...
  - nkurz 13y ago
    It doesn't seem like many people visit the news feed at all. Yes, and thus the rare souls that venture there have a ridiculously disproportionate impact on what gets the front page. Almost makes you wonder if it would make sense to keep access to the 'new' page as a special privilege for experienced and trusted users. Or at least hide it behind some tiny text link so those newbies don't ruin the party!
    - tunap 13y ago
      I upvoted a story on the new feed about the Inmarsat's approach to estimating the missing Malaysian plane's location that I found highly informative. Hours later that day when I noted the usual Telegraph mc-article rising up, not a single upvote on the better article(IMO) had been recorded. Perhaps it was a time delay as there is 1 upvote now. Shame, it seemed like the perfect article to elicit meaningful discussion on HN. Maybe Part 2 or Part 3 will someday...if they're proven correct, which is up for debate still. HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7430634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7430634 DirectLink http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/2014/03/mh370-satcoms-101/ http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/2014/03/mh370-satcoms-10...
dang 13y ago
There's a great deal of randomness with this stuff, so one has to be careful about drawing conclusions. If you guys look back further you'll see I've had more than my share of hitting the front page with things that are interesting and off the beaten track. That said, we do have some ideas for counteracting that randomness, and it would be sweet if they work. I'd also be pleased to hear any suggestions on this. HN's (semi-)openness to interesting historical and literary material is one of my favorite things about it, and as long as I'm doing this job that won't change. My favorite, by the way, of all the things I posted recently that didn't get any attention, is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259.
- 11001 13y ago
  >My favorite, by the way, of all the things I posted recently that didn't get any attention, is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6713259. Off topic. So, what's the opinion on RD Laing currently in the scientific community? I remember reading "A divided self" and wondering the whole time, is the whole world mad? Or is the author mad? Or is it both?

vojnovski 13y ago

+1 on this. Impressed by the submission list.