3 ms·

Ask PG: Bursts on HN (the number of users online)

26 points by csbartus 17y ago

Could we have a new feature / just a hint how the number of users online are changing a day? There are many interesting posts not hitting the frontpage posted at the wrong time of the day. For example there is a burst around 1PM(GMT+2 timezone) when there are many new submissions and heavy upvoting. For sure there are other bursts too important for the "natural selection" of posts hitting mass audience.

jrockway 17y ago
My articles seem to do best when I submit them early on Monday morning. People get to work and don't want to do anything useful, so they read my blog instead.
- tezza 17y ago
  monday morning, which timezone?
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    I'm certain that Pacific has the highest density of HN readers, by a large margin, but I would think anything that would put it on the page within a couple of hours of that would work.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    GMT, actually. 2am (US Central time) on Sunday is usually when I finish writing articles, for some reason, and they immediately get upvoted when I submit at that time. When I submit on weekday afternoons (my time), the articles get about 1 upvote (and then I delete them so I can try again later, heh).
nick007 17y ago
the algorithm for voting should look at the percentage of votes that articles are getting in a given time span to correct this. also, votes received from the "new" page should have more weight.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  > also, votes received from the "new" page should have more weight. No contest there, the homepage is feeding back on itself.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
justlearning 17y ago
"There are many interesting posts not hitting the frontpage posted at the wrong time of the day" here's what i noticed - there seems to be a surge of new users since last week or so and not a good "burst" at that. I gather from what I see - these karma conscious users picking links straight from reddit and few friends bring it to the first page. I still cannot believe I clicked on "you think you are a rockstar programmer"....when i came back - for a few seconds I was hallucinated by the thought - was this HN? ...and of course, when there are no interesting topics on the front page and all we have is links like "are you a rockstar" - what better time to go into long discussions about flag this or flag that. This usually happens during this phase of onslaught of new users (my perception). when there are a few interesting topics, we tend to ignore/overlook the link baits. ..sorry if my response is away from your question's context...i had a "bad" HN week'
vijayr 17y ago
we could also show how many users are online at any given time, like in forums.

26 points by csbartus 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago

My articles seem to do best when I submit them early on Monday morning. People get to work and don't want to do anything useful, so they read my blog instead.

tezza 17y ago
monday morning, which timezone?
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  I'm certain that Pacific has the highest density of HN readers, by a large margin, but I would think anything that would put it on the page within a couple of hours of that would work.
- jrockway 17y ago
  GMT, actually. 2am (US Central time) on Sunday is usually when I finish writing articles, for some reason, and they immediately get upvoted when I submit at that time. When I submit on weekday afternoons (my time), the articles get about 1 upvote (and then I delete them so I can try again later, heh).

nick007 17y ago

the algorithm for voting should look at the percentage of votes that articles are getting in a given time span to correct this. also, votes received from the "new" page should have more weight.

jacquesm 17y ago
> also, votes received from the "new" page should have more weight. No contest there, the homepage is feeding back on itself.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

justlearning 17y ago

"There are many interesting posts not hitting the frontpage posted at the wrong time of the day" here's what i noticed - there seems to be a surge of new users since last week or so and not a good "burst" at that. I gather from what I see - these karma conscious users picking links straight from reddit and few friends bring it to the first page. I still cannot believe I clicked on "you think you are a rockstar programmer"....when i came back - for a few seconds I was hallucinated by the thought - was this HN? ...and of course, when there are no interesting topics on the front page and all we have is links like "are you a rockstar" - what better time to go into long discussions about flag this or flag that. This usually happens during this phase of onslaught of new users (my perception). when there are a few interesting topics, we tend to ignore/overlook the link baits. ..sorry if my response is away from your question's context...i had a "bad" HN week'

vijayr 17y ago

we could also show how many users are online at any given time, like in forums.