4 ms·
Posts with >5 upvotes tend to go to the front page for at least a few minutes. More than that many people tried to repost it.
by Houshalter 11y ago
Posts with >5 upvotes tend to go to the front page for at least a few minutes. More than that many people tried to repost it.
- dang 11y agoWhat was the post? I'd be curious to look into it, if you don't mind saying. (Edit: might be best to email hn@ycombinator.com.)
- Houshalter 11y agoIt was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9856637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9856637
- dang 11y agoOk, there was another factor. When a site is the source of many stories marked lightweight, it eventually gets penalized as a lightweight site. We have software that does this, plus moderators do it. This was the case here: that site has been the source of, not spam exactly (which is why it isn't banned), but a lot of unsubstantive and/or derivative articles. The post you submitted is an example of the latter, since it was derived from a Reddit thread. The penalties I'm talking about don't make it impossible for a story to get traction, but they do set the bar higher. So you were right that it was randomness, but the randomness was also skewed.