

Ask YC:  Would it make sense to build a social news site using bounce rate instead of voting? - amichail

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate:<p>"The Bounce Rate for a single page is the number of visitors who enter the site at a page and leave within the specified timeout period without viewing another page, divided by the total number of visitors who entered the site at that page."<p>You could approximate this in a social news site by seeing what fraction of users quickly return after checking out a link.<p>Given that most users don't vote at all, perhaps something like this would be desirable?
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mixmax
What about if you open up every article you find potentially interesting in a
new tab, and stay on the page?

This is how I use YC news, and I don't think im alone.

~~~
dkokelley
I agree. I don't like how the links open over HN, so I always open the
outgoing links in new tabs.

Feature request: Could the links to outside sites open in new tabs/windows by
default, so that we don't navigate away from HN when we actually use this
site?

~~~
joshwa

      // ==UserScript==
      // @name				 news.yc open in new tab
      // @namespace		 http://joshwand.com/
      // @description	 opens links on news.yc's list pages in new tabs/windows
      // @include			 http://news.ycombinator.com/
      // @include			 http://news.ycombinator.com/news
      // @include			 http://news.ycombinator.com/newest
      // @include			 http://news.ycombinator.com/x?*
    
      // ==/UserScript==
    
      var a, links, thisdomain;
      thisdomain = window.location.host;
    
      links = document.getElementsByTagName('a');
      for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
          a = links[i];
          if (a.host && (a.host != thisdomain || String(a).match(/item\?id=/))) {
              a.target = "_blank";
          }
      }

~~~
some
I would prefer the loop this way:

    
    
      for each(a in links) 
       if (a.host && (a.host!=thisdomain || String(a).match(/item\?id=/)))
        a.target = "_blank";

~~~
joshwa
What can I say, I don't actually know JS. I just cargo-culted this from
another similar script.

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Readmore
My site klipboardz.com ups the vote on each story for any registered user that
reads it, then a user can down vote it if they didn't like it. I assume that
if you care enough to read a link then it should get an up-vote.

~~~
brk
That seems a little bit illogical. Why does clicking a link equal up-votes? If
you really want to factor in link clicks, then maybe a counter of the times
the link has been clicked displayed alongside the votes would be interesting.

But making me come back to down-vote a crappy story/link is really kind of
irritating.

~~~
Readmore
But if the headline, description, and picture were enough to get you to read
the link then it should get a bump. Most people go read the story and never
come back, even if they liked it, to up vote. I do that all the time here.

------
s3graham
I think people like clicking on the arrows to make them feel like they're
having a say, without actually having to put in (much) effort.

In all honesty, the churn is so high on most sites that the bias is heavily
skewed towards "current", not "me" so it might not feel as "smart" without the
arrows.

But hey, what do I know. Sounds interesting enough to try as a quick hack of
news.arc at the very least.

------
pchristensen
I think that that's an important piece of information that's rarely used. Like
brlewis says, not perfect, but I think you could use it well.

I think it's more suitable for a single site rather than a link
aggregator/social news, because once you follow a link on the site, how do you
know when the user leaves that page?

~~~
amichail
As an approximation, you could see what fraction of users quickly return to
the social news site after visiting the link.

------
brk
When you're viewing a story from here, how often do you click anything else on
the site? I don't click other links very often, even if I really enjoyed or
benefited from the linked article. So, in the end you'll get different
numbers, but they'd be no more complete or accurate than what you already
have.

This idea would only seem to encourage more sites to spread a simple article
across too many pages so that they could better count and track the visitors.
But then as a referrer, you still couldn't do much to get access to those
numbers.

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nreece
A good way to handle article voting is to have the voting panel (with the up &
down arrows) as a window frame on top of the article webpage.

That way article voting is fairer (i.e. only users who click the article link
from the news site to read the article get to see the voting panel). Secondly
this approach also makes it easier for voters to rate the article instantly
without having to go back & forth to the news site.

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DarrenStuart
I think a better way would be to develop a site that used a file to track
views.

IE Each story has a unique image and that is inserted into the foot of the
article. You could then count the uniques on that.

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fleaflicker
Google does this for ranking search results. It's not a new idea. I would be
surprised if no social news site used it already.

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brlewis
No metric is perfect, but this one really sounds like it's worth a try.

~~~
fallentimes
I think the amount and frequency of comments should play a role as well. Even
if a user doesn't particularly like a link (as evidenced by a down vote) if
the article is generating comments and discussion (vs. a preset benchmark) it
shows that it's at least interesting and notable in some way.

------
gaika
jaanix does it already, takes into account everything: views, clicks, ratings,
tags.

