

Ask HN: Many quality articles don't go to the front page. What is the problem? - vladocar

I'm noticing lately many quality articles don't get any votes in the new links. What happened? Is HN grown so much that people submit many articles? Did you noticed the same problem?
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ryanwaggoner
I think it's a function of there being too many items submitted every day, and
not enough people checking the "new" page. During busy times of the day, if
you don't get 5-10 votes within the first 10-15 mins, you're on the 2nd page
of the "new" posts area, and you're never going to make it. I'm afraid the end
result is that the only posts that will end up on the front-page are:

    
    
      1. Where the author (domain) is well-known
      2. Where the title is link-bait
      3. Where the submitter tries to game the system
    

All of these are bad for the future of HN. I really like the way reddit
handles this, of putting a few new items at the top of the homepage and
rotating them, so that more people see them and have the chance to upvote. The
way things are going, HN is destined to have a front-page full of only
linkbait, spam, and/or posts by rockstars.

~~~
JangoSteve
Another obvious cause of submissions falling too quickly off the "new" posts
page is that there is only room for the latest 30 posts. Seems like we could
fit another 3-5 posts on the "new" page if we removed the posts that have
already hit the front page. Of course, this is only a minor band-aid that
doesn't solve the root problems, as you pointed out.

~~~
mhb
Getting dead ones off the page would yield another few.

~~~
JangoSteve
You can set "showdead" to false in your profile.

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bravura
_Rich get richer phenomenon._

Not enough people check the new page. It's impossible to get an article on the
frontpage unless like four or five people upvote it in the first few minutes
after submission. This is extremely unlikely, unless you have a popular title
or popular username.

Once something gets on the frontpage, it gets a LOT of upvotes, and the
algorithm decays its weight so slowly that it is essentially a rich get richer
phenomenon.

Possible solutions:

* Front page upvotes don't count as much, since there are more views. In particular, the "weight" of an article should be the probability that someone who views the title clicks on it, combined with the probability that someone who clicks the link decides to upvote it.

* Frontpage is stochastic. Instead of being fixed, you sample articles based upon their probability (or score). Each person gets a new frontpage, in order to actually explore which articles are good. (Exploration vs. exploitation)

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rblion
I think the HN community is becoming more and more diluted with people who are
here for techcrunch-type gossip and articles and not actual thought provoking
insights and research.

~~~
Zev
No more so than three years ago, when I started lurking. Or two and a half
years ago, when I signed up. Or however long ago when I first commented.

People are interested in what other people are doing. Techcrunch happens to be
a big resource in figuring this out. Thats not necessarily a bad thing in
itself.

~~~
rblion
i like to know too. but only about the innovators and leaders, not so much the
100 me-too startups that try to make the same thing but with a different name.

~~~
Zev
Don't underestimate the usefulness of knowing what people are interested in at
the moment. Social networking and the like may be gimmicky, but, they don't
become popular for no reason.

// edit: A better "but, …" might be: "but, Facebook has an insane valuation
for a reason: a lot of people seem to believe it can make a lot of money."

~~~
rblion
I never said anything about social networking being 'gimmicky'. It's fills a
human need for belonging. The kinds of articles that get my attention explain
how successful startups work or how others failed.

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marilyn
I believe a flip side to this is that stories are staying on the front page
longer. Not too long ago I recall that each day I opened HN for the first
time, every story on the front page was brand new to me. Recently stories seem
to stay on the front page for 2-3 days sometimes.

~~~
njharman
> stories seem to stay on the front page for 2-3 days sometimes

That is far too long. I'd like the front page to churn twice a day so it was
all new in the "morning" and all new in the "afternoon".

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3pt14159
Submissions should cost karma. Dynamically change the karma cost based on the
time of day or expected number of visits. In theory good posts would be a net
win for your karma and people would stop spamming the new section with useless
articles.

------
JeffL
Last time I tried to submit something and it didn't go anywhere, I checked the
new page and it was full of multiple submissions from the same person.
Personally, I think people should be limited to one submission per day, or
else multiple submissions start to cost you karma, so people had better like
them or else you get punished for Spamming.

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alain94040
My suggestion would be to randomly feature 5 new articles on the home page
(probably below rank 20, so as not to pollute the top 10). This way, they get
more visibility than by being only on the "new page", and get a chance to get
the clicks they need.

~~~
ecaradec
I think that it's already the case : some articles are nofollow on HN
homepage. They usually are 3 or 4 upvote at the bottom mixed with upvoted
dofollow links.

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timdellinger
Sometimes I feel like a bit of a freeloader, since I never click on "new" in
order to upvote the decent submissions.

The only suggestions that I have would be (1) to automatically load a handful
of "new" submissions in a separate section of the main page (at the expense of
destroying the current design and cluttering the page), or (2) giving out
karma for upvoting new stories (which is ripe for exploitation by simply
clicking randomly).

~~~
LaPingvino
Maybe considering an upvote on new while it's not on the frontpage yet as
submitting the article (and thus getting karma according to the votes on the
article) can help. Then upvoting good articles on new gets very attractive.

------
jacquesm
It takes 4 points currently to make the front page, if your submission does
not have those 4 points by the time it scrolls off the new page it will take a
small miracle for it to be brought back.

Also notice that the 'new' page has a 'more' link at the bottom, you could do
worse than to check page 2 and 3 as well to see if anything good fell through
the cracks.

Voting up articles that have not made the front page past the third page of
'new' articles is unlikely to have much effect.

------
eru
I noticed similar problems. I guess it's the growth, and that an article only
really has a few minutes to get its first few votes that will put it onto the
front page.

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reitzensteinm
I was stunned that my last submission, that the gog.com shutdown was a
marketing ploy, received 0 upvotes. It was the latest development in the story
that was voted #1 just two days prior:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1717426>

It appears they're actually back now, so I've submitted it again:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1721598>

~~~
reitzensteinm
I take it from the downvote and lack of general interest that the problem
isn't that nobody saw it, it's that people genuinely didn't care. I'm
surprised, but I stand corrected.

~~~
eneveu
Well... You simply linked to their front page.

This submission got more interest:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1717172>

I think such an article generates more interest because it puts everything in
context, and explains GOG's strategy / hoax.

~~~
reitzensteinm
Thanks for the link - it puzzled me because I didn't realise the story had
already done the rounds, and search didn't turn anything up. Makes total sense
now.

The front page at the time had a post discussing what had happened - now it
just links to the main site.

------
jasonkester
I've noticed this happening in the last 6 months. Articles of mine that spent
the better part of a day on the front page of Reddit sail their way down the
New page here over the course of 45 minutes, never to be seen again.

Funny, because a couple years back that's what would happen to anything you
submitted to /r/programming. Now the noise has all moved here and it's
actually easier to get Reddit to pay attention then HN.

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tokenadult
I habitually check the new page right after checking the main page. I upvote
stuff that I think is interesting to the community. Anyone else can do the
same.

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cinimod
Another suggestion: Adding a small section above the top10 with a random link
from "new". And for that link, you need to click yes or no depending of if it
is interesting.

What I like about this approach is the randomness in it where random people
get random link. I also like the fact that by you aren't choosing between 30
links.. you only get one and you need to say if it's interesting or no. Also,
I like the fact that it's on the front page.

So, the top 10 links could be the most yes-ed in a certain period, or the
ratio yes/no ratio, or anything really.. You could also put more weight on a
yes if you've got more point in HN (Simply because I usually trust their
judgement.. for instance, they know when something has already been shown
dozen of time)

Also, it feels a little bit more like a game to me.. each time I refresh I
need to really participate to say if that special link is interesting or no..
:D

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doki_pen
I know a lot of users use Google Reader and don't see the articles until they
are a little stale. They still will up vote good articles. Perhaps the
algorithm could be tweaked to make time less important then it is currently.
I'm not sure how you could do that though..

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someone_here
I'm also finding many are [dead] as soon as they are submitted, for no reason
that I can see. Then, a short while later, the [dead] is lifted. See my post:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659521>

~~~
gojomo
More people than in the past are using 'flag' as a generic downvote.

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lukeqsee
It could be growth. It could be a lot of things.

I postulate that the necessary quality level is greater now because of the
sheer number of articles that get sifted through. What used to make the cut,
no longer does. Or, it could be vice-versa.

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spotirca
One small improvement that might help would be to hide the articles that one
has already read, keeping the front page to 30 articles. That way, after you
read some articles, there will be some fresh meat on the table.

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winter_blue
I have an Greasemonkey script called HN Toolkit that lets you display the new
post & top post side-by-side. It really helps you catch the good ones that
aren't upvoted.

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epi0Bauqu
This has been going on for a long long time.

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rohan037
the digg effect

