

Ask HN: How many of you look at http://news.ycombinator.com/newest? - chl

I recently submitted the same (reasonably interesting, IMO) story twice.<p>The first time, the story didn't get any upvotes; the second time, I asked some friends (in the interest of, erm, "science") to upvote it immediately after posting. The story appeared on the frontpage and gathered ~20 upvotes (in line with my "expectations"). In terms of clickthroughs, the ratio is probably 1:100+.<p>Don't consider that a real experiment; I didn't control for anything (time of day &#38;c.), so it's almost purely anecdotal. Nevertheless, my preconceptions were strengthened to the point of almost making them hypotheses:<p>- a. "Kick-starting" a story by asking friends or followers to upvote it _dramatically_ increases the chances of it being read, without any inherent difference in "story quality" (if we assume that inherent story quality is a reasonable notion at all).<p>- b. A very small fraction of HN readers check out http://news.ycombinator.com/newest.<p>Do you?
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RiderOfGiraffes
Your findings are completely consistent with what people have been saying
many, many times over the past few months. If something doesn't get noticed
quickly on "newest" then it can sink without trace, regardless of its inherent
value. Unless you get some friends to check your submissions and upvote them
if appropriate, it's very hit-n-miss.

It's mostly because of this that I have _always_ visited "newest" which then
also means that I recognise things when seeing them second time around.
Recently I've stopped bothering marking repeats and duplications, in part
because some people find it deeply irritating, in part because it seems
unvalued, and, yes, in part because it drags down my average karma. If one of
the metrics PG has put in place gives me a poor grade because of some
activity, I'll think twice about continuing.

So certainly your hypothesis "a" seems true. Not sure about "b" because it
depends on what you mean by "small fraction," but I would agree with that too.

~~~
tokenadult
I will still upvote you (or anyone else) if I see a comment that a submitted
article is a duplicate submission. There are many cases that are missed by the
automated duplicate detector, and I appreciate knowing that I am not
remembering incorrectly when I see a story that I think I have seen before.

~~~
blasdel
There is no "duplicate detector" beyond checking to see if the URL strings are
identical.

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mnemonicsloth
I always read /newest first. I figure there's a pretty good incentive.

Early votes have the greatest impact. So at the cost of a little bit more time
spent foraging, you can promote more stuff you're interested so it will get
talked about by lots of smart people. I think I get a better collection of
saved links too, but that's subjective.

~~~
jluxenberg
True. Reminds me of Derek Sivers's first follower idea that's been making the
rounds lately: <http://sivers.org/ff2>

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proee
Here's an idea...

Make the first 5 listings on the HN frontpage be the 'newest' entries,
followed by the top rated entries.

This would force people to scan past new items and give them their
"30-seconds" of fame. Plus it would keep the front page very fresh feeling.

It's like singing in front of Simon Cowell for American Idol tryouts.

~~~
johns
That's a prominent position to put spam in (which frequently consumes the
newest page)

~~~
proee
In looking on the newest entries page, I don't see any spam.

~~~
silvestrov
I just checked the users of the posts on the first page. All users that have
(almost) no karma have posted junk.

Not all posts by high-karma users are good, but a base level of karma required
for posting can't hurt. If somebody does't spend time on the site commenting
to archive e.g. 25-100 karma, why should we expect that user to provide a lot
of valuable links within the sites focus?

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pg
Hmm, I'm surprised that the suspicious vote detector didn't catch this case.
I'll have to tighten it up a bit.

~~~
chl
Probably because the votes weren't all that suspicious: two semi-regular HN
readers who upvote a story in quick succession, but certainly not
simultaneously - I have no idea how you'd like to "catch" those (or even
whether that would be all that desirable).

BTW, have you ever thought about making other people's "saved" views (i.e.
their upvotes) public (maybe w/ opt-in)? It would be an awesome data set for
collaborative filtering ...

~~~
pg
The submission and the first two upvotes were simultaneous at the 1 minute
resolution we use for those things, and that is usually a sign of something
fishy. Usually there's something else fishy too, and it's the other things we
currently look for.

~~~
mixmax
Glad to hear you're actively doing something about this. It's been discussed a
lot here, and it seems to be a real problem.

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Vindexus
I like to scan the newest page for Ask HN: Review my startup ______ posts.
They don't seem to make it to the front as often and I find them immensely
interesting.

I also scan the newest page after I'd digested all the stuff I find
interesting on the main page. I'm on the site a lot so I go to newest to get
more of my fix.

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megamark16
I like to get comments in on good articles early, they seem to get more
responses that way, before the thread has grown old.

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georgecmu
It seems a few people use the kick-starting strategy. I've seen articles get a
bunch of points right after being submitted and making their way to the
frontpage, while my submissions of the same content that have been made a bit
earlier never got any upvotes whatsoever.

Personally, I haven't done it and don't intend to. On the other hand, I'm
guilty of checking the newest articles only after I submitted something
myself.

~~~
Scriptor
I once alluded to something on IRC that I'd submitted here. Granted, I didn't
directly link to anything and they found it themselves, it still felt like
cheating a little.

Either way, the post only started to get a significant number of points after
the first couple of outside votes brought it somewhere in the frontpage.

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tokenadult
Every time I visit HN (which is several times a day), I read the main page
first, and then immediately go to the newest page. I upvote submissions that
satisfy intellectual curiosity, come from sources I trust, and don't duplicate
something recently posted here.

I also go to the noobs views

<http://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/noobcomments>

from time to time, especially right after I have seen what appears to be a
noob story that deserves a flag on the newest page.

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elblanco
I usually look at it instead of going to page 2.

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Tichy
I only check it out sometimes, when I am very desperately in need to
procrastinate. At times it will be several times a day, at other times I don't
look at it for weeks.

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wglb
I check newest when waiting for a compile. Thanks to the speed of today's
computers and languages, that check is not a very long one.

Also, when I submit something, i check down the resulting page for interesting
items.

I occasionally have a browser open on another computer on the newest and
refresh that if i am out of HN stuff to read.

And while I don't ask friends to vote, it is very time-of-day sensitive. If it
gets a few votes in the first hour (just guessing here) then it is quite
possible for it to land on the front page. Once it lands on the front page, it
is going to see a secondary effect, which is more likely to be on the merits
as judged by a larger audience.

Beyond that threshold (hour? two?) no votes means it will be off the "newest"
page, likely to never be seen again.

Except if someone else posts the same article, RiderOfGirafefes will find the
dup.

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jayair
I submitted a Ask HN post about our service (Personal Trending Topics) and
didn't get a response - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1118331>

I posted it at a time when there was a lot of other stuff getting posted so it
got buried really quickly. And now I feel discouraged to post it again...

~~~
megamark16
I follow (and am followed) by several HN'ers and I've noticed that sometimes
they will tweat a title and link to something they've posted (or found
interesting), and I usually click through and (if I find it interested) upvote
it. Use your network, and don't be discouraged, I'll vote for your stuff :)

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petercooper
I look at it a few times a week and I consider myself a pretty active member.
If there were a "better" (and I can't define what that is) way to monitor new
entries without having to keep going back to the page, I probably would.

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makmanalp
People like me who subscribe to the RSS feed get almost every story, which is
equivalent to newest I think. As a sidenote, maybe there should be a "hourly /
daily new good stuff" feed rather than a dump of everything.

~~~
Pistos2
A list of the various HN lists (like /newest):
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1024293>

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mickt
Never.

I use a RSS reader rarely browse the site. I also don't see a RSS feed for
<http://news.ycombinator.com/newest> .

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chuhnk
I will usually scan newest once I'm done reading through the top 1-60.
Everyone has differing tastes and so the stuff that I like to read doesn't
always end up on the front page.

~~~
nfnaaron
Exactly me too. Newest gives me a chance to upvote things that I'd like to see
discussed.

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jacquesm
I read the 'new' page (and new page #2) first, then after that maybe I'll read
the main page.

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zarski
Didn't even know about /newest. I am going to checking it now.

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GrandMasterBirt
I rarely read newest. I go to /classic usually.

~~~
chl
Interesting. What's the difference between the default frontpage and /classic?

Update: Thanks to SearchYC.com, I found the answer here --

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1024293>

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hockeybias
Rarely, thanks for the reminder!

