
Who actually votes stuff onto the front page of Hacker News? - gimlids
Just wondering who actually spends the time to go through the (presumably) lower quality &quot;New&quot; tab of Hacker News, finds the good stuff, and upvotes it onto the front page. Seems like a waste of time if &quot;New&quot; has a lot of crap in it. Or are there already pretty high quality links over there?
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Stal3r
The actual answer is that insider networks are used to upvote stories. If you
don't have a network of people you know on HN to upvote your article, it is
very unlikely to ever get seen or noticed. This is a wart of HN that people
don't want to talk about. Traffic isn't organic; it's a popularity contest at
best. It would be naive to think that people wouldn't game a system that can
drive so much traffic to any site.

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pedalpete
This is true, but shouldn't it be fairly easy to develop a system that looks
for these groups of voters and discounts the total volume of their votes,
rendering their gaming of the system as moot?

Also, seeing as discussion is so important to HN, I assume that active
discussion is just as valuable as votes. I'll often comment on an article but
forget to upvote it.

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jacalata
Actually, hn has a "controversy" penalty that automatically downgrades posts
with more comments than votes (kicks in at 40 comments) and pushes them down
or off the front page.

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mmastrac
I usually spend some time in /newest after reading the front page.

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anigbrowl
You miss a lot of interesting stuff if you don't check the new page regularly.
I probably have that open more often than the main page.

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japhyr
Well, one advantage of looking at the new page is that you can kick off the
discussion for an article. It's kind of fun to have the top-level comment once
in a while. It's nothing I seek out, but it's fun when it happens.

You can also catch some things that relate to one of your interests, but don't
have enough immediate appeal to make it to the front page.

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adventured
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe when multiple people submit
the same link, it generates an upvote automatically.

So if ten people submit the same story, it gets ten upvotes. For plenty of
stories I imagine that eliminates the need to derive upvotes from people
browsing "new."

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tokenadult
I look at the new tab all the time (right after every time I look at the front
page) and I upvote the stuff that gratifies my curiosity and I think will be
of value to the community. Hmm, what do I think of this question?

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zw123456
Hmmm, it is a fair question, but one of the reasons I continue to visit HN is
because of the quality of postings. It is a discerning audience, tough crowd.
So, find interesting things to post and try to be thought provoking. There are
a lot of influential people that frequent this site so it is worth your time
to try.

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ScottWhigham
I do. I go through new 1-2x a day, usually the first page or first two pages
so that I can "do my part". It's our community thus it's up to us to flag/vote
up stories that we would like to see in our community. pg + team have been
great at making new better and better w/ less junk.

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gus_massa
Me. I usually read the newest page after reading the front page. There’s a lot
of crap and I flag the worst. But from time to time I found an interesting
story and upvote it, it makes me happy to find them before they disappear, and
I’m happier when they later get more upvotes.

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necavi
A lot of the stuff I see on the front page tends to be simply what is
"popular" at the time, not necessarily what is relevant to my interests, I
find that the new tab has a more balanced view, in general.

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baruch
And here I was ready to see an analysis that showed the voter statistics and
show some interesting information about it.

I monitor the new and ask pages and vote rarely, often just forgetting to vote
after I saw the article...

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MattBearman
I read (and upvote interesting stories) on /newest a hell of a lot more than I
ever go to page 2 on the main page.

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thenomad
Yep, I read and upvote from New every so often. The ratio of quality stuff to
junk in New is still surprisingly high.

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jbarrec
I read, and upvote the deserving posts.

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GrahamsNumber
I just check the front page, the first ask page, and the first new page.
Usually doesn't take more than 30 seconds if there's nothing good on it.

