

Ask HN: HN popular algorithm - xoail

Do you know or can figure out the algorithm HN uses to put posts on frontpage? It looks like a secret sauce between number of votes + comments + (YC company related)!important; but I am curious to know the closest real answer. Any ideas?
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pizza
According to the link in dmgrow's comment, it's

    
    
        Score = (P-1) / (T+2)^G
    

where P is the number of votes, T is the time in hours since submission, and G
is a power that controls the steepness/rate of decline in ranking, so
popularity is decreases exponentially over time.

I'm sure that YC-affiliated posts have a different ranking algorithm,
considering you can't vote on them.

Some other cool algorithms are:

del.icio.us / delicious.com 's: ranked by upvotes in the last hour. I like the
elegance of this solution a lot :)

reddit's "best" feature: compares the rates at which comments are upvoted to
generate the probability that a comment is a good one, which is how posts with
fewer votes can be ranked better than posts with more votes. It works well, in
my opinion.

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dmgrow
You can find some posts and related information here:

[http://www.quora.com/Hacker-News/How-do-you-get-on-the-
front...](http://www.quora.com/Hacker-News/How-do-you-get-on-the-frontpage)

There was a post back in 2010 with the formula which PG verified. It's
probably changed slightly but not substantially since.

