

Ask HN: What causes a top 10 front page post to jump to slot #79 in seconds? - jqueryin

Seriously mods, this is taking things a little too far.<p>We went from #9 with a vote, submission time, and comment count matching a current top 10 post to all the way to #79 in the matter of a minute. Linked is the screenshot showing just how disproportionate the ratings are.<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;g3PdsNL<p>I&#x27;m sure some HNers have an idea of how the algorithm works or what went on here. Needless to say I&#x27;m very disappointed.
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dang
> Seriously mods, this is taking things a little too far.

No moderator touched your post. It fell in rank because users flagged it.

It's against the HN guidelines to turn questions like this into Ask HN
threads. Please don't do that. As the guidelines say, you should email
hn@ycombinator.com instead.

Also: when a post is flagged, a repost counts as a duplicate. Otherwise flags
wouldn't mean anything.

~~~
jqueryin
Define flagging. I've been a member of HN for almost 5 years with low to
medium activity and all I get is upvote/downvote capabilities. As far as I can
see, there were minimal downvotes from me watching (or at least equivalent to
upvotes), so the flagging seemed to be a group effort near instantaneously.

Things immediately went from good to bad in the matter of seconds, so there's
alot of power in whatever ranking is required to "flag".

~~~
krapp
Flagging is when you click the link that says "flag". Like I just did for this
thread.

~~~
jqueryin
You're funny. Upvote for you.

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pbhjpbhj
It looks from the comments,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985678),
that mod(s) thought it was a deceptive post that was more like an advert than
a story.

What technically, or in context of startups, is notable about the site/offer?
Perhaps you'd be better blogging about pop.co's setup and submitting that if
you want to use HN for promotion.

~~~
jqueryin
The post title was literally our selling point which was the exact features
offered. I'll have to reply to the mod.

------
leepowers
My guess is an upvote collusion algorithm got tripped somehow. The post is
obviously being penalized for some reason.

~~~
jqueryin
To the point on upvote collusion, I think the mods really need to rethink
things a bit. I utilize HN on a daily basis and check it periodically
throughout the day. If I see a post of a friend's site, I upvote it. The
notion of being flagged because friends or acquaintances familiar with your
startup being happy for you is by no means a reason to degrade a post.

What the OPs are really saying is they'll let it slide for their friends and
network, but not for those they're unfamiliar with. This is outright
unacceptable behavior and I think methods of accountability should be added.
If a startup didn't have friends, fans, and followers, than what do they have
guys? Nothing. And I'll be damned if I don't work for an awesome startup doing
awesome things that earned it's spot on the front page. It's a shame.

~~~
dragonwriter
> What the OPs are really saying is they'll let it slide for their friends and
> network, but not others.

OP? Usually, when I've seen that in a forum, it means "Original Poster", the
submitter of the post to which the comment thread is attached -- but clearly
that's not what you mean here. Do you mean the mods?

And, no, the voting ring detector is, from everything that has been said about
it, algorithmic, so its just as wrong for anyones "friends and network" as for
anyone else's.

> This is outright unacceptable behavior and I think methods of accountability
> should be added.

I'm sure if you ask nicely, YC will refund 100% of the HN membership fee you
paid if you are unsatisfied.

> If a startup didn't have friends, fans, and followers, than what do they
> have guys?

The idea of HN is that things should be promoted in visibility based on the
interest to the community at large based on the content, not based on
collusion of groups to promote them. Hence the voting ring detector. There's
plenty of venues for promotion that don't work that way, but I don't see why
anyone (other than YC) is entitled to demand that HN change.

~~~
jqueryin
Correct on mods, I was ranting too fast. I'll maintain my rights to rant on
occasion if something smells fishy. The post had legitimate interest, a
comment chain, and votes in both directions. The algorithm seems to be at
fault but I won't know for sure without some feedback. I sent an email out, so
I guess we'll wait and see.

------
jqueryin
Hold on folks, it's now #181. It seems as though some form of exponential
decay has been enabled by moderators.

I'd like to propose formal explanations whenever things like this occur.
Accountability should be the name of the game. I want to know who performed
the action, what action was performed, and why.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Hold on folks, it's now #181. It seems as though some form of exponential
> decay has been enabled by moderators.

Time-based exponential decay is the norm. Per the FAQ [1]:

 _How are stories ranked?_

 _On the front page, by points divided by a power of the time since they were
submitted._

Also, from the guidelines [2]:

 _Please don 't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us
questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you
want to say something to us, please send it to hn@ycombinator.com._

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
jqueryin
While I understand this, we had a direct comparable front page item I
mentioned that goes entirely against the decay. This is a case of accelerated
decay enforced by an OP IMO.

------
Mz
By my manual count, 6 of the 16 comments in the discussion are by you and you
are also the person who submitted the piece. I have tried to tell others this
and people think I am being a bitch when I do so, but commenting too much in
your own submission seems to not be a good idea.

I wrote about my own experience/observations here:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/so-you-
made-...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/so-you-made-front-
page.html)

Can't be bothered to read it? The main take away is: Submit your piece, allow
yourself between one and three GOOD comments, then stfu and let _other people_
talk about your thingamajig.

~~~
jqueryin
I'll have to take your advice on this one in the future. This crowd is getting
as rough as /r/.

~~~
Mz
You know, I am female and I used to really be given hell at times on HN. It
took me a long time to understand why that was (most of which is not relevant
to this discussion) but I don't think it helps you at all to talk about "this
crowd is getting as rough as..." etc type stuff. If I had just been looking to
blame people here, I imagine I would have ended up banned. Instead, I took
some time off, figured some things out, and was eventually able to return to a
much more successful experience. As far as I can tell, that means I am
currently the highest ranking (in terms of karma) actively participating
female member. And this is a forum that is fairly notoriously unwelcoming of
women. So I think I speak from both a place of success and the school of hard
knocks on this one.

From what I can tell, there is some sort of algorithm that drops you off the
front page if you comment too much in your own submissions. Most likely, the
mods have good reasons for that. If you want to do well here, it helps to
understand the technical environment as well as the social environment. If you
don't want to understand it as a path to improving your performance, if,
instead, you just want to blame someone and complain, well, it's been nice
knowing you. You won't get far here. That kind of thing does not play well
anywhere and it seems to play especially poorly here.

~~~
jqueryin
Mods responded via email and said it was from users flagging the post. I won't
elaborate further, but thanks for the words of advice!

