
Hacker News Points Inflation - refrigerator
https://taimur.me/hn-inflation/
======
craigkerstiens
I can't help but be amused in the irony that this says it requires more points
than prior to hit the front page, yet appeared on the front page with only 3
points.

~~~
vinceguidry
The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page
curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the
front page in order to gather points. Wouldn't work for Reddit, but works
rather well for HN.

I have noticed that when I use a mobile app to browse HN, I'm far more willing
to keep going past the front page, if only because it doesn't require clicks
to do so.

I'd suggest an option for forever-scroll presentation for the article list.

EDIT: A quick Google search turned up this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4484616)

EDIT2: Sadly broken, scrolls once then I get an error in the console. I may
end up fixing it and forking.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> _The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page
> curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the
> front page in order to gather points._

I wasn't aware of that…

My own HN submissions _never_ made it to the front page without gathering two
upvotes first. Those are pretty hard to get without a voting ring (err, two
friends). There's the "new" page all right, but new stories come so fast there
that it never lasts more than an hour.

Once you get past the "front page" threshold however, points tend to flood in.
The second vote is probably worth several dozen votes on average.

Reddit sub-forums however lets new submissions land in the front page
directly. Unsurprisingly, this makes voting pattern much more predictable (at
least on r/programming and r/crypto, which are basically the only forums I go
to).

~~~
derekp7
I think a hybrid approach would be to show the new submissions list after the
front page list, after the fold (maybe having a delimiter separating them).
That way new stories still get exposure to everyone by default (of course,
this should also be a user option where they can turn this on or off, but
default to on).

~~~
hokus
Make new into the front page then unlock access to the real HN by reading X
articles for Y seconds and upvoting Z of them.

Then have 1000 euro/month pro accounts to bypass having to work for your
precious.

------
pmoriarty
_" The median today, in 2018, is around 150 points -- double what it was when
I joined the site in 2011. With a bit of hand-waving, we might be able to
claim that "HN points are worth half as much in 2018 as they were in 2011"."_

This is to be expected if HN has a larger userbase now than in the past.

More people voting means more points are given to popular posts.

------
lisper
It's harder to get on the home page than it used to be, but not because point
inflation. It's because there are more submissions than ever before, but still
the same number of stories on the home page.

~~~
at-fates-hands
This is why I went from just reading/commenting on the front page stories, to
actually _starting_ on the New tab and then working to the front page.

I also see a ton of upvoted stories on the front page with no comments. I
always thought the focus of HN was the thoughtful conversations that took
place around topics, not the accrual of fake internet points.

~~~
IncRnd
> _I always thought the focus of HN was the thoughtful conversations that took
> place around topics, not the accrual of fake internet points._

Apparently, ranking is only a function of the time since submittal and the #
of points. From
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html):

> The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was
> submitted.

~~~
htgb
> … ranking is only a function of …

If you read the very next paragraph, you'll see that it's based on other
factors too:

> Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software,
> software which downweights overheated discussions, and moderator
> intervention.

------
metalliqaz
This seems like a straightforward consequence of a growing user base. Am I
wrong?

~~~
lumberingjack
Reddit sucks now, I lurk here more

~~~
siberianbear
A lot of Reddit is about which subreddits you participate in and how the
moderation works. I participate in some niche subreddits that are absolutely
great and are good discussion grounds on those particular topics.

All the default subreddits suck.

------
jamesrom
>With a bit of hand-waving, we might be able to claim that "HN points are
worth half as much in 2018 as they were in 2011".

A lot of handwaving indeed. The value of a point is surely a function of
clicks. If there's more visitors today than 2011, then you could reasonably
argue a HN points are worth more.

------
nwatson
I assume HN readership has grown, with readers probably giving out roughly on
average the same number of up-votes they used to for story submissions per any
time unit (maybe some variability). The number of points it takes for a story
to beat out sibling stories should then also increase. There may be other
effects such as a wider-variety-of-stories-being-submitted than from before
that would perhaps squash per-story-votes-needed-to-stay-on-front-page.

One might say "but there are more stories being submitted too" \-- but the
unique number of these wouldn't go up linearly as the number of readers goes
up, since they're pulling from roughly the same universe of possible stories-
of-interest.

EDIT: paragraph about "more stories submitted"

------
ProAm
I also think the moderators have the ability to increase or decrease gravity
on submissions as they see fit. Makes sense but I do not think an algorithm
controls 100% of submission placement.

~~~
scarface74
The only submission I've ever had that got any traction was because of a
"second chance" where the moderators intervened.

------
sandrobfc
It does make sense that it's harder to get to the front-page now. There are
more submissions than ever before and there's got to be some way to filter
what matters and what doesn't. This also means that a lot of good articles get
lost in new, but it's not as troublesome as it would be if a lot of bad
articles ended up on the front-page. That's what curation means.

------
anonu
> Is it harder to get to the HN front page now than it used to be? This is a
> very difficult question to answer.

Could just be a phenomenon of: 1\. lots more submissions 2\. larger user base
3\. user base with wider interests - and limited front-page slots to fill in

------
rdlecler1
Given HN’s high traffic rate it could implement a simple genetic algorithm to
randomly display a couple of new articles, selecting with clicks & comments.
Could limit this kind of seeding to posters who have had previous posting
success.

~~~
andai
Using keywords as DNA?

~~~
swyx
that would get easily, easily gamed...

------
kizer
Our beloved HN is experiencing unrestrained inflation. Paul Graham, please
insitute austerity measures immediately!!!

~~~
howeyc
I have a solution, inflate the size of the first page to correlate with number
of active users.

~~~
hokus
Isolate usergroups by year of registration. i.e. If you sign up in 2018 by
default you end up on the 2018 user HN. Then have next to the next button
buttons to go to the next/previous year.

That way old people can finally talk about the zx spectrum, the commodore 64
and IBM mainframes without disrupting the more interesting hipster
conversations.

------
anotherevan
The trick to getting on the front page of Hacker News is to submit an article
about Hacker News, isn't it?

~~~
_emacsomancer_
Even better: submit an article about getting to the front page of Hacker News.

------
handbanana
I don't know what's on the front page, ever. Because I use hckrnews.com and
filter by all

------
applecrazy
Amazing analysis! I've wanted somebody to do this post for a while now (I even
have a comment on it![0]).

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16410684)

