
YHackers: Click that "New" link - bprater
Lately, I've noticed that some really good submissions aren't making it to the homepage.<p>Help bring back great articles -- once or twice a day, hit the new link at the top and see if there is anything worth upmodding!<p>It'll only take a minute and can really help what makes it to the homepage!
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sidsavara
You know, I had a thought about this - why not make it an option to show me
the 5 most recent new submissions on the bottom of the index page (e.g., the
top 25 plus 5 latest). It's not a perfect solution, but at least I'll be aware
it's there.

I understand that could lead to some nasty gaming of the system though, just
the first idea I thought of.

~~~
sharkbrainguy
or a little DSL for us to specify what we wanted on our homepage.

    
    
      (def homepage (page
                      (top 10)
                      (newest 5)))

~~~
pg
I'm planning to start letting people use code snippets to customize stuff,
actually.

~~~
andreyf
Can we customize the ranking algorithm? Pretty please?

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haasted
Perhaps some kind of incentive should be introduced?

One way could be to reward "early promoters", eg. give karma to the first
users that up-vote a story, which later makes it to the front page or reaches
a certain number of votes.

~~~
byrneseyeview
That would make karma even more of a "guess who the average person would think
the average person would think would win a beauty contest" game.

~~~
yan
That's a "Keynesian beauty contest" for anyone who's interested.

( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest> )

~~~
sidsavara
Thanks! That is _awesome_

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walterk
Over a week ago, I put in a feature request to give users a karma point daily
just for visiting the New page:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=433004>

Another idea is simply to display the number of new stories submitted since
you last visited the New page:

    
    
      new (26) | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit
    

Edit: A third, less obtrusive option is to use an asterisk:

    
    
      new* | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit
    

Perhaps it only appears when a given number of new stories have been submitted
since you last looked at the page. Like, say, 20. Possibly user-configurable.

~~~
delackner
I really like this idea to put a number next to new, making it feel like an
inbox. People will end up clicking it based on their need to "empty the inbox"
built up from email management.

~~~
blasdel
DEAR GOD NO! Please don't do this, most of us already have enough inboxes.

The only thing I like about non-time-series sites like HN is that it just
isn't in their nature to ever be something inbox-like. It's the sole saving
grace of having a voting system, especially with vote-ranked threaded
discussion -- it keeps it from ever being something I have to "catch up with"
regularly.

~~~
walterk
An actual inbox requires many clicks to clear all unreads, assuming you
actually read them. What I'm proposing clears all unreads with one click.

Alternatively, just have an asterisk to indicate that there are new
submissions you haven't checked out yet:

    
    
      new* | threads | comments | leaders | jobs | submit
    

That's probably the most minimalist incentive you can give to increase New
pageviews, and fairly easy to implement. (Edit: updated the original post with
this suggestion.)

------
andrewljohnson
This could be solved by using the one-box method that Reddit uses - make the
top of the home page a new story without regards to popularity. I like that
feature a lot.

Let's be real - people are going to do what's in their best interest - not
what is good for the community. So, let's not count on people to vote and go
to the New page. I think it's better to count on software engineering here,
instead of social engineering.

~~~
ajiho
What about the following idea: Always take the top-story off the front page
and instead only show it on the "new" page? So the front page remains very
useful, but if you want to look for the very top story, you also have to take
a look at the new ones. Couldn't this be an adjustment to better "pivotize"
the signal/noise problem?

(Addition: It may be better to take the two (or three) most popular stories.)

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CalmQuiet
The more I think about alternative solutions, the more the present,
conservative (less vulnerable to being gamed) approach. The occasional
reminder (like this one) is helpful: I know I get used to just scanning the
front page. As a compromise: what about a "new" that was set apart (in color,
location, etc.) a little to act as a reminder?

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babul
If you are on twitter (or use RSS), <http://twitter.com/newsycombinator>
alerts you of the top 5 _new_ stories each hour ("the algorithm is just the
top 5 items from the RSS feed every hour" -
<http://twitter.com/riklomas/status/1093938010>)

~~~
riklomas
This is the top 5 homepage stories from the RSS, not the newest ones

I can happily build another bot for newest stories though, if anyone would be
interested...

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jmatt
Additional rss feeds for { top newest active } may help users implement a diy
solution. I think right now it's limited to just top.

Also I think the appropriate location to discuss this is
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>

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sounddust
I didn't even know it was there. I'll keep it in mind now. In fact, I don't
understand half of the features of hn, and I've been using it for more than a
month. There really should be a user guide or FAQ or something.

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jncraton
Not that this site needs to be like Reddit, but it pseudo randomly shows one
of the new submissions as a separate first item on the front page. Something
like this might be roughly equivalent to putting the newest 5 at the bottom of
the front page though given that this site has a much smaller user base.

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biohacker42
The reason for the the lack of really good stories is the recent arrival of
large crowds.

And pleading with them won't help, things are just averaging out. That's the
key word _average_.

This has happened to every single great social news site I've enjoyed.

Anyone know what the next slashdot/reddit/HN is yet?

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run4yourlives
>Lately, I've noticed that some really good submissions aren't making it to
the homepage

This could simply be a direct result of the change in the "new" section's S2N
ratio. There's simply a lot more crap in that queue than there has been
previously.

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rochers
I don't ever promote because in the last month or so, when I am logged in to
HN, each page load takes about 20-35 seconds.

That kind of performance keeps me logged out. Can someone shed some light on
why it is so slow?

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livando
I agree, it's been a bit slow lately. But, I'll be happy to see HN slow that
to have it run into the ground like reddit and so forth.

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mcormier
Or you could check all the new postings with RSS.

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

~~~
sidsavara
That shows you every article that makes the front page, it does not show you
articles that people have just submitted. An RSS feed for all submissions
might be nice, but refreshing the new page every 30 minutes or so is also
sufficient. Since they roll down in order you don't lose your place, but the
front page articles "jump" into whatever place the algorithm determines, which
is why I prefer to read the front page via RSS.

~~~
Shamiq
The RSS shows every submission which gets at least one up vote. So most spam
doesn't make it to the RSS, but a lot of other cruft can pass through
depending on if at least one person liked it.

At least, that's how I've seen it play out.

~~~
pg
The RSS file is a snapshot of the frontpage. Sometimes 2 points is enough to
get onto the frontpage, but not always.

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pg_
Yes, please do!

~~~
tsally
Really... what did you think you were going to accomplish by choosing that
user name?

~~~
byrneseyeview
The account was registered 211 days ago. Was _this_ the opportunity they were
waiting for?

~~~
yan
Based on her profile it seems to just be her initials. Maybe she saw that pg
was taken and appended an underscore?

~~~
tsally
Oh... silly me :-).

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iamwil
If you removed the voting links on the front pages, I think that might help
solve the problem.

