
Ask HN: Are new posts getting less frequent on HN? - edem
I&#x27;ve noticed lately that posts stay for a much lonfer time on the main page. Half year ago I almost never saw a post twice if I checked every 24 hours but now I do. What happened?
======
fao_
The algorithms were changed at some point, that could be what you're referring
to.

You can use news.ycombinator.com/classic to view the front page curated using
the older algorithm(s) (For me this is actually a more relevant front page
compared to the default one)

~~~
iamben
I assume this made changes to karma points as well? I remember when 1 upvote
roughly equalled one karma point. It seems about half that now.

~~~
Klathmon
Is that why sometimes I'll see the "vote number" for a comment jump by 5 all
at once?

~~~
jrs235
I don't think that is related. My assumption is that might have to do with
caching and when the old value gets evicted from the cache the new value just
happens to be different by that much.

------
abathur
I was curious but not masochistic, so I used a termless custom-time-range
search for the first full week of July, August, and September of 2014, 2015,
and 2016:

2014: 4384, 4378, 4549 2015: 4779, 4817, 5271 2016: 5090, 5225, 4824

I don't know if full news posts are deleted for any reasons that would cause
these numbers to naturally fall off over time, but this abbreviated sample
doesn't suggest any downward trend.

~~~
thr0waway1239
I made a comment here where I mistakenly assumed that those were full month
submissions and month-to-date for Sep 2016.

While its too early to call a trend, that Sep 2016 number does look a bit
lower than expected.

------
tedmiston
Don't forget there's also the (somewhat) new /front page to see all front page
stories for a given day.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-06-20](https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-06-20)

------
simonpure
I've been experimenting with an alternative ranking based on activity (score +
comments per hour) and found some interesting stories because of it.

I did notice there's definitely a very long tail of stories that get little
attention.

Feel free to play with it and provide some feedback -

[http://beta.frontpageping.com](http://beta.frontpageping.com)

------
z3t4
With posts being visible for only a minute or so it's a miracle every time a
post reach the front page.

It should be possible to down-vote posts that have reached the front page,
because when they reach front-page they will get a ton of up-votes.

------
partisan
I have noticed that as well. It is possible that:

\- Less people are actually reading, upvoting, etc

\- Less people are checking the "new" page and so posts are not being promoted
to the front page

\- Some change in the site settings causes this

~~~
Jaruzel
> Less people are checking the "new" page and so posts are not being promoted
> to the front page

I check New all the time, and find some good stuff there, most of which never
gets above 3 or so points, and thus never makes it to the front page.

If you are ignoring New because you think you don't have time, I urge you to
reconsider. If we all ignored the New queue, then nothing would change on the
Front Page (kinda... I know there's manual promoting and stuff going on in the
background, but you get what I mean).

------
douche
I've noticed lately that a lot of stories that manage to make the front page,
but don't end up getting discussed heavily, tend to just camp out there in the
lower two-thirds of the page for hours.

Things with a lot of discussion seem to trip the flamewar detector, unless
they really rake in the upvotes.

~~~
edem
I am yet to see a flame ware here (thankfully). This community seems to be
able to argue intelligibly. Or maybe I am just lucky.

------
minimaxir
See also: the controversy on a Reddit a year ago which made the same
observation:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3n7tnz/why_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3n7tnz/why_arent_massive_news_stories_hitting_my_front/)

This _was_ fixed I believe, which incidentally led other issues during the
Orlando shooting where /r/all was being manipulated by several subreddits,
requiring _another_ algo change:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4ny59k/lets_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4ny59k/lets_talk_about_orlando/)

------
impostervt
Maybe you're just checking it more often and so it appears to change less
frequently?

~~~
thr0waway1239
I believe OP says they check around the same time every day and doesn't
remember seeing the same comment thread stay on the front page a second day in
a row. At least that is how I understood it. That is an issue - it might read
a little like yesterday's news I suppose.

------
Cozumel
Maybe a bit silly but are you sure your browser isn't caching the front page,
so you're seeing the same posts everytime?

------
s_kilk
Seconding, it seems a bit quieter over the last six months or year.

------
eranation
edit: oops wrong post. my apologies.

~~~
colanderman
I think you meant to post here?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12487771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12487771)

~~~
eranation
yes, I knew it will happen to me one day... thank you for the heads up!

