

Ask PG/HN: Is there something changed in the rank/sorting algorithm of HN? - jrnkntl

It occurred to me that a couple of articles are hitting up the top places pretty fast with just 1 other upvote (eg 2 points total).
This used to never be the case, is this a little experiment? Is it based on Karma?
I happen to see some spam articles get pretty fast at the top yesterday/today.
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chaosmachine
It's been this way for as long as I can remember. I like it. HN is the only
place where you can submit something and have it hit the front page in a few
minutes. It feels much more "real-time" than something like Digg or even
Reddit.

Combine that with the strong spam filtering and fast moderation, and you have
a winning formula. If something lame hits the front page, you can expect it
will be [dead]ed quick.

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pg
I noticed it too. I'm not sure what's happening, because that code hasn't
changed in a long time.

~~~
axod
Another bug report/oddity:

Loading any page when I'm logged in has started taking forever. If logged out,
it doesn't take long to load.

For example:

This comments page loads in 981ms when I'm logged out. If I log in as axod, it
loads in 7.5 seconds.

Maybe it's just my account :/ Hopefully it's not a 'moderation feature'. Maybe
due to a reasonably high comment count for my account? idk but it makes HN
pretty boring waiting for page loads.

Is anyone else seeing this behavior?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Wow.

Not here, but over the past few months, the app has been consistently fickle
about loading up the userinfo page and the threads page. Sometimes it works.
Sometimes not. On really high-load days, it was taking 7-15 seconds and then
just stopping to show the page.

Paul said a week or two ago (I think) that he was tweaking the GC because of
the load on the box. Not sure if that could be a factor or not.

~~~
pasbesoin
I've noticed a difference since he announced the changes to GC. There is
perhaps more frequently a noticable delay, but the delay is shorter and
eventual page load much more reliable -- I seldom experience a timeout / blank
screen, now.

Formerly, things would tend to load either almost instantaneously or not at
all. E.g. comment pages. Now, there is not infrequently a second or three's
delay, but then the page does indeed appear. I find this much more preferable.

~~~
pasbesoin
Sorry for the initial duplicate posting of the parent. When I clicked the
button "Reply", I was redirected to:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg>

instead of back to this comments thread. Thinking I'd hit a glitch, I backed
up and tried again.

So, I did hit a glitch in the redirection, but after my comment was processed
and accepted.

~~~
starkfist
Just wanted to chime in and say that I've seen behavior like this a few times.
After submitting a comment, I've been redirected to someone else's threads?id
page.

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shafqat
Yeah, I noticed that sometimes two very quick upvotes can rocket an item to
the front page.

On the other hand, one of my recent ASK HN posts
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1167298>) got 7 or 8 votes in the first
hour but never made it anywhere near the front page, which seemed a bit weird.

Since PG says the code hasn't changed, I'd assume the number of people online
and submitting during the given period has a large impact on whether any
particular story will hit the front page.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I think "Ask HN" articles get special treatment in the ranking system.

~~~
cj
Positive or negative treatment?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
IIRC, Ask HN and articles with titles that end in a question mark are
negatively treated compared to other articles.

~~~
shafqat
If that's true, that's really too bad - ASK HN posts are one of the great
differentiators about this place. They are almost always valuable, and the
insight and answers provided by the community always remind me why this place
is great.

~~~
asb
I also often find them interesting. I recommend you read them through
<http://ask.searchyc.com/> as even popular questions disappear from the front
page so quickly I rarely get to see them.

~~~
pg
I thought it would be interesting to see just these posts so I whipped up
something to do it:

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

Here's what it takes to define such an operator, in case anyone's curious:

    
    
        (newsop ask ()
          (listpage user
                    (msec)
                    (retrieve maxend*
                              [and (>= (realscore _) front-threshold*)
                                   (cansee user _)
                                   (blank _!url)]
                              ranked-stories*)
                    "ask"
                    "Post Without Urls"
                    "ask"))

~~~
shafqat
PG - this is fantastically awesome. Your support and responsiveness is truly
appreciated. If we meet in person someday, I will buy you many beers.

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vladocar
It happened to me before that some stories only with two votes go to the front
page but I think it's based on time, the longer the article spends on new
stories more difficult it goes to front page. I'm note sure if the Karma has
any influence on this.

Anyway I'm pretty happy how HN sorting algorithm works, meaning even with two
votes you can go to the front page if it's quality article will remain on
front page otherwise you are going to the second page.

This is smart system because every article has a chance to go to the front
page and on the front page the "human factor" who will decide the destiny of
an article. Not like many other sites that you need "million" votes to go to
the front page meaning quality stories can be lost because people visiting the
front page is much greater than people visiting upcoming articles page.

------
vijaydev
Interesting.. All my recent posts that made it to the front page got two to
three up votes in the first half an hour.. I must confess that i was more
happy than curious about this :)

