Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- Presumably this has gotten way, way more complicated in the last 13 years.by tptacek
- I'd assume the algorithm has changed over the last 13 years. And they're probably better off not sharing exactly how ranking (and penalties) work.
It's clearly easy to mobilize armies of users (or, these days, agents) to upvote submissions or warm up an account. I receive emails all the time offering this kind of service across virtually every website I have any presence.
But without explicitly published rules, it's harder to figure out what works through trial and error, especially if account history plays a role. Agents will clearly optimize around the rules, so I it's probably more important than ever that they're vague. X "open sourced" its algorithm (sort of...), and the bot problem there is as bad as its ever been.
by at1as - by culi
- I concluded long ago that voting rings are active here, along with paid/inauthentic upvote farms.by syngrog66
- The penalties are interesting. It shows that the design goal is not to maximise interactions otherwise "controversial" posts should stay up. Still though, I wonder what's the point of deranking said posts. Minimise the potential for a flame war to hit critical mass? Stop people from perceiving HN as an argument-filled forum?by Liftyee
- Not sure when it started, but the second chance pool has moderators putting stories that didn’t get much attention when they were submitted directly on the front page.
There may be some survivor bias here, but second-chance stories seem very front-page sticky to me. At least those I have recognized.
by compiler-guy - Author here. I don't know why this popped up 13 years later, but hi :-)by kens