I've noticed over the last few months that things submitted to HN that reach the front page have been staying there for a day or two. It seems (maybe it is just my perception) that a year ago a submission would only stay on the front page for a few hours and at max a day. Am I imagining things? If I'm not imagining it, what is causing things to stay on the front page? An influx of users, maybe?
Honestly I prefer this system.<p>There’s definitely some pseudo curation happening, which I like.<p>Some interesting things I’ve picked up:<p>- If a submission is interesting but doesn’t get picked up for whatever reason (posted at the wrong time or there was other big news at the time) mods will get in contact with you and ask you to repost.<p>- More comments than votes seems to sink the article quickly. It’s generally a controversial topic which isn’t engaging and inspiring in the right way.<p>- there are a number of mod specific flags other than the above that affect the position of articles. From what I remember reading there’s 6 such flags. Would love to know what they are<p>I’m guessing the algorithm is a sort based on time * points then modifying it based on hidden flags
Relatedly, submissions have been making the front page with only a few points (3-4), and from what I can tell, it's at random (I've seen a lot of <i>bad</i> posts fit this criteria, then quickly fall off once they are flagged). It's a bit of an unstable equilibrium and I'm not fond of it.<p>Placement on the front page is a very finite resource.
Algolia's "Last 24h" view is often a nice alternative to the HN front page. It's more stable and it's also a good way to find articles/discussions that drew a lot of attention and then got flagged.<p><a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...</a> (it's not working at the moment for some reason)<p>The "Past Week" view is still working: <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=story" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...</a>
Meanwhile, "Demand for Ruby on Rails is Still Huge" is about the hit the 3rd page with 157 comments and only 3 hours old...<p>I guess anything Ruby is old news on HN
I've noticed that as well. Just a guess, but certain news organizations are given "special treatment" lately.<p>Almost everyday, I see a post from select news sources with 1 or 2 upvotes and no comments very high on the frontpage.<p>Also, is it just me or has hacker news slowly shifted from being about technology to more politics?<p>And a final observation, what's with the neverending submissions about facebook?