So you are complaining that you didn't get the karma 500 days ago that wallflower got? Or are you just pondering the mysteries of stories getting picked up? I see it isn't the latter since in this comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4097127 you indicate you've done research on that topic.
So you are complaining that you didn't get the
karma 500 days ago that wallflower got?
Not at all. Karma is a proxy measure for something else, and since this submission proved "successful" by the karma measure, I'm happy to see that the submitter got the karma for it.
Or are you just pondering the mysteries of stories
getting picked up?
In part, yes, exactly this,
I see it isn't the latter since in this comment
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4097127
you indicate you've done research on that topic.
I have, and continue to do so because I have, as yet, come to no definitive conclusions. The investigations continue, even if only in a sporadic fashion,as and when I have the time.
So what are you saying?
I'm saying that sometimes submissions fail to attract any attention, even if subsequent submissions achieve significant success. This is evidence that the current system is, by some measures, sub-optimal. I continue to investigate the dynamics (as best I can), and continue to work on something that I think will improve the situation.
The dissonance between the comments there (even though downvoted) and the positive reaction here is also of interest. I thought I'd share that, hence my comment.
> This is evidence that the current system is, by some measures, sub-optimal.
Aren't you assuming the value of an article is a constant? In practice, context changes and the value of an article goes up and down. Maybe today is a slow news day and 500 days ago was very busy. I wouldn't expect your average article about (say) Scala to do equally well on the day Facebook has its IPO and some day nothing interesting happened on. A controversial article about gun control is not going to be perceived as having the same value the day after a big massacre as leading up to an election or on a boring day in mid-January.
An interesting point. As it happens, when it was submitted 500 days ago it was a slower day (in some sense) than today. The "newest" page had fewer items per hour back then.
It's an interesting observation, though, that for some items the "value" changes over time. This particular item, I suspect, doesn't fall into that category. Context might be more important, but the analyses I do try to take that into account.
Eh, it's starting to sound like sour grapes again. There isn't an objective standard for value you can discover if your analysis is just a little better.
You're right that there isn't an objective standard for "value" (or at least, I don't know one, nor how to get one), but multivariate analysis can assign a number to an item which is broadly aligned with my intuition of the concept of "better". As a result, I'm trying to home in on finding items that my system predicts should be "of value" so I can read them, even if they don't make it to the front page.
Consider, I can train a Bayesian Filter with the page text of many submissions, and get that to predict what I'm likely to find "of value." But that means I don't see what the community might have found interesting but would be outside my core interests. These, too, are "of value" because they stretch me. I can't just train the filter with what makes the front page, because the evidence is that many things that "should" (by some definition) don't, and that would damage the training.
So it's complicated. I'm trying to find ways to improve the community and help me get more out of it (obviously) with less effort. I'm trying to help, but the hassle I get is just encouraging me not to make these observations out loud.
Based on this, your profile, and the rest of the comments in this thread I would suggest that whatever it is you're doing is vastly more effort than you're going to get back in added value.
Well in a very real way the system has to intentionally obfuscate the 'way to the front page' because being on the front page is so valuable, thus a target for manipulation.
What I'm saying is that as soon as you find a fool proof way to submit something and have it show up on the front page, pg will 'fix' it so that you can't do that in the future just like linking the discussion in a blog post was 'fixed'.
I typically read the site from an RSS feed, which means I see everything that is submitted that makes it to the rss feed, regardless of whether it is on the 'new' page or has fallen off. I don't know what percentage of folks do that. There are also 'super powers' for some users but those are for the standard sorts of things (like make sure a YC company looking for people gets to the front page for a while).
Can you say more about what "improving the system" would entail?
I'm not looking for a guaranteed way to get to the front page. I'd guess that most of the things that don't make it, deserve not to make it, in the sense that while they might be interesting, even if most HN people saw it, it wouldn't get many votes.
My concern is that things that are clearly of interest (in the sense that they do eventually do get the upvotes in a subsequent submission) sometimes don't get noticed and don't get the upvotes they deserve (by some definition).
Or something.
> I typically read the site from an RSS feed, which means
> I see everything that is submitted that makes it to the
> rss feed, ...
Do you apply some sort of filtering, or do you literally scan everything by eye?
> Can you say more about what "improving the system"
> would entail?
My ideas are very badly formed at the moment, and I'd rather not try to put them in written form in an open forum. I wouldn't care if people stole them, I'd care more that they would look pretty stupid, because I couldn't explain them well enough. Yet.
So what are you saying?