Ask HN: Should HN use a different time algorithm for post ranking?

3 thisismyswamp 6 7/8/2025, 1:52:56 PM

I came across this old post by @gojomo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4758798

which suggests a different concept of time for ranking posts

the main issue trying to be solved is that currently there is an incentive to find the best time to post something, as the variance in activity causes some times to make for a higher likelihood of post popularity

the suggestion is thus for there to be a different kind of time "tick" - instead of time itself, maybe a site-wide counter of activity such as number of views, votes, or submissions

I find the idea of removing the incentive to find the best time to post interesting. I think an ideal ranking algorithm drives the correlation between the time of posting to the number of impressions on a post to zero.

Interested in hearing y'alls thoughts!

Comments (6)

pvg · 24d ago

I find the idea of removing the incentive to find the best time to post interesting.

That's, more or less, what the second chance pool attempts to do. As do subcategories like https://news.ycombinator.com/show which effectively extend the 'visible time in queue' for Show HN posts.

I think the underexamined assumption in a lot of these analyses is that it's hard to get a post on the HN front page. But in reality, it's relatively straightforward with a whole pile of backup mechanisms. The mystique of 'magical posting hour' draws people in but it's a lot simpler to just produce a post that matches HN's (fairly broad and loose) interestingness criteria.

mb2100 · 24d ago

Only Show HN posts that clear the initial hurdle of getting a few upvotes.

> matches HN's (fairly broad and loose) interestingness criteria.

this wouldn't apply then? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44500481

pvg · 24d ago

No, there's also /shownew so it's not just that.

this wouldn't apply then?

Why not? Looks like a completely reasonable Show HN. Could probably use a better blurb i.e. 'tune for HN-interestingness' like I mentioned above.

Have you looked at this, for instance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638

It's linked at the top of the Show HN page. You can also email the mods for help with a submission you think is a good HN submission but didn't get much attention.

mb2100 · 24d ago

what would you recommend to "tune for HN-interestingness"?

Yes, I read that:

> Include text giving the backstory of how you came to work on this, and explaining what's different about it.

that's why I wrote the blurb that way.

pvg · 23d ago

This is a better blurb https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44498576, your new one is a set of instructions. I think it just needs to be a little clearer, you're on the right track with the second post to focus on something more concrete but it's better to show your whole thing instead of some subthing of the thing.

thisismyswamp · 24d ago

this is another interesting comment on the issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41977430

but crucially, it assumes that variations in submissions and voting activity are strongly correlated, which I imagine is not necessarily the case