How reddit tried to solve the "new link" problem. Why HN doesn't need a new algo

198 points

13 years ago

This morning I saw two articles on the front page about how HN should change their algorithms. I would contend that an algo change is not the right solution.

Here is what we did to try and solve the problem on reddit.

First, there is the "organic" box at the top of the page. The first link in that box is always an ad, but after that, it shows pseudo random links from the new page (more on that in a second):

https://github.com/reddit/reddit/blob/89f6f1ad9c1babbf520b83c49fa27f509bb5d0ef/r2/r2/lib/organic.py

What this does is give exposure to up and coming links to a lot of people all at once, which helps overcome the luck factor of who is looking at the new page at any given time.

The second solution is the "rising" sort on the new page:

https://github.com/reddit/reddit/blob/89f6f1ad9c1babbf520b83c49fa27f509bb5d0ef/r2/r2/lib/rising.py

The rising sort accounts for how many times the link has been shown in its ranking algo, which helps better new links rise to the top.

The organic box on the front page uses this rising ranking to choose what is in the box, and also contributes to the view counts.

So I would humbly suggest that HN should do as it has done often in the past, and copy reddit's solution here by implementing the rising sort and the organic box.

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