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How Hacker News ranking works: scoring and penalties

The gist

Ken Shirriff's 2013 analysis found 20% of Hacker News front-page stories get penalized in various ways.
The findings explain why popular posts suddenly vanish from the front page.

How it unfolded

  1. Nov 11, 2013Ken Shirriff's analysis of the top 60 HN articles for the day shows "Getting website registration completely wrong" hit #1 early but was penalized for controversy and rapidly dropped, letting "Linux ate my RAM" briefly take #1 before "Simpsons in CSS" overtook it.
  2. Nov 11, 2013The controversy penalty was applied to the "Apple Maps" article shortly after it reached #1, causing it to lose the top spot and rapidly drop down the rankings.
  3. Nov 11, 2013The "Snapchat" article reached the top of HN but was penalized so heavily at 8:22 am that it dropped off the chart entirely.

Sources

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