Re:Why HN Should Use Randomized Algorithms
by pmiller2 on Monday December 02, 2013 @08:42AM
(#6833532)
>Giving a randomness to the whole sorting of the articles could have a "noisy" effect on users who update the home page often.
Yes, but not much. Provided the amount of noise is small enough, the order of articles on the front page may change a bit, but the articles themselves won't change much. I don't know much about the typical distribution of scores of articles on the front page at any given moment, but I suspect even the order of most of the page probably won't be affected.
Think about it this way: pushing an article that's already high up on the home page up or down a little in ranking won't push it off the front page. It's only the bottom of the page (and the top of page 2) that would even be materially affected.
On the other end, PG could just add a line at the end of the home page to show one post randomly selected from the new articles. This way we could all contribute to the selection of new articles, instead of only relying on those brave souls who regularly wade through the "new" page.