Ask HN: Who Votes on New Submissions? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Who Votes on New Submissions?

17 pointsabranti13 comments

I have been using HN for a while now. I always check the top posts only, looking at the new submissions doesn’t seem worth it because most of them won’t be interesting.. But for HN to work someone must be going through all that noise early on and upvoting the good ones.

How many of you are doing that? Why? And, thank you whoever you are!

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I often look at the "new" section.

In fact, that's where I found this submission.

You say that "looking at the new submissions doesn’t seem worth it because most of them won’t be interesting."

I say that finding stuff worthy of upvoting puts my preferences into the mix.

The stuff that makes it to the front page is often fabulous, but I have interests that diverge from the mean around here (don't we all?). As such, I get to upvote (and discuss) stuff that may or may not make to the front page, but I'm better informed and have a wider selection for it.

Are you aware of /asknew

It’s a feature only recently added to HN.

I was not.

Thank you!

A reminder that past the "lists" link in the site footer you can find the public second chance pool [0] and overlooked links [1] which might contain content worth more visibility.

I wish they would remove items from those lists after they gain traction, though, or sort them in reverse.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/pool

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/invited

I find it the opposite. I typically find the top posts less interesting than new posts though I admit the new posts can often be less on topic.

I skim the titles of the first 3-4 pages of the main feed (top posts).

Then I skim the titles of the first 3-4 pages of "new", maybe more depending on how many are good vs. spammy.

I really enjoy both, but if I had to pick it would be "new". It's seconds of effort to pick through the spammy new posts and I'll often find interesting things there that don't "get traction" for no real reason.

And - as much as everyone, myself included, is attracted to a good dumpster fire [1], I really do prefer articles that are technically or historically oriented and that I either learn from or could even constructively comment on. Vs. politics. Meh. Perhaps the scoring system for "top articles" over emphasizes too much comments and views (which could be just bickering or controversy) over content.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25201798

After you make a submission, you're taken to the the newest submissions, which implicitly encourages you to take a look at them.

Also, some people go to /ask or other lists to see specific types of posts, even if they didn't bubble up to the front page.

I have Ask and Show in my feed, to boost good submissions from these categories.

How have you created a custom HN feed?

I use the Feedly App on my Android phone. There you can add and mix different HN feeds, like New, Ask, Show or Best.

Occasionally. Not as much as I should do. I frequently see fantastic stuff fly through /newest that never makes the front page. Luckily my business is sharing such links in more specialized places.

I never used to, but I've started.

If I'm commenting it's only fair to boost, but often anything I actually read and enjoyed I'll throw a vote if I think it should overtake the rest.

I read them all the time. Why? There's a lot of interesting stuff there. I come back later for comments.

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