A Simpler Solution to Give New HN Posts a Better Chance
TL;DR — Make “new” the default page for registered HN users, “front” for visitors who are not logged in. Improve “comments” page to emphasize discovery of rising submissions.
In prev discussion (id=7972941) many discussed mixing new and top posts and how they should be visually differentiated, etc. But there may be a simpler solution.
First, make “new” page default for registered HN users, “front” page for visitors not logged into HN:
1. Visitors get immediate gratification and more mileage for their small time investment.
2. HN users are routinely exposed to the new posts they can vote on. The expectation for all members to play an active curator role is clearly communicated. This can improve onboarding experience for newbies too.
3. New posts get more eyeballs.
Secondly, instead of default page submissions getting all the attention, give rising ones better chance by improving current “comments” page:
1. Make it submission-centric, not comment-centric.
2. Favor new submissions getting its first comments, over top submissions getting its 100th comment.
3. If possible, display it on the default page (be it “new” or “front”) in a sidebar etc. to encourage discovery.
Some mentioned that presence of comments is a better indicator of interesting submissions than upvotes. We need a way to tell which submissions are happening, even if they aren't on the front page. This way, visitors can be attracted to the discussions as they happen as well.
HN does not need to become visually crowded. By simply switching the default page depending on login status and making minor changes to the current “comments” page I think you can get 80% of the improvement. Hope others jump in, criticize this, and come up with a good synthesis.