Ask HN: Why doesn't HN have a rec algorithm?

[sujayk_33]

I was just wondering about why there's a constant timeline and no recommendation.

[al_borland]

From the FAQ:

How are stories ranked?

The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.

Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.

—-

Personally, I appreciate that the rankings are done at a site level, and there isn’t a bunch of tracking and manipulation to give me a personal “feed” to drive engagement. A lot of comments on this site complain about those practices on other sites. I don’t think it’s welcome here.

[muzani]

This is very much the feature of HN. I want to see what news everyone else is getting.

[A_Duck]

The idea is to discover new things you didn’t know you wanted to know - not consume more of the same

[paulcole]

Why can’t a recommendation engine do that?

[mrkpdl]

It’s much better the way it is - one of the last remaining high quality feeds on the Internet!

(PS please feel free to disagree and post other ones I don’t know about below!)

[sujayk_33]

I agree too.

[kamomkoian]

How do you organize technical articles you read?

I read a lot of backend and architecture articles and often struggle to revisit them later.

I’m curious how others handle this.

Do you: Use Notion or Obsidian? Bookmark everything? Keep markdown notes? Rely on memory?

What has worked long-term for you?

What hasn’t?

[btrettel]

A directory hierarchy works well for me. I've described my setup online before:

https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/173314/31143

https://www.reddit.com/r/datacurator/comments/p75xlu/how_i_o...

I don't read everything I have from start to finish. A lot of this is for future reference.

Since that StackExchange post, I'm now up to about 36.6K PDF files in 4.4K directories, with 14.5K symlinks so I can put files in multiple directories.

I also have a separate version controlled repo with notes a bunch of subjects. I'm planning to eventually merge my PDF hierarchy and the notes to have a unified system. It's going to have to be done in stages.

[idontwantthis]

Because it doesn't serve ads so the point is the content not the engagement.

[paulcole]

The whole site is an ad…

[krapp]

Because it's a bare bones forum written in the early 2000s whose purpose was mostly to show off the author's bespoke LISP dialect.

I think dang mentioned one time having random stories bubble up to give them visibility and encourage variety and people hated it.

[lyaocean]

Shared ranking beats personalized engagement loops.

[chistev]

It's not meant to be addictive, even though it kinda is.

[qsera]

Because shills will game the shit out of it. That is why.