undefined | Better HN

0 pointsxnorswap3y ago0 comments

It's a new article so it's relatively easy to explain:

HN automatically combines submissions so that subsequent submissions count as upvotes for the first submission.

If a popular source posts a new article, users will "rush" to post it to HN to reap that sweet karma and the winner will "catch" the upvotes of the others.

0 comments

tpmx3y ago

That could explain it. Thanks!

Is this behavior documented anywhere on news.ycombinator.com?

mindcrime3y ago

There isn't a ton of documentation per-se about HN behavior. There is:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

and

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

and a handful of posts by dang, sama, pg, etc. over the course of the years. most of the rest is what long-time users have just figured out through observation. There's a Git repo[1] out there that aggregates a lot of that stuff, but keep in mind that it's technically unofficial. That said, I think most of what's there is widely considered to be correct.

[1]: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

tpmx3y ago

Thanks, that's a good summary of what I've seen referenced throughout my years here.

I can't find any reference to something like "combine the scores of new submissions of the same URL to the first submission's score" though. I guess that's either new information or incorrect.

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j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsxnorswap3y ago0 comments

It's a new article so it's relatively easy to explain:

HN automatically combines submissions so that subsequent submissions count as upvotes for the first submission.

If a popular source posts a new article, users will "rush" to post it to HN to reap that sweet karma and the winner will "catch" the upvotes of the others.

0 comments

tpmx3y ago

That could explain it. Thanks!

Is this behavior documented anywhere on news.ycombinator.com?

mindcrime3y ago

There isn't a ton of documentation per-se about HN behavior. There is:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

and

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

[1]: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

tpmx3y ago

Thanks, that's a good summary of what I've seen referenced throughout my years here.

I can't find any reference to something like "combine the scores of new submissions of the same URL to the first submission's score" though. I guess that's either new information or incorrect.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse