undefined | Better HN

0 pointsjedberg5h ago0 comments

Reddit had a term for people who read the new page -- the knights of new. The small group of people who make the site work by traipsing through the sludge that is the new page, finding the gems within.

We did a lot of experiments to try and get more people to look at the new page or new content. One was placing one new item at the top of your home page and changing that every couple of minutes. The other was the "rising" sort, which was similar to the hot sort on the front page, but much higher velocity.

None of them really worked all that well. The group of people who read new are a unique breed. :)

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asdff1h ago

What percent of the knights of new in 2026 are genuine vs sock puppets designed to seed engagement and get the snowball moving? Probably not a lot, considering most posts on reddit these days seem to come from spam bot accounts that do nothing but post identical links to dozens of subreddits. reddit now allows media accounts to post directly from their own managed accounts, violating the old rules against self promotion.

zamadatix3h ago

Reddit, as I'm sure you know well :D, also had the advantage that non-mega subreddits would often only have a single page of new posts per day to look at. So if you were trolling subreddits direct instead of just the ones you follow (I always hated the combined view) or /r/all then it effectively functioned the same as looking at new.

Anyway, back to the original question: I don't normally follow newest regularly but if I'm on a long flight or something I might get bored and poke around there is anything else there. Often there is something good which never bubbles up.

natureiskino2h ago

Looking at New makes for an unfiltered experience, and you accept the nonsense that comes with that, on any platform. At that point it's still unaffected by the hivemind consensus.

ro_bit3h ago

> We did a lot of experiments to try and get more people to look at the new page or new content

Is that what "best" sort is doing when browsing a specific subreddit? Occasionally I'll notice some crappy 1 minute old post on my feed that's out of place and realize the sorting was reset to "best" instead of "hot" instead

oneeyedpigeon3h ago

You can also just sort by "new" i.e. chronologically.

jedbergOP3h ago

Best is best explained here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20091210094533/http://blog.reddi...

It was actually created by the XKCD team, to be better than hot.

However, they may have changed how it works since then.

SOTGO3h ago

"Best" may include some new posts, I actually haven't checked, but the thing that stands out to me is how old many of the posts are. Ever since Reddit made "best" the default sort on the app I notice that any new subreddit I go to will show me at least some posts from more than two weeks ago. It's really baffling that Reddit seems to think it should be preferred over "hot".

asdff1h ago

I was going to comment I've never seen this before. Then I went to a subreddit and it hit me that I only use old reddit, which lacks the "best" feature.

I'm not sure why people tolerate the new reddit website. It is so slow, busy, and chock full of ads. When I open it on the phone you are straight up missing a lot of discussion comments, so it is broken too. You click a comment it looks like it has no subcomments under it. You click the permalink opening that comment thread in a new window, and there's still no subcomment under it. Now you prefix old. to the url, now you see the subcomments.

Makes me wonder how much discussion there is that is just not observed at all by a good fraction of the site who browses these same threads. Two universes on the same post.

psygn893h ago

On Reddit I often sort by new for comments (which I know isn't the same as new topics), especially on thoughts over whatever thing I'm looking up. Does Hackernews have that ability or am I being blind?

semolino40m ago

My read on HN comment sorting is that just like its frontpage, everyone sees the same comment page. New comments are added to the top, and quickly sink below others unless they are engaged with.

This is just a guess tho, as my account can't (yet?) see comment upvote counts.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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asdff1h ago

zamadatix3h ago

natureiskino2h ago

Looking at New makes for an unfiltered experience, and you accept the nonsense that comes with that, on any platform. At that point it's still unaffected by the hivemind consensus.

ro_bit3h ago

> We did a lot of experiments to try and get more people to look at the new page or new content

oneeyedpigeon3h ago

You can also just sort by "new" i.e. chronologically.

jedbergOP3h ago

Best is best explained here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20091210094533/http://blog.reddi...

It was actually created by the XKCD team, to be better than hot.

However, they may have changed how it works since then.

SOTGO3h ago

asdff1h ago

I was going to comment I've never seen this before. Then I went to a subreddit and it hit me that I only use old reddit, which lacks the "best" feature.

Makes me wonder how much discussion there is that is just not observed at all by a good fraction of the site who browses these same threads. Two universes on the same post.

psygn893h ago

semolino40m ago

My read on HN comment sorting is that just like its frontpage, everyone sees the same comment page. New comments are added to the top, and quickly sink below others unless they are engaged with.

This is just a guess tho, as my account can't (yet?) see comment upvote counts.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse