Is SN daily reward a problem? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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855 sats \ 27 comments \ @Fenix 8 Oct AskSN

I see a lot of posts that seem random or poorly rehashed just to meet the goal of getting a share of SN’s daily reward. I believe bad posts and even worse comments get nothing since they can be downvoted if someone notices the pattern. This post made me rethink this: isn't the fact that many old posts get forgotten and lifeless a symptom of the need to fill new topics daily, even if empty, to grab a share of the reward instead of reviving good old content that's being buried by new posts that say the same thing?

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222 sats \ 15 replies \ @k00b 8 Oct

We discussed this on monday. In November we'll remove trust from ranking, overhaul rewards, and allow old content to be zapped into the frontpage.

31 sats \ 9 replies \ @grayruby 8 Oct

I suggest just one old post a day should be able make it into the hot and top lists. It encourages newer users to explore some SN classics each day but ensures the hot and top lists are fresh and not just filled with old posts.

162 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 8 Oct

I prefer Hot to continue its emphasis on recency. I'm not sure if I would derive much value in having it surface old posts, especially if there isn't active discussion in that old post.

That being said, my most used view other than Hot is now recent/comments to see where the new activity is. I wonder if that should be a one-click promoted view, rather than the multiple steps I need to take to get there currently.

Lastly, I do think there should be a better way to surface evergreen content for new users, I just don't think Hot is the best place to do that. The search bar is one such place, but I'm not sure how good of a job that does.

A fundamental question is whether users approach SN as a place to find information (evergreen quality more important), or a place to have conversations (recency & activity more important). I sense that most users are using it for the latter rather than the former.

For the former, it's probably more important to get some more SEO visibility through common search engines like Google. I do notice that some search terms in Google do surface SN on the front page, which is good, but anything that can be done to improve that would be helpful.

71 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 8 Oct

If we get personalized hot feeds again, then you'll only get old posts showing up when stackers you trust are zapping them.

That might correlate with new activity on the post.
You might have missed the post the first time through.

I'd ask why Stacker News should take a hard stance on the time-horizon for highlighting posts. Most likely it will be new posts that are heavily featured, but if an old post finds new life, why shouldn't the rewards system reflect that?

62 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 8 Oct

That's fair. I think I'd value a resurfacing of old posts if there's new comments, but not necessarily if there's new zaps.

Fair point about missing good posts the first time around though.

61 sats \ 5 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 8 Oct

I'm not sure what the plans are, but I don't think it should get into the TOP feed, just the HOT one. TOP should be reserved only for posts ranked by creation date. We could have a limit on old posts in the HOT feed, but it should be more than one, I'd say 10. Ahah

71 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 8 Oct

It'd only be hot and the old content zaps would be competitive with new content zaps.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 8 Oct

If there's no trust score, is the amount of sats gonna be the deciding factor?

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 8 Oct

yes

22 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 8 Oct

I do like the idea of some classics popping up once and awhile but I don't know about 10.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 8 Oct

The limit's just there to stop people from abusing it. I'm not necessarily saying it has to be 10, though; that's gonna depend on what the stackers do. It could be 0, 1, ... up to a max of 10.

35 sats \ 2 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 8 Oct

So, you're saying if I zapped an old post with enough sats, it'll get pushed to the front page?

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 8 Oct

Yes

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 8 Oct

That sounds cool. Dropping a comment could also bump the post to the front page, just like it does on delvingbitcoin.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Fenix OP 9 Oct

Good news. Will you reveal the details in November? I hope these changes help highlight good discussions so they don’t die out quickly like they do now. I really like searching on SN first before ending up on dedicated pages and even old Reddit posts.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 9 Oct

Yes of course

123 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 8 Oct

I see a lot of posts that seem random or poorly rehashed just to meet the goal of getting a share of SN’s daily reward

You mean the slop comments? Or like the post I spent 5h on yesterday?

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Fenix OP 9 Oct

I’m not talking about an specific post or comment here, I was conjecturing about the whole situation of this kind of things. I’ll check your post btw, because you PoW on it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 9 Oct

I think that the top ranked stackers (by value) at a given time put in a lot of work into their posts. Some by sharing or zapping high volume, others by putting in the work to bring great original content - I don't see anyone low-effort dominating the top stackers often, especially not if you look at weekly.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 9 Oct

yes

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @nkmg1c_ventures 8 Oct

I was the one who made that question thread you linked to (the one about old posts) The reason I was asking is because I wanted to genuinely pump another post that (in my opinion) should have seen more eyeballs. I forwarded the sats entirely to the original poster so it wasn't even about getting sats for myself.

I like the sats upvoting mechanism, but it should be obvious that it's possible for quality posts/shares to slip between the cracks.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix OP 9 Oct

I didn’t notice the post that you mentioned there. Your post rise great questions to me and many other here in SN. Ty about that.

I like the zap and downzap system here because the weight of zap is highest than just like or dislike

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @justin_shocknet 8 Oct

Are they weighted towards posts instead of comments? If so I think that's a problem... comment density should be higher, SN is a BBS more than anything else and should lean into that.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @adlai 13 Oct

Conversations should definitely be encouraged equally even if they're not "hot" and seeing new posts at an hourly frequency. Some people have high signal precisely because they're doing things other than authoring high-quality prose for a bulletin board, and if their participation is only incentivised when they spend hours catering to artificial engagement metrics, then they might avoid the place entirely and stick to doing their thing and posting about it through services that deliver content sequentiallly rather than algorithmically.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix OP 9 Oct

I like to open a good post and see a lot of comments there pounding about the topic and learn within it. In the same way is sad see a comment zone empty for a good content for any reasons.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LetMeSleep 19 Oct

I hate the system of daily rewards

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @SilentHash 8 Oct

I agree—low-effort posts are easy to spot, and once users notice the pattern, it’s hard to recover. It’s like being silently flagged. I think the best strategy is to engage with content you genuinely care about. That way your comments flow naturally, and your reputation builds organically.