zlacker

It's the same algorithm, but it only considers upvotes by users who registered before (checking the code...) December 13, 2008. That's long ago—only (checking the data...) 1.5% of HN accounts existed back then. Yet the "classic" frontpage is not that different from the main frontpage. This was the main conclusion when pg launched the feature: >>607271 , and again in 2011: >>2073513 .

What that tells me is that the forces creating the HN front page don't have much to do with changes in the userbase over time. That's interesting, and I think to most people (me included, and pg probably included) counterintuitive.

>>dang+(OP)
This is an excellent find!

My memory is hazy but I probably found out about HN via Slashdot or via Michael Arrington's HN post [0] from Mar. 10, 2008; so I have been reading HN since before Dec. 13, 2008 and still come back because of some really good conversations that can be had here, compared to elsewhere on the Internet.

0: https://techcrunch.com/2008/03/10/little-known-hacker-news-i...

>>dang+(OP)
It's an interesting result - it only counts upvotes by users from before December 2008 who are still active on the site

After all, if you changed HN into a My Little Pony discussion site you'd lose 98% of old users, retaining the 2% who like ponies - and thereafter, 100% of remaining old users would like ponies.

>>michae+ov
That's a good point. But there are a lot of users from 2008 still active on the site. It would be interesting to see how the attrition rate has changed over time, but I've never looked into that.