[Meta] how the ranking actually works, with the formula
Asked about four times a month, so here it is in one place. All four sorts are pure functions of score, up/down split and timestamp. There is no personalisation, no engagement weighting and no editorial thumb.
- Hot —
log10(max(|score|,1)) + sign(score) × seconds/45000. Order of magnitude of the score, plus a linear age term. Age decays hard, which is why a 400-point post from Tuesday sits above a 4,000-point post from last year. - Top — raw score inside the selected time window. The one you probably want.
- Rising —
score ÷ (age hours + 2)^1.35, windowed to the newest slice. - Controversial —
(up + down) ^ (min/max). Magnitude times balance, so 500↑/480↓ ranks far above 9↑/9↓. - New — timestamp, descending. That is the whole algorithm.
Publishing them because a ranking you cannot inspect is just a preference with extra steps.
best — the order this archive was captured in
The controversial formula is the interesting one and I want to explain why for anyone who skimmed it.
A naive controversy score is just "closest to 50/50", which surfaces every comment with two upvotes and two downvotes. Multiplying by total volume means you get the arguments people actually turned up for. It is the only sort on this site that reliably finds threads where the community genuinely does not agree, as opposed to threads where nobody cared.
correct, and it is why controversial is my own default browse. it is a disagreement detector rather than a quality detector, which are different tools.
i only browse new. hot has already been filtered by whoever was awake.
which is a real selection effect and it is baked into every score on the site. the vote count is a measurement of who was online, not of what is true.
upvotes measure agreement, not accuracy. it is on the disclaimer page and it should be on the front page.
Adding this to the meta wiki. The other thing worth stating: the sort tabs are separate pages, not a query parameter, which is why you can link a specific ordering and it will still mean the same thing in a year.
while we are here: can we get a flair between Question and Discussion for posts that are really "argue with me"
Propose the wording in a top-level Meta post and I will put it to the other mods. Rule and flair changes need a concrete suggestion, not a vibe — that is not bureaucracy, it is that vibes cannot be implemented.
does the ranking do anything about twelve upvotes in four minutes on a two-day-old comment. edit: answered below, it does not, and i respect the honesty.
publishing the formula just tells people how to game it
- 1The controversial formula is the interesting one and I want to explain why…6 comments in this branch · started by u/controversial_only