Two HN Announcements

We alpha-tested that and it didn't work. The median item on /newest is far too low-quality (by HN's definition) for randomness to do much good there. In practice, it just mixes junk onto the front page—the worst thing that can happen to the front page.

(I've posted about this a few times; let me see if I can find the links.)

Edit: I found some of them, in addition to the ones scott_s mentioned downthread.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&date...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9866140 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8790134

Those links are about an experiment we tried that did work, and which we've expanded. If you get an invitation asking you to repost a story, that's the latest incarnation of this. Where we're stuck is on figuring out a way to let the community manage it that wouldn't just reduce to how upvoting works now. We're working on it though.

No need to mix then. Display it separately. On the bottom or on the left. Something has to be done with new submissions.

What about adding a couple of random "new" articles at the end of the front page, clearly marking them as "new"?

This would help people that simply don't take the time to click the "new" button often enough - people like me - to contribute to the initial selection much more often.

But junk would be completely expected in this case, wouldn't it?

The simplest option would seem to tag these mixins somehow to make them obvious and, perhaps, allow opting out of this altogether in the account settings.

I'd urge you to try it again, but on a large scale. I know I personally would tolerate one questionable entry on the FP if it frees me from the need to do the /new duty.

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(Edit) I should've not said "mix a random story", but rather "show a random story", somewhere on the FP, at a fixed place and clearly marked as such. This is it.

That's precisely my sentiment. I want to help with policing the /new page, but I am too lazy to actually do it.

The latter also mentions the old thing that did not work, where you just pulled a random post for /newest, and put it at the bottom of the front page. I see the current, successful, technique as an iteration of the failed one.

Ah thanks!