[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why were a few rank numbers black on the hom...
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Ask HN: Why were a few rank numbers black on the homepage?
The HN homepage has five ranks colored black rather than gray.
Currently this is "Learning how to ride a bike", "Log4j: Between a
rock and a hard place", "How to train your decision-making AIs",
"Carolina Gold was once the most popular rice grown in America
(2019)", and "Packaging for instant coffee made out of seaweed". It
seems to follow the story, e.g. the bike story was #12 before and
now it's #13: the color moved with it. They do not have in common a
recent/old submission time, high/low score, or high/low comments.
The HTML difference is `<font color="black">$rank</font>` being
inserted around the rank. It also shows up in incognito mode with
the same ones colored black, so I don't think it's account-related.
(Some rambling follows, I'm not actually serious about a secret
hidden meaning, just a toy idea. Most likely it's something like
low comment downvotes to attract attention to the story.) My first
thought was that the numbers had a hidden meaning as a puzzle or
respect, maybe someone died who invented the equivalent of a
Fibonacci sequence. Looking in the OEIS, 1,4,6,12,18 did not mean
anything obvious (http://oeis.org/search?q=1%2C4%2C6%2C12%2C18).
Then I noticed the numbers changed... but not pseudorandomly, but
with the stories, so it seems that the numbers are irrelevant. Is
it about the title? If you read the first title character of each,
you get LCHPL. If you read the 1st character of the first, the 2nd
character of the 2nd, etc., you get LAWKN. Not yet seeing that
hidden meaning. Edit: To everyone saying a hot indicator, I
thought of that and it doesn't seem to make sense. E.g. go to page
3 and observe this one being black: > 4 points by [user] 7 hours
ago There are currently (22:47 UTC) actually 3 black on the third
page, which seems a bit inconsistent with what I saw earlier
(earlier: first page had 4, next page had 1, next page had 0).
Author : lucb1e
Score : 63 points
Date : 2021-12-11 22:19 UTC (40 minutes ago)
| dang wrote:
| Oops, that was supposed to be moderator-only. There are lots of
| complexities like that in the mod UI to help those of us whose
| job it is to stare at the front page. (I've done a s/are/were/ to
| the title above to preserve its accuracy.)
|
| In this case, the rank was black when it was the highest rank
| reached by the story so far.
|
| I'm trying to figure out good visual ways to make use of the
| information (1) highest rank reached by story; (2) amount of time
| the story has spent on the front page; (3) amount of time since
| story reached its highest rank.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Darn, I was really hoping (if my mod-only thing theory turned
| out to be correct) for something more sinister than "highest
| rank so far". Maybe a clever algorithm to detect a higher ratio
| of comments by exceptionally affable users.
|
| Thanks for the answer :)
| minimaxir wrote:
| On Christmas, the rank numbers alternate between black/green and
| red.
|
| But this isn't alternation. Very odd.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Yes, that's one of the things it made me think of as well.
| Perhaps an accidental push to prod while testing something for
| this year's Christmas?
| exolymph wrote:
| Intriguingly, this post was one of them when I saw it. Lol. Maybe
| dang will show up to explain.
| ajsfoux234 wrote:
| For me, there were four black-colored stories on the front page,
| and the fifth black-colored story was #56 on the second page.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| For me it changed each time I visited another discussion page, or
| maybe just as I refreshed, currently only number 1 is back and it
| is no longer changing.
|
| Edit: after posting this comment #3 (this story) changed to
| black.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| Is HN still written in LISP? I think it's time it's written in a
| modern type-safe language. You know what I mean.
| thechao wrote:
| Like Common Lisp?
| lucb1e wrote:
| I think they were joking about Java because of log4j.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| (my guess) those rising faster than some threshold, over some
| period of time.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Unless I miscounted in my head, that does not seem to hold
| true. Could be wrong though. Is it purely a guess or did you
| look at some stories and conclude this?
|
| Edit: see the addition to the TS, I noticed some counter-
| evidence towards this theory.
| [deleted]
| edoceo wrote:
| Looks to me to be a "hot" indicator. Like lots of recent upvotes.
| samwillis wrote:
| I think you are mostly right, it looks to me like stories that
| are rising up the page, rather than dropping or stationary.
|
| Could it be a feature that is usually visible to mods or highly
| ranked users but has accidentally been opened up?
|
| (Also I have a vague feeling is seeing this before)
|
| Edit: 100% sure this is right. Also this story just dropped
| from 2nd to 13th instantaneously. Thinking as it's HN Meta it's
| probably (understandably) been flagged by a mod...
| lucb1e wrote:
| > it looks to me like stories that are rising up the page,
| rather than dropping or stationary.
|
| The bike story went from 12 to 13 but was still black. Might
| only be recomputed periodically, but it doesn't seem to make
| sense to update this at a different frequency than the rank
| itself.
|
| > Could it be a feature that is usually visible to mods or
| highly ranked users but has accidentally been opened up?
|
| That has also crossed my mind. Whatever it is, I'm intrigued
| now!
| polote wrote:
| A post can be black on the front while not be black when reading
| from /active or /classic. So this not something tied to a post.
| And it seems to change every minute or something like that
| lucb1e wrote:
| It might just be enabled for the front page only, not that it
| has nothing to do with the post itself. Also because it colors
| the rank rather than something about the post, and the front
| page rank is code that runs only on the front page. You could
| also be right, of course, but it doesn't really seem to fit the
| evidence.
| Uptrenda wrote:
| Whatever feature this is for its too subtle to notice. I would
| have never noticed the difference without you pointing it out.
| lucb1e wrote:
| A friend said the same. I'm curious how much of that is display
| contrast or environmental lighting and how much of it is
| personal (noticing odd details, quick DIY autism test (jk)).
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(page generated 2021-12-11 23:00 UTC)