Hacker News ranking

The HN FAQ says the basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted ¹. In 2010 Paul Graham posted the code then running: points minus one, raised to 0.8, divided by the age in hours plus two, raised to a gravity of 1.8 ²³⁴. The often quoted (P−1)/(T+2)^1.8 is the version he called close to the current one, but a little out of date ⁵. Compare Reddit hot ranking, which adds time instead of dividing by it.

Votes and age are not the whole story. The FAQ lists user flags, anti-abuse software, software that demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action ¹, and says you can't derive rank from votes and time alone ². In the 2010 code a post with no URL was multiplied by 0.4 ³, and a controversy factor was there, in Graham's words, to recognize flamewars ⁴. Karma does not help: posts by high-karma users do not rank higher ⁵.

Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with; blog posts, sign-up pages and newsletters are off topic ¹². Every Show HN appears on the shownew list, and once it clears a small points threshold it also appears on the show page in the top bar ³. Asking friends to upvote is not ok ⁴, and HN penalizes or bans submissions, accounts and sites that do it ⁵.