[pringle]

It's a cool implementation, but I see one major flaw: unlike HN and other social news/submission sites, its popularity ranking doesn't seem to factor in when items were submitted.

Hence, if you take a look, the top three items there were submitted 3 months, 4 months, and one year ago, respectively. That might work for Best Buy's intentions, but generally that wouldn't make for a very sticky/relevant site. Would really like to see them incorporate date of submission into rankings.

[jefflin]

There is a half-life decay algorithm built in, so ideas lose points over time if they are not voted for. We can always improve this, but it does look like the top ideas do indeed continually get votes.

[pcantrell]

Furthermore, once you've voted for an idea, you can't re-vote for it. You get one vote one time for one idea, and its value decays exponentially over time.

So to remain at the top, an idea has to keep getting new votes _from new users_.

The ideas at the top of the list have been there for a long time because they're good ideas, and they having staying power.

(Note that you can change the vote decay rate depending on whether your site is more interested in what's hot now, or what's popular over the long term.)

[benhedrington]

Good idea, I'll let the team know that would widen the potential user base considerably. I think you are right for our needs recency is not as important as mass up votes.