[Kaizyn]

The source code used to be open, and it isn't clear what happened to it. Maybe ask over on the arclanguage.org forum as HN is written in arc.

The closest thing to a source repo is this from many years ago: https://github.com/wting/hackernews

[akkartik]

The official sources are at http://arclanguage.org/install

Community-supported version: http://arclanguage.github.io

[j_s]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11176894

> A version of HN's source code is included with the public release of Arc, but HN's algorithm has many extensions that aren't public.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13456306

> We're unlikely to publish all that because doing so would increase two bad things: attempts to game the site, and meta nitpicking.

Including at least at one time a Chrome extension for moderation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11670071#11670562

[dTal]

It's a shame that in closing the door to the pernicious "meta nitpicking", whatever that is, the possibility for constructive analysis of how HN's algorithms shape and mould the behaviour of its dedicated community has also been removed.

[obstinate]

Sufficient amounts of "constructive" analysis by uninvolved and under-informed third parties can be a net negative.

[rimliu]

So how about informing said parties?

[obstinate]

Everything is tradeoffs. Time spent educating outsiders who may or may not be useful can be spent doing other things, like work that moves the ball forward.

[sebastianconcpt]

That would work for good willing people but not for people that is in a political war state of mind

[newsat13]

> We're unlikely to publish all that because doing so would increase two bad things: attempts to game the site, and meta nitpicking.

So security by obscurity helps at times.

[Houshalter]

Someone once did an analysis on HN posts and their ranking relative to the time they were posted and votes. And they found posts with certain keywords were heavily penalized and sort of soft banned from the site. IIRC it included stuff like "NSA" and "HN" and posts from certain sites like reddit and youtube (but I could be remembering.)

Having the full list of banned keywords, or even acknowledging there is a list, could cause drama. And it's easily evaded if people know about it, like when reddit banned "Tesla" posts got through by misspelling it "Telsa".

There's also other stuff like a controversy filter, that detects articles with more comments than votes and penalizes them. I try to avoid commenting in articles that are getting close to the limit to avoid triggering it.

[notatoad]

of course it helps, i don't think anybody's ever denied that. It just shouldn't be relied on.

[flukus]

It's not about security, just content curation.

[thejones]

Reddit has a similar approach if I'm not mistaken.

[CydeWeys]

Passwords are security through obscurity too. Things would be a lot less secure if all passwords were publicly available.

[pdpi]

Security by obscurity is precisely defined as security that relies on the algorithm/implementation itself being private to be able to function. Key material being private does not qualify for this. The alternative is that security through obscurity becomes such an all-encompassing term as to become meaningless

[tlrobinson]

In that case, 256 bit encryption keys are security-through-obscurity too, they're just realllllly obscure.

[kefka]

Indeed. The difference between "Security by obscurity" versus login/passwords is really scale.

Usually, some numbnut "programmer" sets a no-login and a simple password as a secret service account. It invariably is found, and badness ensues.

Whereas login/password is a 1/password_space chance of getting it. It's the combination of a default hidden account and no way to know/change it.

[nailer]

It would be easier if they had a injectable function to handle moderation / anti gaming etc. Release the code publicly with a stub function, then run the real one in prod.

[krapp]

Hacker News deviates from the original Arc code, though. Unfortunately, because YCombinator wants to protect their secret sauce, they're not likely to release anything interesting.

One can hope, though.

[lucasmullens]

It's not like the tech behind Hacker News is what gives it its value. It's because it's associated with Y Combinator. Not sure why they aren't willing to release it.

[krapp]

Because, for some stupid reason, having your startup or blog post appear on the Hacker News frontpage is a Really Big Deal, and the staff don't want anyone peeking at their algorithms to find ways to game the system. Which means the really interesting problems they have to solve like voting ring detection, spam detection, etc. are the ones they don't want anyone to see their solutions to.

Also (personal theory of mine) maybe the code doesn't have the degree of abstraction or separation of concerns necessary to allow open sourcing without also exposing YC business concerns or parts they want to keep secret.

[senorjazz]

ycombinator is 0% of the value IMO. Interesting news and comments for me

[ethbro]

> and comments

Which is to say, the community of users! (You all are awesome... usually)

[frik]

The current code base would be interesting.

The HN frontpage algorithms used to be more predictable, now it's a black box.