[dageroth]

I think two useful pieces information could be added to the ranking algorithm: the ratio of clicks/view and the ratio of upvotes/clicks - basically the conversion rates of an article, which should be more telling than just the total number of upvotes. If a story is read by 10 people and nine upvoted it, it's a much better story (although with a bad title perhaps) than a story which was read by a thousand people and upvoted 10 times. If a submission gets less upvotes and clicks because it comes in at a time with not too much traffic or comes with a bad title these factors could offset the penalty it receives.

It's not necessarily trivial to count the views of an item, since the ranking quickly changes, but at least the number of clicks should be trivial. One should also weigh the clicks and upvotes according to rank as the rank itself influences the likelihood of a click or upvote.

Also I'd take into account the number of people who submitted a story - a submission is a much stronger vote of quality then a simple upvote.