[HNPoints]

The source code for Hacker News is available with the Arc download. pg has said that the actual ranking algorithm differs slightly from the code listed in order to thwart abuse, but for the purposes of ranges I thought it'd be close enough. Knowing the time, relative ranking, and the known scores of participants, the ranges are basically "how many points would this comment need to be one rank higher/lower".

[brianpan]

Thanks for this extension.

A suggestion- I understand what you're trying to convey with the point range, but for usability I'd prefer always seeing one number there. I don't mind a best guess and marking the score as an approximate number. Having to mentally parse ranges and less than symbols adds a slight speed bump.