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by parineum 1243 days ago
> Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes.

It doesn't have to be personal to be editorial. Newspapers, for example.

I can sort by "top" which gives me the most votes in the given time period. I can sort by "new" which gives me the posts in chronological order. I can also sort by "hot" which serves posts in an unknown way that reddit has decided means they are driving interaction.

To me, what makes "hot" different is that it's a trade secret. "hot" is the thing that other sites don't have. "hot" shows you posts that you're more likely to be interested in (as apposed to "new" or "top"), even if it's not personal, to drive engagement.
4 comments
jedberg 1243 days ago
Hot is not a trade secret. How it works is public information. Here the code:

https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/master/r2/r2/l...

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edgyquant 1243 days ago
No that is how old Reddit worked before it went closed source and evolved into a social media app over the top site with comments it used to be
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Am4TIfIsER0ppos 1243 days ago
> Latest commit d990533 Aug 17, 2015

Unless you run your own instance of reddit how can you be sure that is what is used?

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edgyquant 1243 days ago
It’s definitely not what’s used anymore. Reddit went closed source and when they did so they gave one reason being their internal codebase had completely diverged and moved to micro services
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MacsHeadroom 1243 days ago
My understanding is that Hot is basically voting velocity times total votes.

This is similar to "rising," which is essentially just voting velocity.

The only editorialized "secret sauce" algorithm reddit has is called "recommended."

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shadowgovt 1243 days ago
> It doesn't have to be personal to be editorial. Newspapers, for example.

And in terms of the topic, this is the relevant framework to consider the question.

It's already established law that newspaper editors can be held liable for maliciously false reporting in their papers, even though the editor is not the originator of the words.

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hoseja 1243 days ago
None of those show you what the powermods (in collusion with the admins) didn't deem fit for your consumption.
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