dang, i pitched this on reddit like 20 years ago. I've always wanted to know what putting the new page on the front page would do to content quality. Something like this https://keizo.github.io/hackernews/
We tried a variant of that once and it failed hard, because people have strongly different emotional responses to the front page vs. the newest page. Mixing the two produced a strong aversion.
Interesting! Like less overall engagement? Was it fully mixed or in distinct columns. I feel like it makes a difference.
I would at least interact with the new content if it was on the page. Vs almost never now. I assume people that are active on the new page must be 1% of users or mostly those directly involved with the story.
Anyway, thanks for the response and keep the place sane.