I've been here fairly regularly for 8 years and didn't know about it, so I'm not sure I agree that it's "well known". It definitely isn't in the FAQ's section about how stories are ranked: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html -- which, in my opinion, would be an excellent place to describe it.

I'm glad dang answered though since I've been wondering for quite a while why some stories seemed to sink much faster than others.

Putting it in the FAQ is a good idea, and if anyone who doesn't see it there in a week or two would email hn@ycombinator.com to bug me about it, I'd be thankful. Except wait, are you saying anyone reads the FAQ?

An idea that came up recently which we're mulling over is showing 'vouch' links (or something analogous) on stories that are being penalized this way, so users can indicate that they think a discussion is really substantive.

Sure, I'll check in a week or so and remind you if needed.

> Except wait, are you saying anyone reads the FAQ?

Fair point :)

The 'vouch' idea is interesting, but I'm not sure if you really need another click mechanism to accomplish it -- if people above a certain karma threshold are voting it up, it's a topic that people integrated into the community do think is worth being seen, regardless of the quality of the discussion currently in the thread. That said, it might be worth trying -- having a visible indicator might result in a different reaction; it's possible that the majority of such stories would get vouched, which could be a useful signal in tuning your algorithm.

> if people above a certain karma threshold are voting it up

Sadly, that just doesn't work as well as it seems like it ought to. In fact it's crazy how well it doesn't work.

You could try the opposite: give entirely random people the ability to vouch.

I have no idea if this would work, but.. I've been doing lots of ML lately where it is often pretty hard to beat random, and throwing noise into a system make it much more robust.

I agree about noise, but you'd need to be careful. People would try to game it by giving themselves as many random chances as possible, by making many accounts or doing whatever was necessary.

It could undermine the legitimacy of the system, as well as put more load on the server.

As with most "well-known" things, it is well-known by people who know.