it's from 2345 days ago, which is < 7 years and I'm guessing it had a reasonable lifetime after that anyway - how come you're thinking that it's > 7 years old?
And my point wasn't so much about the actual algorithm either, just that sometimes a pinch of Google = a dollop of calculus :)
reddit's is open source and available for anyone to see. Knowing the algorithm doesn't help you game it in this case -- it's knowing the spam controls that do, and those are secret.
From the point of view of someone gaming HN, there's nothing to be gained by knowing the ranking algorithm. It doesn't matter if you know five flags will bump you off the front page, or that mods can adjust the position of your story, because that's not something that you can use to your advantage. The only thing you'd be able to do with that info is to use it maliciously, like flag a story off the front page. But everyone already knows that you can remove a story via flags, and it's pretty easy to figure out how many flags are required.
Honestly the argument "there are bad people, we need to worry about them" is getting tired. It was cool when pg was showing off Arc to the community. It felt like we were all discovering something new, and how to build a community together.
A person trying to game the front page could get all kinds of useful info from there. For instance how the flame detector and voting ring detector work and what penalties exist and when they trigger. The ranking algorithm is a lot more than a simple formula.
There was a flame detector (and presumably a voting ring detector) six years ago, but it wasn't revealed by pg showing off that algorithm. Dan could just redact whatever he's not comfortable showing.
it's from 2345 days ago, which is < 7 years and I'm guessing it had a reasonable lifetime after that anyway - how come you're thinking that it's > 7 years old?
And my point wasn't so much about the actual algorithm either, just that sometimes a pinch of Google = a dollop of calculus :)