Fresh Hot Stuff
That title isn’t meant to be vague. It refers to the Hot Posts and Hot Blogs lists on the front page. I think we’re not alone in getting a little tired of seeing the same items showing up for hours or days at a time. It was time to shake things up. The rankings are still in order but now they vary with every page load.
We’re now showing a random, top-heavy sample of the top posts and blogs. That is, we display more items from rankings 1-10 than 11-20 and so on. Rank 1 is always shown in the top spot. The next spot is a random selection from ranks 2-3. The next one is from 4-6, then 7-10. Thus even the 50th most popular post can be on the home page about one tenth of the time.
The odds that the page will show the same 10-item list are something like 3,628,800:1 against. The probability distribution is shown here:
item | odds | ranks 1 | 1:1 | 1 2 | 2:1 | 2-3 3 | 3:1 | 4-6 4 | 4:1 | 7-10 5 | 5:1 | 11-15 6 | 6:1 | 16-21 7 | 7:1 | 22-28 8 | 8:1 | 29-36 9 | 9:1 | 37-45 10 | 10:1 | 46-55 11 | 11:1 | 56-66 12 | 12:1 | 67-78 13 | 13:1 | 79-91
I could get even more technical, explaining how we make the lists when there are not enough ranked items, but the odds that you’ll be interested are 14,285:1 against.
I hope this makes the front page more interesting for regular visitors. The complete rankings are still available at BOTD, updated hourly and archived nightly.
- October 6, 2006
- Community, WordPress.com
and we were just discussing this in the forum. wonderful news. here’s to finding many more interesting sites on the front page to look up.
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Hey, that’s a great idea! More WordPress love for the rest of us. 🙂
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Sounds cool!
Eoin
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now.. this is cool!
finally more stuff besides the top few blog…s~
refresh-ing!
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Thanks Guys for listening to us!
Way to go!
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You know, HTML has tables support, largely removing the need for ASCII art tables. 😛
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Why not focus on the content instead of a number? What about reviewing a blog once or twice a week that doesn’t focus on the number of hits it received.
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Wow! If you had an infinite improbability drive with those numbers you could be way out there man! 😉
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Thanks!!! 😉
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Great idea!
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Great news, keep up the good work!
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great! thanks a lot 🙂
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awesome
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Very nice idea, Thanks!
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@avuee:
they already sorta do that…
check out http://bestblog.wordpress.com/
> Why not focus on the content instead
> of a number? What about reviewing a
> blog once or twice a week that doesn’t
> focus on the number of hits it
> received.
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I don’t understand at all, but if everybody thinks it’s great well then IT’S A GREAT THING!!!
Congrats…
Ps: sorry for mu lack of understanding… i don’t like numbers
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I like this, but I have to admit, I don’t often hit the top posts or top blogs.
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you’re wrong andy. the chances of us being interested in the technicalities of this are a gazillion to one against.
anyways, another great peice of work. thanks a lot.
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i’d like this on the dashboard, if at all possible…
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Wow. Now if you would open it up to the top million or so posts and blogs, I might stand an ever so slight chance of getting on the list 😉
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Cool. I’m quite happy to hear about this. 🙂
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you and yer fancy book learnin.
Sound kewl to me.
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An interesting approach from a mathematically inclined mind to be sure. However as I’m of a more artistic bent I’ll have to read it over at least a couple more times to comprehend it. At this point what I think I understand is randomness has been introduced – kewl.;)
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The texts at the page
http://botd.wordpress.com/?lang=ta
isn’t showing correctly
I think the “complex script” for “level-2” support in Unicode is scrumbled.
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Good One
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I think avuee’s suggestion is a great idea.
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So…does that mean there’ll be a chance to see other blogs and posts other than Mary Kay and Anouseh?!
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I love how quickly you guys listen to us about this stuff.
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i certainly didn’t see this one coming, despite the ongoing discussion at the wordpress forums!
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But I kinda DON’T like this.
Its no logner “Top Posts” then you know.
May be it should be done as Top Posts for the last 24 hours basis. So every hour the counter abandons the old hits and you see top posts of the last 24 hours!
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So you mean you don’t actually want people to have to see which blogs are the most popular? Pity. 🙂
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:D!
Cool!
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That is sweet, now it’d be cool if we were told what rank we approx were…
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Like noted before, cool feature. However, while it’s awesome to be able to see what other blogs are ‘hot’ right now, honestly, I’m just happy to hit WordPress.com and NOT see ‘Scobleizer’.
Ugh.
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What a fun way to keep the top list interesting and fresh. Great use of math and probabilities — still rewards the best posts, but also provides a bit of equity and opportunity for others. Fantastic idea.
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I like the system but I don’t think I’ll ever qualify until I become US President overnight. 🙂
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not sure if it really matters anyhow or if someone is waiting for advertising when those doors open. will see but love the new pic feature just back from my honeymoon and love to enlarge the pics. thanks for that.
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The more the merrier =D; and I have to agree with engtech..you guys are great!
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Cool.
CAYO!!
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I’ve only been with WP for a really short period of time but yes, I’d noticed the repetition on the front page.
However, it certainly wasn’t all bad.
Yesterday, for the first time, I stuck my (ever increasing) nose into the Mary Kay Blog (a topic of which I normally have absolutely zero interest in and found a really interesting series of comments / arguments being bantered about.
Nonetheless, minus that little treasure of a moment, a change would be lovely!
Thank you ever so much.
xx SP xx
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Nice…..
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awesome!
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Thats ok but i thought interesting sites are determined by thier popularity anyway thats a great idea am still trying to understand the logic behind it.
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why dont u guys give at least one blog or post which was never readd.. the idea is kinda foolish, but top post anyway are getting plenty of readers, and that keeps them motivated to write ..
but there are lot ppl who dont get reader or any reponse and slowly self pushed motivation dies one day. i know we do not blog to get reader, but then how long one would like to be in isolation.. we need co, we need to form grp of like minded ppl. and blogs will help to do that
also it will help wordpress to reatain readers and more visitors …
thx & rgds
a foolish idea from foolish blogger
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good work
i just think you need to be less draconian with your profanity and bad words filter. mine is a political and activist blog and we discuss child-pornography, rape, genocide, and those kind of things often, and its unfair that even though i have numerous posts that pull in about 5000 hits over three days i still can’t make any of these lists. i think your monitoring should by blog to blog not post to post.
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some of my posts pull in 5000 to 10,000 hits over three days and i still can’t find a way onto these lists. that reveals that these lists are not at all comprehensive or accurate. you need to find a better filter, please.
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WordPress is the best!
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Great idea, we love it!
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I agree with AVUEE “Why not focus on the content instead of a number? What about reviewing a blog once or twice a week that doesn’t focus on the number of hits it received.” and i add why not review blogs that allways have readers, not some day yes, other day not
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CooOOOOOOOOOOOLLL
Keep inventing!!
Thanks a lot..
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Very cool stuff. And lookie: there I am! *runs off to buy self a congratulatory drink*
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Sounds good to me.
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I’m glad you’re doing the math thing because I realllly have no idea about that sort of stuff. *Way over my head* haha – but keep it up!
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I’m loving all the great new features!
Although I’ve started to get into the habit of using the Dashboard to link through to Scobleizer! (Yes, I’m a creature of habit.)
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Nice….
so now the odds of my blog making it to the main page are good ….like 22000:1 😉
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Yea, finally the heirachy is threatened!! hehe
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Is there any chance that there might be a more funky theme comming?? most of the new ones look pretty bleak. But thanks anyway, nice idea with the bottom bar…
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This is a pretty impressive site — ! Sooner or later, I’ll get it figured out and be bloggin’ with the best of yez…
I really like the many alternatives available, but I’ll never make the list (sigh!)
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Hi!I’m Robert67 and i am just get started with
all this cool wordpress!
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Excellent idea lol…makes reading blogs more interesting!
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Can I have one of your marbles, please?
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NO! This can’t be true. Just kidding, great idea.
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