Hot Topic

This is a re-post from a blog I wrote for 11x2, but I think you may find it useful!
-Cat

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I struggled with this. What would be the most truly cringe-worthy title for this blog? I hope you're satisfied.

There have been a few earnest inquiries about submissions and their heat lately, so I wanted to cover a few things.

First, how does the heat algorithm work:
a. unique views
b. unique clicks
c. comments
d. time

I'm assuming you are familiar with a-c. The last one (time) is often overlooked- if you have 200 comments, clicks and views over a week, that story is not going to have nearly the same heat as one that has half as many comments, clicks and views in one day.

Next, something we refer to as "artificial heat inflation". This can happen in a couple ways:

1. Comment spamming.
This is the least elegant form of artificially inflating the heat, dropping a bunch of one word, useless comments from dummy accounts onto a submission. It'll give the submission a bit of a boost, usually enough to get it to the front page and sometimes enough to rocket it up higher.

Typical consequence: submission dropped to 0 and frozen, commenters banned, trust rank dropped. On rare occasions where user(s) associated with a specific site do this, the site is blocked from the network.

2. Manipulating the clicks/views
This is what I'll call "how to build a bomb" - in that I'm not going to outline how this one works for you. ;) It can be done, it's nefarious wizardry, and it alters the heat so much that it is no longer an accurate reflection of actual interest.

Typical consequence: submission dropped to 0 and frozen, restrictions/ban, site blocked from the network.

And finally, just to throw you for a loop:

What is NOT artificial heat manipulation:
Effectively using social media.

If a submission is posted to FB, twitter, google+, or similar and the user has a pretty good network going the heat is going to go up as people visit 11x2.

That's important - the heat doesn't go up just because a link was shared. It goes up when people visit 11x2. It goes up even more if those folks click the link to read the whole story, or if they leave a comment. Remember:
a. unique views
b. unique clicks
c. comments

Now, that said, our current heat algorithm was divined before social media had such an impact within our network. As a result, social media is occasionally more overpowered than we'd like and this balance is something that DragonFly is working on. It has been tweaked over the past few years, but it's not a static situation.

But how do we KNOW, you might wonder, which of these methods someone is using? Suffice it to say, admins can. We can view all the activity on a submission and with a quick glance it's obvious if it's nefarious wizardry or interesting tweets.

I hope this is helpful. Mostly, I hope it removes unnecessary mystery and mitigates conflict amongst users. <3

Thanks, guys!
Cat