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.
Oct 6th at 3:35 pm
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.
Oct 6th at 3:37 pm
Hey, that’s a great idea! More WordPress love for the rest of us.
Oct 6th at 3:41 pm
Sounds cool!
Eoin
Oct 6th at 3:42 pm
now.. this is cool!
finally more stuff besides the top few blog…s~
refresh-ing!
Oct 6th at 3:43 pm
Thanks Guys for listening to us!
Way to go!
Oct 6th at 4:16 pm
You know, HTML has tables support, largely removing the need for ASCII art tables.
Oct 6th at 4:16 pm
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.
Oct 6th at 4:17 pm
Wow! If you had an infinite improbability drive with those numbers you could be way out there man!
Oct 6th at 4:36 pm
Thanks!!!
Oct 6th at 4:36 pm
Great idea!
Oct 6th at 4:38 pm
Great news, keep up the good work!
Oct 6th at 4:40 pm
great! thanks a lot
Oct 6th at 5:33 pm
awesome
Oct 6th at 5:58 pm
Very nice idea, Thanks!
Oct 6th at 6:09 pm
@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.
Oct 6th at 6:23 pm
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
Oct 6th at 6:58 pm
I like this, but I have to admit, I don’t often hit the top posts or top blogs.
Oct 6th at 7:00 pm
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.
Oct 6th at 7:01 pm
i’d like this on the dashboard, if at all possible…
Oct 6th at 7:11 pm
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
Oct 6th at 7:20 pm
Cool. I’m quite happy to hear about this.
Oct 6th at 7:24 pm
you and yer fancy book learnin.
Sound kewl to me.
Oct 6th at 8:07 pm
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.;)
Oct 6th at 8:43 pm
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.
Oct 6th at 9:33 pm
Good One
Oct 6th at 9:37 pm
I think avuee’s suggestion is a great idea.
Oct 6th at 9:56 pm
So…does that mean there’ll be a chance to see other blogs and posts other than Mary Kay and Anouseh?!
Oct 6th at 10:28 pm
I love how quickly you guys listen to us about this stuff.
Oct 6th at 11:57 pm
i certainly didn’t see this one coming, despite the ongoing discussion at the wordpress forums!
Oct 7th at 1:29 am
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!
Oct 7th at 1:59 am
So you mean you don’t actually want people to have to see which blogs are the most popular? Pity.
Oct 7th at 2:15 am
Cool!
Oct 7th at 3:16 am
That is sweet, now it’d be cool if we were told what rank we approx were…
Oct 7th at 3:51 am
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.
Oct 7th at 4:38 am
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.
Oct 7th at 5:46 am
I like the system but I don’t think I’ll ever qualify until I become US President overnight.
Oct 7th at 5:52 am
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.
Oct 7th at 7:15 am
The more the merrier =D; and I have to agree with engtech..you guys are great!
Oct 7th at 7:35 am
Cool.
CAYO!!
Oct 7th at 10:18 am
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
Oct 7th at 8:02 pm
Nice…..
Oct 7th at 8:04 pm
awesome!
Oct 7th at 10:48 pm
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.
Oct 8th at 10:23 am
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
Oct 8th at 4:47 pm
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.
Oct 8th at 4:49 pm
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.
Oct 8th at 9:16 pm
WordPress is the best!
Oct 8th at 10:49 pm
Great idea, we love it!
Oct 9th at 1:35 am
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
Oct 9th at 4:15 am
CooOOOOOOOOOOOLLL
Keep inventing!!
Thanks a lot..
Oct 9th at 6:46 am
Very cool stuff. And lookie: there I am! *runs off to buy self a congratulatory drink*
Oct 9th at 8:55 am
Sounds good to me.
Oct 9th at 3:40 pm
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!
Oct 9th at 7:34 pm
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.)
Oct 9th at 7:36 pm
Nice….
so now the odds of my blog making it to the main page are good ….like 22000:1
Oct 9th at 11:47 pm
Yea, finally the heirachy is threatened!! hehe
Oct 9th at 11:51 pm
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…
Oct 14th at 5:56 pm
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!)
Oct 15th at 5:07 pm
Hi!I’m Robert67 and i am just get started with
all this cool wordpress!
Oct 18th at 2:50 pm
Excellent idea lol…makes reading blogs more interesting!
Oct 20th at 8:09 am
Can I have one of your marbles, please?
Nov 11th at 5:28 am
NO! This can’t be true. Just kidding, great idea.