I ask because I've been trying to submit a variety of different things, to try and get a feel for what is popular with my followers and what is not. Some of my posts take off, hitting the "front page" of hubski (as seen when logged out) and some of them don't even get 1 comment or share. Is that because no one liked the submission, or because no one saw something I submitted at 4am?
I do most of my browsing, sharing and submitting in the evening and late at night (I'm a night owl). I know that the age of a post plays a major role in how many people will see it on reddit, and I know that I'm usually not online during reddit's peak hours - it's one of the reasons I enjoy smaller subreddits, because even if no one sees my post for six hours, it can still be reasonably popular that day in a smaller subreddit.
What is Hubski's peak time? Is it the same as reddit's (around 10am and 4pm EST)? How much of a role does a submission's age play in determining how many people get to see it? thenewgreen or mk (or anyone else for that matter), could you shine some light on this, and help me understand hubski a little better?
Off hand, it seems Hubski's peak time is similar to what you describe for Reddit. However, some late nights (EST) things get really busy for some reason. IMHO the algorithm has been strained a bit by the quick influx of users, and I feel that some adjustments to it are in order. I have made a couple of small tweaks, but I am waiting a bit after the shark fin of new traffic to determine whether or not more adjustments are necessary. Ideally, I would like to figure out if we can usefully add a component to the gravity algorithm that would take into account the current rate of submissions. We had a pretty ideal flow/uptake rate last week, but my impression right now is that new posts are not getting enough chance to get attention.
I have no idea what it is now, but before the recent influx you could go hours without anything new being submitted at all (usually during the night in North America). This meant that for the most part the 'front page' of feeds - at least my feed - didn't change all that much from day to day. Just look at mk's posts, I suppose. he has over 500 followers, posts fairly regularly, and some of his posts still get no comments or shares.