I think it&#x27;s considered &quot;secret sauce&quot;. I think it mixes the upvotes and time with other factors (user karma?, average?, manual weights?, ???) (I think they dropped &quot;average&quot; a few years ago.) The source code that is available is very old and don&#x27;t have a lot of the small details. I think you will have to wait until kens does a black box analysis.<p>Related: &quot;How Hacker News ranking really works: scoring, controversy, and penalties&quot; (2013) <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.righto.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;11&#x2F;how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.righto.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;11&#x2F;how-hacker-news-ranking-really...</a>