How are stories chosen to be published on the main page?
The selection process occurs every five minutes. First, the system calculates the minimum karma a story will need to match the quality of the stories on the front page. This value depends on the average karma needed to promote stories in the previous two weeks, plus a coefficient that depends on the amount of time transpired from the publication of the last story. This coefficient decreases as time passes and becomes one (1) when an hour has transpired, at which time any story will be published whose karma equals or exceeds the average. This has two objectives. On the one hand, if the quality of stories remains consistent, an average of one story per hour will be promoted, but on the other hand, those that receive more votes (hopefully incrementally) will be published earlier. The system calculates the karma of each story by multiplying the number of votes the story receives by the karma of the voter. Finally, there is an additional restriction to reduce abuses by registered voters: on
