Are HN submissions dominated by a small elite of users?

There's a book you should read called "The 80/20 Principle". It might help you understand better how this sort of thing naturally happens, and why it is to be expected and nothing wrong about it.

Any Karma measure analysis would be biased since Karma is accumulated through both Links and Comments (in contrast with Reddit, which splits both measurements).

"Dominated" is a flawed qualifier since Karma is not a zero-sum game.

Keep in mind that karma includes both submissions and comments (unlike reddit, where they are separate).

For comments, at least, there is a clear bias where comments from users with higher karma tend to stay at the top of the comment page longer, regardless of the votes for other comments. This is intentional and definitely contributes to the effect

If you're talking about submission karma, clearly no. I follow the submissions of a selection of HN users I've known for awhile, all of whom are karma leaders, and their submissions are often as not buried on page 4 or 5 with 2-3 votes.

If you're talking about comment karma, clearly yes. I could write a comment consisting of randomly chosen names from the Chicago phone book and someone would upvote it. Name recognition has that effect, as does a small group of people who seem to follow my comments deliberately (as I do for the list of people in my profile).

I suspect that you'll find it to be some kind of power law distribution, which implies that measures like Standard Deviation won't be so useful. A quick look at the top 1000 that you provided suggests this might be the case. But the top 100 users don't dominate the top 1000, let alone the entire population. There does seem to be some leveling off, though it's unclear how steady that will be.

Net - domination is too strong a word. Dominated might imply 20% of the karma in 20 users, and this clearly isn't the case. Even defining the Elite as 100 doesn't get us this.

Yes, take a look at the "new" page. On it you'll see 30 recent submissions, most of which are just as appropriate as those on the home page. But, they don't get any votes, why not?

I don't think it typically matters whether the submitter has name recognition or karma, but rather how many friends and colleagues the person can rally to their cause. All it takes is about 10 points in the first hour to get to the front page and then it can "ride the wave" from there. This is an easy threshold for people with large professional networks, companies, with friends in SV et al. Many people here know each other. Yes, there are some technical counter-measures, but there is only so much that can be done.

This is not to say that a user acting alone has no chance of reaching the home page. However, after a few years of frequenting this site, I believe that most of the posts hitting the front page have had a boost such as I described above.

My personal experience anecdote is that, over several years (also considering prior accounts), working as a "loner", that I've never been able to get more than a few meager votes on a submission. Even if they were highly on topic, even if I got up at 6am Pacific, supposedly the best time to do it. Maybe I'm unlucky or my submissions suck, but I rarely bother any more.

All social media sites are susceptible to this simple hack:

1. Set up IRC channel. 2. Wait for friends to arrive. 3. When there's ten, post new content to social media. 4. Post link to the IRC. 5. Have you and 1-2 close friends downvote everything else.

All of the algorithms I've seen so far are susceptible to this.

I do not engage in this practice for many reasons, some ethical and some practical.

On an ethical level, it's toying with people's faith in society; some trolls argue successfully that this faith is misplaced and should be shaken; I counterargue that without strong signaling to that effect, it becomes vandalism.

The practical is that anyone who trolls around the sites can see who is engaging in this practice and rapidly realizes they're behaving badly. I remember the crucifixion of davisreis666 on Reddit as an example.

No, they are dominated by the common denonimator and that is a massive flaw of vote-based user input. You will only see politically correct, left winged and in-tone liberal opinions and support everywhere. Mutual backpatting is encouraged and because of these traits, the circle continues.

Look through the submission list of each user whose posts make it to the top, or of all of the users submitting to new. You'll see if the stories each user posts gains lots of points; if they don't, it's all comment karma.

A little late to this, but for my Hacker Newsletter project I keep track of of the number of times a user gets on the top three pages:

  337 shawndumas
  312 ColinWright
  298 iProject
  291 Libertatea
  214 danso
  197 llambda
  165 Lightning
  163 tokenadult
  158 sethbannon
  147 mtgx
  144 evo_9
  120 DanielRibeiro
  115 denzil_correa, jonbaer
  111 lelf
  102 001sky
  101 dmor
  98 coloneltcb
  97 Tsiolkovsky, craigkerstiens, dsr12, mh_
  95 ssclafani
  90 jseliger
  89 jamesbritt
  87 JumpCrisscross
  85 Garbage
  83 wallflower
  82 luu
  81 antr, protomyth
  77 anigbrowl, codegeek
  74 aaronbrethorst
  73 jgrahamc, pg
  71 uladzislau
  70 sinak, steveklabnik
  69 RougeFemme
  68 cleverjake, derpenxyne, swohns
  67 _pius
  66 jamesjyu, rosser, wslh
  64 Pr0, eplanit
  63 Brajeshwar, sk2code, uptown
  62 bane, stfu
  61 teawithcarl
  59 ghosh, joeyespo, ph0rque
  58 gnosis
  57 r0h1n, scholia
  56 AndrewDucker, cpeterso, ohjeez
  55 bpierre, cyphersanctus, gruseom
  54 conductor
  52 nikunjk
  51 Suraj-Sun, kirillzubovsky
  50 lispython
  49 MikeCapone, WestCoastJustin, co_pl_te, duck, robin_reala
  48 Anon84, ca98am79, taylorbuley
  47 fraqed, morphics, nkurz, rpm4321
  46 jmduke, kumarski, nreece
  45 georgecmu
  44 daegloe, rdl
  43 donohoe, kunle, olivercameron
  42 tanglesome
  41 austengary, ck2, jnazario
  40 interconnector, rnyman, sonabinu, wikiburner, zoowar
  39 cdvonstinkpot, pwg, revorad
  38 1337biz, hepha1979, jeffbarr, mhb, zdw
  37 fogus, kjhughes, vectorbunny
  36 Cbasedlifeform, DanBC, DiabloD3, Reltair, acremades, geetarista
  35 AndreyKarpov, jessaustin, mxfh, prostoalex, raganwald, rbanffy
  34 wglb
  33 CrankyBear, cryptoz, hackhackhack, kposehn, nvk
  32 MarlonPro, bcn, npguy, qubitsam, techinsidr
  31 Ashuu, Baustin, caffeinewriter, drucken, edent, iamtechaddict, ilamont, mariuz, mikecane, rmah, rohshall, shill, whoishiring
  30 eguizzo, eksith, gklein, lukashed, talhof8
  29 Sami_Lehtinen, ari_elle, cwan, espeed, gwern, jacquesm, mitmads, sgdesign, superchink, velodrome, wyclif
  28 Quekster, X4, clicks, esalazar, iamwil, jaf12duke, javinpaul, laurent123456, recoiledsnake, vanwilder77, zt
  27 6thSigma, ValentineC, aespinoza, ananyob, anu_gupta, awwstn, bavidar, dave1010uk, ekm2, pajju, rkudeshi, sdoering, yapcguy
  26 DanielBMarkham, bitsweet, brudgers, hornokplease, jcr, tptacek, whalesalad
  25 EzGraphs, Hirvesh, adventured, albertzeyer, barredo, johns, jpadilla_, kevin_morrill, kmfrk, mmastrac, mooreds, mrb, niggler, ot, prateekj, saurabh, shrikant, tambourine_man, thibaut_barrere, tjaerv, usaphp
  24 amerf1, coffeemug, dangoldin, neya, qiqing, signa11, twapi, w1ntermute, zrail
  23 Dekku, Shivetya, duggieawesome, ingve, jalanco, mikeevans, ninthfrank07, npalli, olalonde, playhard, rachbelaid, rb2e, subsystem
  22 adamnemecek, amarsahinovic, aritraghosh007, chmars, colinprince, ctoth, dutchbrit, eranation, jashkenas, jmacd, joshfraser, kine, lowglow, mike_esspe, muratmutlu, napolux, redDragon, rrhoover, tareqak, youngerdryas, yread, ytNumbers
  21 T-A, akandiah, anon1385, breck, dpaluy, glazskunrukitis, gridscomputing, homakov, ianstormtaylor, jusben1369, kunai, mindcrime, msvan, onosendai, peterkchen, prajjwal, pron, schrofer, sp332, treskot, ttunguz, urlwolf, ximeng
  20 BerislavLopac, BruceM, Jaigus, a3voices, abdophoto, angersock, boh, brandnewlow, chinmoy, chrisacky, cperciva, fekberg, ivoflipse, jasonshen, julien, llamataboot, mjn, mmahemoff, platz, shakes, smit, soundsop, speeder, tmoretti, tocomment, vellum
  19 RobAley, SanderMak, WadeF, bencevans, bitcartel, clarkm, declan, experiment0, gasull, goronbjorn, hartleybrody, jejune06, jkuria, k-mcgrady, kevingibbon, mijustin, minimaxir, njoglekar, obilgic, ohadfrankfurt, pclark, rainmaker23, robdoherty2, rubikscube, sciwiz, stevewilhelm, tdrnd, timf, twakefield, wamatt
  18 10char, ForFreedom, Pasanpr, aynlaplant, bsg75, cs702, deviceguru, dotmanish, ezl, jheitzeb, jstreebin, julien421, orrsella, pain_perdu, philfreo, polskibus, rblion, ridruejo, rmason, sew, swombat
  17 MaysonL, ananddass, barmstrong, bconway, ber...