New on Product Hunt — Points are replacing upvotes!
Rohan Chaubey
34 replies
Product Hunt has made a significant shift in how they measure product traction. Upvotes, which have been the cornerstone of PH for years, are now being replaced with a points system.
What’s changed?
Points now account for more than just upvotes. They factor in engagement, interactions, and participation to provide a more comprehensive measure of a product’s success within the community.
Why the change?
The idea is to promote meaningful engagement rather than just a race for upvotes. This should help ensure launches are evaluated more fairly and reflect genuine interest and activity.
What about inconsistencies?
If you’re noticing discrepancies between your upvotes and your points, don’t panic—Product Hunt says they’re still ironing things out in the coming weeks.
While it’s a step toward improving transparency and rewarding authentic engagement, it’s also raising question how points are calculated.
Personally, I think it’s an interesting move, but I’m curious how it will play out in practice. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. :)
P.S. I hunted DraftAlpha today. Check it out here!
Replies
Ash G@ash_grover
I think this will be a good change. This will provide a more holistic view of interest in a product beyond just upvotes. It should help filter out less engaging products and highlight those that add value.
Share
@ash_grover To some extent, but most people may not comment, but its a genuine upvote, then how do you address it? @rohanrecommends
@ash_grover yes, also, in the past some launches ranked lower than those with fewer upvotes. This created a confusion. Now, the points make it clear that the ranking system is based on upvotes as well as comments.
@veeresh_devireddy I believe the algorithm still considers upvotes as an important metric. Comments is an add-on booster. :)
This is definitely better in a place that was becoming more about who was effectively best networked . Tbh it’s also better for the founders and creators as they’ll get a more realistic read from the market on how much their product is wanted
Mattebox
Of course this is announced 2 days after my launch—fml 😅
@bensyverson Haha, just saw your product and supported. BTW, this update was rolled out before you launched. :)
Mattebox
@rohanrecommends Hey, thank you! And it's cool to hear that I got to experience the new point system.
@bensyverson yes! You can visit your launch-day dashboard to get more insights. :)
How many of you ever 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 (recently) whether your questions, answers, comments, and K-points are visible to others and making traction despite being compliant with PH terms?
Thanks @rohanrecommends! @mikekerzhner @rajiv_ayyangar @andrey_dyadyura @devladinci, but this is both shocking and weird, please clarify me:
1. What is this reset process?
2. What did they do in the past which blocked my stats, visibility of contributions?
3. On what basis such blockers or filters set against my account by your team manually or some automated security bots?
4. Why aren't these issues not rectified by regular or automated code, instead of manual resets?
5. When all these happening, why there is no formal or system notification or alerts about these critical events from your team or on portal?
6. In what future circumstance these issues might occur again?
@veeresh_devireddy Veeresh, your comments are visible to me. Sometimes you may not see the comments immediately maybe because it was under moderation? However, if you log out of your PH profile or open an incognito window to check if your engagement is visible publicly. Hope this helps.
@rohanrecommends @mikekerzhner @rajiv_ayyangar @andrey_dyadyura @devladinci I have cross-verified these comments on several devices, incognito windows, and with several other PH community users, none were able to find my comments on 30+ discussions for weeks.
I am stressing on the same point, it has to be either visible or not, with 100% accuracy, and we should fix the issue even if it lacks the consistency of 1%. There should be no room for magics of re-logins or retry mechanisms, it has to work 100%.
About moderation, what is the SLA or max time taken to approve or disable comments? Due to the high volume of comments, it is a terrible idea to moderate these by humans, you must deploy AI bots to validate against your own terms and publish them instantaneously without any delay of not more than a few minutes. I have proof of emails from your teams who manually manipulated these.
In sum, this is a serious issue for 2+ months. I have already shared some links to your twitter DM to verify. I can also give other community members contacts/profiles who have confirmed this issue via emails and whatsapp messages.
@veeresh_devireddy Glad to know they reset your account. :)
FuseBase /formerly Nimbus/
Let's see how it goes, but we need more fair evaluation for sure! Cheers for improvements!
@kate_ramakaieva If they don't do it, what's your proactive measures to evaluate?
@kate_ramakaieva In the past, some launches with fewer upvotes ranked higher than those with more, causing confusion. The introduction of points now clarifies that the ranking system considers both upvotes and comments. Thus encouraging meaningful engagement. :)
NEWOLDSTAMP
I think it’s a bold move to reward genuine interest. I'm curious to see how it evolves though.
@oksana_ch Yes, taking into consideration comments not just upvotes will encourage makers to seek genuine feedback. :)
Thanks for the update @rohanrecommends. It will be more equitable and qualitative for sure.
@varun_bhagath Indeed. The previous system ranked products on the leaderboard basis their upvotes now it considers the overall engagement on a launch post.
IXORD
Thanks for the detailed description!
I think it’s a great move.
AppManager by CompanyDNA AI
Thanks for sharing @rohanrecommends, I think it would be better to develop a more comprehensive algorithm to decide the winner. Calculating solely based on upvotes can lead to unfair competition and lack of interest in the actual product.
AppManager by CompanyDNA AI
@rohanrecommends I would also track actual leads coming from the launch. That is the metric at the end of the day, isn't it? :)
Reminds me of the Google where they also rank the websites on search engine based on points in their internal systems. So just getting huge amount of backlinks to your website doesn't guaranteed a good ranking position in the search. Multiple of other factors are counted along with it. That is where professional SEO's come in.
I suppose its a good system to reward the deserving products.Following the same path, I guess we have to get some professional methods up our sleeves to get good rankings on PH as well in the upcoming days.
@tousif_socialmeai What is your general proposal or idea of determining the "deserving products"?
@tousif_socialmeai The points now considers both upvotes and comments. It previously did as well but this makes it more refined. :)
Sugar Free: Food Scanner
Hi Rohan,
thanks for sharing.
These are certainly interesting innovations, but why did the platform decide to introduce them at the end of the year when most projects have already been voted on, and the option to leave new comments on projects is closed? This prevents new votes from being fairly accounted for in terms of points. Either the accounting should be adjusted to ensure fairness between new and existing projects, or these changes should be implemented starting from the new year.
Just my opinion.
Cheers 😌🙏🏼
@xanderiang I don't think its an innovation, but a basic logic to sort the best products, yet many facing unfair results despite genuine traction. They should have communicated these changes at least two months before.
@xanderiang Hi Alexander, I believe this system of taking into account the upvotes and comments already existed just that the leaderboard displayed some anomalies. This update corrects those situations.
In the past, some launches with fewer upvotes ranked higher than those with more, causing confusion. The introduction of points now clarifies that the ranking system considers both upvotes and comments and a few other factors maybe.
All the best for your launch. :)