Sam I think you have great power to give /newest more views if you'd consider minor redesigns.
Perhaps you could dither stories so the front-page list goes top/new/top/new/top/new, etc, but that is potentially very messy.
Or perhaps instead, the front-page can show 30 top stories, then a line break, then 30 new stories, all on the front page. Long-scrolling pages are in fashion, after all.
These aren't well-developed ideas, but the point remains that the inertia of being one click away means that a huge percentage of people will never even look at /newest, never-mind up-vote interesting stories.
Please consider changes to modify the median behavior. It's within your power and would do us all good. It's worth an experiment, isn't it?
Perhaps you could dither stories so the front-page list goes top/new/top/new/top/new, etc, but that is potentially very messy.
Or perhaps instead, the front-page can show 30 top stories, then a line break, then 30 new stories, all on the front page. Long-scrolling pages are in fashion, after all.
These aren't well-developed ideas, but the point remains that the inertia of being one click away means that a huge percentage of people will never even look at /newest, never-mind up-vote interesting stories.
Please consider changes to modify the median behavior. It's within your power and would do us all good. It's worth an experiment, isn't it?