Why the Number 2 Dominates Hacker News Titles Until You Look Closer
What's the most popular number in Hacker News titles?
I queried the full Hacker News dataset to find the most popular number in titles, initially discovering that 2 leads due to version numbers like Web 2.0. After refining my regex to handle decimals and filter out years, 1 took the crown. The data reveals that listicles, software releases, and round numbers drive these trends, while events like the pandemic and GPT-4 launches create unique statistical spikes.
I have spent an evening establishing exactly that, and I regret nothing.
- Xirdus
I really wish the analysis didn't cut off at exactly 10 numbers. Rerunning the query with higher LIMIT, I noticed the following:
- The very next two numbers are 100 and 0. While 100 is consistent with the article's explanations, 0 still placing high despite fixing the query warrants further investigation. A quick glance at returned headlines shows the problem of phantom zeroes is not, in fact, fixed.
- The query doesn't group decimals and integers together. 2.0 is at #17 with 10k hits, while 1.0 is at #26 with 5k hits. So not only is the "version number" explanation for top numbers wrong - the claim that earlier version numbers are more common than later version numbers is wrong too.
- laurentlb
Thanks for providing the query and a link to execute it (I didn't know about that one). Now I can play with it and find the most popular words...
"to", "the", "of". I don't know what I expected.
- pm2222