Rating the relevance of news stories for recipients of a news feed

A system, comprising:

• a memory;
• a server, operatively coupled to the memory, the server to:
• receive a new story;
• calculate a base score for the new story;
• identify a set of stories received prior to the new story with which the new story overlaps, wherein each of the set of stories has been assigned a score that has decayed over a time interview due to the publication of related stories over the time interval;
• for each story in the set of stories, compute a current score that the story in the set of stories would receive if the story in the set of stories were received at the same time as the new story, wherein the current score is indicative of publication after the time interval has expired;
• identify a lower bound story in the set of stories having an original score and having a current score nearest to and lower than the base score for the new story and an upper bound story in the set of stories having an original score and having a current score nearest to and higher than the base score for the new story;
• and
• assign a score to the new story based on the current score of the lower bound story and the current score of the upper bound story.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a server, cause the server to:

• receive, by a server, a new story;
• calculate, by the server, a base score for the new story;
• identify, by the server, a set of stories received prior to the new story with which the new story overlaps, wherein each of the set of stories has been assigned a score that has decayed over a time interview due to the publication of related stories over the time interval;
• for each story in the set of stories, compute, by the server, a current score that the story in the set of stories would receive if the story in the set of stories were received at the same time as the new story, wherein the current score is indicative of publication after the time interval has expired;
• identify, by the server, a lower bound story in the set of stories having an original score and having a current score nearest to and lower than the base score for the new story and an upper bound story in the set of stories having an original score and having a current score nearest to and higher than the base score for the new story;
• and
• assign, by the server, a score to the new story based on the current score of the lower bound story and the current score of the upper bound story.