HN is too random. I've submitted my own blogs and gotten zero comments and only a couple of upvotes. Two days later someone submits the same link to my content and it'll get 100 comments and thousands of clicks.
In my experience HN is far more random than both Twitter and Reddit. It's very frustrating and disappointing.
HN suffers the same problem as reddit, but amplified. The first five votes are far more meaningful than the next 50. Since HN has a shorter time factor than reddit, the effect is amplified.
If you get five votes in the first minute you'll almost certainly be on the front page. If you get one downvote in the first minute you'll almost certainly never make the front page.
I've been thinking a long time on a solution for this. My gut feeling is that every post should start with 10 points. That way one downvote won't kill it, and one upvote will only be 1/11 of the total score, instead of 100% of it.
Usually at reddit the way we would tweak these things is Chris would graph out each candidate algorithm in matlab and then we would go with the one that most continuous and "looked right", but you sort of need a PhD in Physics to get that right. :)
My experience as well. I've submitted numerous times and been shocked that it gets maybe one vote, and sometimes days later I see the same link but it's hundred of votes and sitting on the front page.
My current theory that is entirely without basis or data to back it up is certain users are given a lot more weight. A post of mine with 6 to 10 upvotes won't make it to page 2, but I'll see some with 4 upvotes on the front page. Oh well.
Almost certainly not. My submissions regularly reach the front page, but it's still a very small fraction, and, as you observed, often only at the fourth or fifth try.
HN's "submission success" is indeed highly random. Your submission gets between few minutes and two hours at /newest (and if it's got longer that's because it's a time of low activity: nighttime in America).
Either the "right" readers for your submission happen to be active at this timespan, or they don't.
I'm almost certain that is not the case. It's mostly based on time. The faster you get votes the faster it climbs.
The mods do have the ability to "slow down" a post, if they think it will cause a flame war or is actively causing one. It basically makes it fall quickly by increasing the number of votes needed to reach the same position.
But having some votes worth more than others would be in opposition to the egalitarian principles of the site.
Oh, and when YC partners and founders log into HN, they get highlights for other YC people, so it may look like YC people are getting a boost, but really they're just getting more visibility to a subset of users, who tend to upvote other YC users quickly.
Another important part is voting rings -- companies who want to get high up will send out an email saying "We are submutting at time X, be ready to upvote".
Is it possible that time of posting matters? When there are increased number of high trending posts on first page, it is very less likely that a new post gets any attention irrespective of quality of content.
If you watch it closely, all the posts are stalled when the US folks sleep. The only active changes on the top page are during the kind of short 10-12 hourish time period when dang is awake and cares about the submissions.
It definitely matters. I’ve hit #2 or #3 here or on Reddit when any other day that’d week I’d hi t#1. Sometimes you just get unlucky and a big story comes out. Clicks are logarithmic, but there’s no way around that.
I’ve tried experimenting at all times of day. I like around 8am pacific. That’s almost lunchtime on the east coast, but Europe is still up to. It takes time to rise. If you take off then you’ll be placed high from east coast dinner time and hopefully through west coast evening.
Getting more than 10 clicks on HN is a complete and total dice roll. As best I can tell there is no rhyme or reason. Not for my content at least. r/programming r/cpp and r/rust have been highly reliable for me. Consistent top 5 placement.
In my experience HN is far more random than both Twitter and Reddit. It's very frustrating and disappointing.