I've noticed lately that having a very discussable, opinionated, or judgmental topic will also propel your post. For example, meta-topics, like this, seem to do pretty well. So do articles or local posts like "Why you should[n't] X" or "[Why it's | Is it] OK to X". So, I think you'll do alright. It's an interesting topic and everybody will want to chime in about their own experience posting to HN.
My "rate my start-up" post, however, is probably going to die.
Yeah. I noticed there's also a human touch somewhere in the mix. I think the editors choose a "boost" on certain posts. It looks like mine was selected (thankfully) to benefit more per upvote/comment than yours.
Your post has more comments and upvotes than mine, but is ranked lower. It was ranked higher for a period of time, then suddenly dropped down to the bottom. Mine, on the other hand, jumps up 5 spots anytime somebody upvotes it.
Or, maybe it matters who upvotes/comments on posts. I don't know, but it's made me have more faith in HN.
Edit: I've been on here for this long and have not once ever noticed the "flag" button.
No, this post was flagged a couple of times so that's what penalized it. Flags are an input to the ranking algorithm once a post gets more than 10 upvotes.
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I've noticed lately that having a very discussable, opinionated, or judgmental topic will also propel your post. For example, meta-topics, like this, seem to do pretty well. So do articles or local posts like "Why you should[n't] X" or "[Why it's | Is it] OK to X". So, I think you'll do alright. It's an interesting topic and everybody will want to chime in about their own experience posting to HN.
My "rate my start-up" post, however, is probably going to die.
It looks like it worked :)
Yeah. I noticed there's also a human touch somewhere in the mix. I think the editors choose a "boost" on certain posts. It looks like mine was selected (thankfully) to benefit more per upvote/comment than yours.
Your post has more comments and upvotes than mine, but is ranked lower. It was ranked higher for a period of time, then suddenly dropped down to the bottom. Mine, on the other hand, jumps up 5 spots anytime somebody upvotes it.
Or, maybe it matters who upvotes/comments on posts. I don't know, but it's made me have more faith in HN.
Edit: I've been on here for this long and have not once ever noticed the "flag" button.
No, this post was flagged a couple of times so that's what penalized it. Flags are an input to the ranking algorithm once a post gets more than 10 upvotes.