Comment by ryanwaggoner

I think it's a function of there being too many items submitted every day, and not enough people checking the "new" page. During busy times of the day, if you don't get 5-10 votes within the first 10-15 mins, you're on the 2nd page of the "new" posts area, and you're never going to make it. I'm afraid the end result is that the only posts that will end up on the front-page are:

  1. Where the author (domain) is well-known
  2. Where the title is link-bait
  3. Where the submitter tries to game the system

All of these are bad for the future of HN. I really like the way reddit handles this, of putting a few new items at the top of the homepage and rotating them, so that more people see them and have the chance to upvote. The way things are going, HN is destined to have a front-page full of only linkbait, spam, and/or posts by rockstars.