HN is highly stochastic, and honestly I don't think there's any way around it.

The upvoting scheme can not distinguish between a hot topic of interest to 10% of readers, that deliver 10 upvotes in the first 10 minutes, from a more niche topic of interest to 5% of readers, that gets 10 upvotes in 10 minutes.

At least it can't distinguish at that time. So things go to the front page, and future votes determine what happens!

But that initial "on the front page" boost is a nonlinearity that many good posts do not get through.

Personally, I really liked this post, and was merely asking because I was very surprised others liked it too!