The few people looking at /new on HN are ridiculously overpowered. A few upvotes from them in the few hours will get you to the front page, and just 1-2 downvotes will make your post never see the light of day.

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freedomben 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You can't downvote a post, so that's not a factor.

Also it's not as powerful as you think. In the past I have spent a lot of time looking at /new, and upvoting stories that I think should be surfaced. The vast majority of them still never hit near the front page.

It's a real shame, because some of the best and most relevant submissions don't seem to make it.

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tuhgdetzhh 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you are in a company like e.g. ClickHouse and share a new HN Submission of ClickHouse via the internal Slack to #general, then you easily get enough upvotes for the front page.

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oceansweep 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can absolutely downvote posts. You have to have a certain amount of karma before the option becomes available.

	▲	nebezb 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		freedomben has 28k karma. I don’t think the downvote button is coming.
	▲	digiown 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		No I was wrong. You can't downvote posts. Flags are used instead, apparently.