Does HN somehow give a "chance" to each post to survive, or if you are unlucky and other posts just pile on top of yours too quickly you just drown?
Each post goes to the newest page <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newest" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/newest</a> . Please go there from time to time an upvote good stories (and flag spam).<p>The stories in the front page are sorted by "penalties * upvotes / time^1.5" (Where penalties are a lot of automatic an manual penalties added by the mods and the flags of the users.) (And the number 1.5 is only an approximation. I don't know the current value of "gravity".)<p>Using this calculation, to get to the front page, post currently must get 3 or 4 upvotes in the first hour.<p>There is also the second chance pool, that sends a story to the front page for a short time. More details in <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380</a> The mods use a mix of manual and automated criteria to add stories to this pool.<p>The details change from time to time and are part of the secret sauce, so take this as a rough approximation.<p>And remember to go to the newest page and upvote good stories <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newest" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/newest</a>