I think there's an element of game theory here though: the people putting out the HN equivalent of funny cat pictures (like angelgate or other drama) are going

I think there's an element of game theory here though: the people putting out the HN equivalent of funny cat pictures (like angelgate or other drama) are going to self-promote, and heavily. If they weren't the type to do so, they wouldn't write content like that. So the defense should be two-fold: encourage the HN userbase to only vote up good stuff, and create good content yourself and promote it. If you don't promote your own content, it'll be overshadowed by the funny cat picture people who do. Ideally, no one would self-promote, but if the guy with crappy content does, the people who write good content should too. Of course, this supposes that I'm not in the category of people creating funny cat picture content. And the realization that perhaps I am more than I'd like is somewhat uncomfortable. How do you know for sure?