ignoring the rest of your comment: >1) If a post gets a lot of traffic from twitter and other such social media websites ,it should work against it in the rank

ignoring the rest of your comment: >1) If a post gets a lot of traffic from twitter and other such social media websites ,it should work against it in the rank calculation algorithm. If you could find a way to do this, I think it could make HN better in general. The problem is that it'd be a whack-a-mole situation. This is just how publicity works. If you know people, and you are trying to get the word out about something, you tell the people you know, and they help you out. This is what it means to have a network. I mean, it's kindof interesting; I mean, I talk about the problems of "who you know rather than what you know" but you know what? when I go to look for a job, who do I ask? the people I know. And it usually nets me a pretty good job. When I want to hire people, where do I look? the people I know, and often it gets me good people. But yeah; in other situations, that's called nepotism, and has some rather large perverse incentives. I mean, in my case, I wholly own my company, so if I want to hire my siblings, well, it's my money, right? And sometimes, I think it makes sense. I've been trying to outsource my bookkeeping type work for some time now. But the primary qualifications are trustworthiness and diligence, and, well, switching bookkeepers when you want to do as little of the bookkeeping work as I do is rather hard, so I'd also like someone who will stick around longer than most people stick with me. Certainly for the first, who can I trust more than my sister? and I know she's pretty diligent; we grew up together. Add to that, she has a degree in fine arts and few job prospects that can pay more than I can, so it's all around a win.