I don't see it as very HN-specific. It's the exact same pattern you find at Reddit and Slashdot, so if YC is mainly attempting to cultivate that property, looki

I don't see it as very HN-specific. It's the exact same pattern you find at Reddit and Slashdot, so if YC is mainly attempting to cultivate that property, looking for users with the highest Reddit karma might be a good strategy (and they've proven themselves to a larger audience, probably more representative of average consumers). The negative way of looking at it is that it's most important just to be in the general vicinity of activity and say something with either broad appeal, or provocation. In academia this is becoming a common strategy with the rise of metrics. Find a hot area, publish a paper with a linkbaity title and prominent keyword placement, and wait for the citations to roll in. In business, it's the strategy of choosing your field of endeavor by picking the places where the most money is flowing around, and then just doing something average in that space.