I've had articles sink without a trace on HN. I've had articles shoot to the top. The crazy thing is its often the same article resubmitted (by someone else) a

I've had articles sink without a trace on HN. I've had articles shoot to the top. The crazy thing is its often the same article resubmitted (by someone else) a few months later. Based on my experience, a "worthy" article has about a 50-50 chance of making it off the new page to the home page and taking off. This is basically random. Many people think HN is a meritocracy where the best articles succeed, but its not. There is a huge random factor in the way. This isn't too bad for a short throwaway article but it's frustrating if you put hours and hours into an article and know people would like it but it goes nowhere.