[chaostheory]

The link itself maybe an embarrassment, but the discussions surrounding it on YC are somewhat less emotional and pretty interesting; and they do touch upon the reasons why it happens (particularly the thread started by mixmax)

[pg]

I noticed that too. It's like stone soup. Still, chicken soup would be better.

[derefr]

You could take out the stones after the soup gets going--edit the post to be a self-reference link, rather than an outbound one. That would make it clear that the post is not valued, but the discussion is.

[dkokelley]

I wonder about the behavior of HN users. Do they vote up an article for the article, or for the discussion taking place?

Sure the (original) article does not deserve to make it to the top of HN, so why is it up there? Is it being up-voted because of the content of the article, or the content of the discussion, or because commenters have posted in a popular article and want their comment seen/possibly up-modded?

The last case is obviously the least desirable, but what about the other two? What should the community be voting on?