[Udo]

Most people find success on social media sites is capricious; not a lot of people read the "new" queue, so your first few organic votes are a matter of luck. Downvotes on reddit make this go double. Even great content can get buried if it doesn't get noticed.

I'd go even further and say that most stories have some kind of "weight" behind them that is not available to small-time users. If you follow the 'net news, especially topics about social networking, one sees always the same players getting lots of attention for the stuff they just happen to be doing at the time. I'd argue the system is indeed rigged, even without taking hacks like this one into account.