[modeless]

> the only way to get a post to the front page of HN these days is to discreetly ask a bunch of your friends to upvote it

This is not true. I don't do this and 5/13 of my submissions hit the front page in the last 12 months.

The most important thing is to find an article that already has a suitable title so that you don't have to editorialize it against the site guidelines just to get the crucial first upvotes. It's a shame that often the best article on a topic doesn't have the best title (often when it is a primary source). Sometimes the mods change the link later.

[dang]

This is a difficult subtlety to get across publicly, but it can be ok to edit the title to grab attention when an article is particularly good for HN. That sin is venial.

If the article isn't particularly good, and especially if someone is just trying to promote something, woe betide.