[kqr]

> If you post something interesting or meaningful, then people will respond.

That's an oversimplification. There are things that get responses because they're flamebait rather than interesting, and then even more interesting things that never get any discussion going.

I don't know if the residual factor is just "chance" or if there are controllable inputs involved.

(One thing I do suspect but cannot confirm is that article title has a large effect. Interesting stuff with bad title gets overlooked, and vice versa.)

[PaulRobinson]

The fact that HN does not work in exactly the same way as the horrid platforms out there that automagically surface things that make neurone in your head scream "click that thing! click it! look! LOOOOOOK!", does not mean your brain doesn't treat it the same way.

This isn't unique to this technology: books with interesting titles and covers sell better than books with boring titles and covers, even if the latter has more interesting content.

I think what makes HN a little different is that a lot of places we might congregate online only exist for the flamebait, or are specifically built around engagement metrics to serve DAU/MAU numbers and advertising asks. You just happen to take a bit more chance on here than you would anywhere else, and that's absolutely 100% a good thing.

If there are controllable inputs that skew you to one side of the variance, I hope the moment someone discovers them, they are shut down - otherwise this place just becomes another hell-hole.

[superdisk]

This is true. There are a few stock topics that will consistently get the fanboys out (Postgres, Ruby, Rust, SQLite) which is, IMO, usually just uninteresting fodder. And then interesting stuff which requires some intellectual engagement very often rots.

HN does have a much higher ratio of gems to dirt than any other place though, so I'm still here for the forseeable future :)