Yes theoretically it shouldn't work, but I see it work everyday, you just need to email your friends and tell them not to visit the direct link but go to the front page and find your post and upvote. But anyway my point was exactly this, most people aren't even aware of this "black magic" going on in the background, which is worse than the process being opaque. Because at least on product hunt people know how to hack their way into being featured whereas on hacker news most people don't even realize it's possible. Also my point was not just about asking for upvotes. I was trying to point out how on hackernews if you already have an audience--say your email newsletter subscribers or blog readers--it is likely that your post will go up to the front page. Therefore newbies regardless of how great content they have don't get to play on level field as already famous people. What I found great about PH was you are judged by what you build, not your existing reputation. I'm not saying HN is more corrupt or anything than PH. PH is better at this since HN is more general purpose whereas PH is just about products.
> Yes theoretically it shouldn't work, but I see it work everyday
I'm pretty sure this is not true (certainly the method you mention doesn't work), but if you think you know counterexamples, please send them to hn@ycombinator.com. We have put a ton of work into counteracting promotional voting a.k.a. voting rings, and genuine counterexamples (i.e. voting rings that defeated our software) are super valuable to us.
Can you give a transparent answer to this scenario?: Let's say I posted a "Show HN". I would email my friends who are HN users, telling them "hey guys i posted something on hacker news, please go to the front page, find a post titled * and upvote!" I just can't think of a robust way to detect this.
I remember reading a while ago that YC founders' posts appear in a different color to other YC founders. Is this still true? If so, that's sort of an in-built voting ring.
Still true. But AFAICT such voting-ring impact as it has is canceled by HN's anti-voting-ring software, which treats everyone the same.
By the way, when pg added that feature years ago, he actually added two features: the colored usernames, plus a page for stories submitted by YC founders. The latter really did have a voting ring effect, and when we figured that out we got rid of it.
