I think that many of the Ask YC or Tell HN posts tend to get more votes more easily, so the weighting makes sense even good posts of that sort. I noticed this in the source while we were asking for advice, but we still got a lot more spotlight with the Ask HN tag than when we tried to do similar things with blog posts. The weighting makes sense to me.
I think that many of the Ask YC or Tell HN posts tend to get more votes more easily
Yes but do you wonder why that is?
From my own experience I know if I only have a minute or two, I hit on "New", scan down for Ask/Tell HN and then if they are decent posts, immediately upvote them. So sure, Ask/Tells get more votes from me because they are more likely to have unique content as opposed to the Nth million Apple Tablet rumour.
Moreover, even though I couldn't be further away from startup circles, it is clear that HN is clearly a startup community, and Ask/Tells are the posts that are most likely to tap that vein - so I upvote them in line with what I think are the community values. I mean, if I don't upvote a "Review my site" plea, what am I here for?
I'm not sure why exactly the ranking penalty for that is so large. It's all very well to say "well post it on your own blog", but the style of discourse over a blog posting is considerably different for what I see in Ask/Tells; the comments on the latter are generally more supportive as they are seen as a plea for help and less as an attempt at self-promotion - precisely because they are more transient. Moreover, an Ask/Tell in a way is a debate on neutral ground, whereas comments on somebody's personal blog post don't quite have the same dynamic.
