The bigger problem isn't really my team, it is my small circle of Hacker News reading friends. Turns out you can set off the voting ring without even realizing it, just because the same core group of people are listening to your status updated other places and hang out on the site. When I submit something here and don't tweet/FB post it until it already has some organic votes I don't seem to run into that problem.
There are two sides of this - getting readership and getting feedback when content really isn't good/interesting to this audience. Still learning, but I think I have a much better understand than I did a year ago.
I completely misunderstood your post, and did not take into account your network. I apologize for putting you in a bad light (it was not my purpose as I'm one of your readers).
At the moment, I don't use much social media to promote my posts. Due to me being lazy. Keeping track if all the networks is an issue even with the tools available. I cannot
even fathom how much time you spend doing that. How about a post explaining it?
There are two sides of this - getting readership and getting feedback when content really isn't good/interesting to this audience. Still learning, but I think I have a much better understand than I did a year ago.