The first time, the story didn't get any upvotes; the second time, I asked some friends (in the interest of, erm, "science") to upvote it immediately after posting. The story appeared on the frontpage and gathered ~20 upvotes (in line with my "expectations"). In terms of clickthroughs, the ratio is probably 1:100+.

Don't consider that a real experiment; I didn't control for anything (time of day &c.), so it's almost purely anecdotal. Nevertheless, my preconceptions were strengthened to the point of almost making them hypotheses:

- a. "Kick-starting" a story by asking friends or followers to upvote it _dramatically_ increases the chances of it being read, without any inherent difference in "story quality" (if we assume that inherent story quality is a reasonable notion at all).

- b. A very small fraction of HN readers check out http://news.ycombinator.com/newest.

Do you?