The few people looking at /new on HN are ridiculously overpowered. A few upvotes from them in the few hours will get you to the front page, and just 1-2 downvotes will make your post never see the light of day.
You can't downvote a post, so that's not a factor.
Also it's not as powerful as you think. In the past I have spent a lot of time looking at /new, and upvoting stories that I think should be surfaced. The vast majority of them still never hit near the front page.
It's a real shame, because some of the best and most relevant submissions don't seem to make it.
If you are in a company like e.g. ClickHouse and share a new HN Submission of ClickHouse via the internal Slack to #general, then you easily get enough upvotes for the front page.
