Maybe I'm just missing something, but what does one get by "cheating" the HN ranking algorithm? Just some karma points?
IMHO, it's rare to see obviously gamed submissions, and the quality of front page articles has been pretty decent for something that rises out of hive behavior (although it's not as well targeted to my own interests as scanning-and-hand-picking-what-I-like, obviously).
My own theory is that with the high volume of medium-high quality submissions (i.e. a post can easily fall off the first page of /new in less than an hour), you end up with lottery-like dynamics since your post is likely not in the "breaking news" magnitude.
Most of the internet is funded by sites desperate for page views. All of the Gawker sites, for example, have content written by content authors who receive most of their pay based on how many views their content gets and fired if they are bad at it. HN is small compared to the real large social news sites like Slashdot and Reddit and Digg, but it is still 10s of thousands of page views if you get on the front page. Many startups are similarly desperate for press or talent so also consider it vital to get their content out there in front of people.
IMHO, it's rare to see obviously gamed submissions, and the quality of front page articles has been pretty decent for something that rises out of hive behavior (although it's not as well targeted to my own interests as scanning-and-hand-picking-what-I-like, obviously).
My own theory is that with the high volume of medium-high quality submissions (i.e. a post can easily fall off the first page of /new in less than an hour), you end up with lottery-like dynamics since your post is likely not in the "breaking news" magnitude.