> The solution HN implemented for the problem of crowdsourcing front-page curation is to allow a short window of time for all submissions to be on the front page in order to gather points.

I wasn't aware of that…

My own HN submissions never made it to the front page without gathering two upvotes first. Those are pretty hard to get without a voting ring (err, two friends). There's the "new" page all right, but new stories come so fast there that it never lasts more than an hour.

Once you get past the "front page" threshold however, points tend to flood in. The second vote is probably worth several dozen votes on average.

Reddit sub-forums however lets new submissions land in the front page directly. Unsurprisingly, this makes voting pattern much more predictable (at least on r/programming and r/crypto, which are basically the only forums I go to).