> ...
> What I’ve noticed some people do is put out a tweet directing people to the newest page. This gives their followers an easy route to find their post.
I'm pretty sure this method gets flagged. It's easy enough to detect a bunch of users landing on the new page with Twitter as a referrer all upvoting the same article. The mods and the community don't appreciate sockpuppeting (unless you're in YC of course).
That's not true. Votes from YC alums get no special treatment, and HN's voting ring detection software works the same on their posts as anyone else's. If you or anyone has concerns about this, I'd be happy to address them, but specific links would be helpful. It's pretty hard to respond to drive-by accusations like this, which have no information in them.
The first thing we tell YC startups is not to solicit upvotes and comments. If they email us complaining that their post didn't get traction, we tell them the same things we tell others.
Posts by YC startups after their initial launch don't get any special treatment. If a submission doesn't say "Launch HN", it's subject to the same rules as everything else.
Edit: HN also displays YC alumni names in orange to other YC alumni.
A large part of our job is trying to prevent HN from being gamed. YC startups don't get to do that any more than others, and if we notice egregious cases we email them and give them an extra scolding.