Are top stories biased towards the preferences of those who browse the new page?

This is something that has been on my mind for years as an HN user: posts sometimes make it to the front page in as few as 3 or 4 initial votes, but the demographic of users who give those initial votes is the very small section of users who make a deliberate decision to visit the “new” page.

It seems like this means that spending time on that page, and commenting on or upvoting things you find interesting is a pretty influential way to project your preferences on the reading material of HN users.

Bonus question: is this a good or a bad thing?