I heard a rumour that it depends on the time when you made the post.
It competes against the popularity of other things posted at around that time.
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_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences,
Mon 3 Nov 2008, 22:27,
archived)
I think also
if it's posted during the day it'll get shot way up fast, because there's a million or so lurkers online. It's only us sadsacks who are here in the evening...
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boris the spider,
Mon 3 Nov 2008, 22:29,
archived)
That seems kind of opposite to what I said.
Unless it's sort of weighted so that it it does better if there are fewer votes to go around at the time, but not much better. That would be confusing and a bit random. It probably works like that.
(
_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences,
Mon 3 Nov 2008, 22:32,
archived)