Some truly great stories get few, if any, comments. If a post requires effort or specialized knowledge to even ask good questions, then there isn't much discussion. This happens a lot when academic papers are posted since reading a paper might require a multi-hour investment, but even when there is little discussion, it's good to have heavy articles submitted. They balance out the other stuff.

If you find something great-but-overlooked in the /newest queue, then send an email to hn@ycombinator.com asking for a repost request to be sent to the original submitter. That's what I did with this article, but Dan (dang) asked me to repost it myself. Neither 'ingve' nor I care who gets the credit/karma, but a lot of people want great articles to get attention on HN.

HN is what we make it.