I've seen these unnecessary articles about gaming the front page: have you friends use an IP proxy, time your article at some crazy hour...has it really come to this?

As a personal example, I had an article I worked pretty hard on about web performance[1] with very tactical examples aimed to help an audience like HN. I tried posting at the right time, getting friends to upvote: nothing. Now I see this article[2] ranked on the front page (ranked no. 5, in fact) which is very much lacking in substance, doesn't really offer anything new or novel, and it's just climbing to the top.

I'm just kind of beside myself. I don't want to have to game HackerNews to get relevant content to this audience, an audience I've been a part of for over 8 years. I have a decent amount of karma, I participate in the community, and I'm not just trying to peddle my own content. And yet, I just don't even know how to engage this audience anymore. Am I doing something wrong?

[1] https://userinterfacing.com/the-fastest-way-to-increase-your-sites-performance-now/

[2] https://kiboit.com/performance