I'm sure you've thought about this for longer than I did, so I'll take your word on it. It's just always a bit sad to see people who appear genuinely confused as to what they're doing wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29542828 Though maybe explaining it to them wouldn't work either.

People can always email us at hn@ycombinator.com, which is listed under "Contact" on every page, and get a clear answer about what is happening. Many do just that.

I know, and it's great how responsive you are, but the problem is that people first need to notice that they're shouting into a void...

Seasoned users can (and do) also notice these cases and email to let us know. And of course we review as many submissions as we can and rescue the good ones that have been caught in software filters.

It's true that some good posts don't get recovered this way. But I'm not aware of an alternative that would fix that without also seriously diluting the quality of HN. Not all, but certainly most of those posts are dead for good reason.

> we review as many submissions as we can and rescue the good ones

Rescuing good submissions is great, I just wish there were a way to somehow rescue good people making bad submissions, so that they start posting good ones instead. (Or at least stop wasting their time.)

You can vouch for individual comments; turn on showdead and click on the time of the comment and then vouch.

I've done it a few times.