What's worse, the boost for a node showing up at the Gates is not a crisp quantum effect.

• If a main node gets front-paged before it gets many votes, it can moderately enhance the boost effect factor.
• If a main node gets front-paged early in the day, USA time, it can greatly enhance the boost effect factor.
• The first few follow-up nodes get a lot more votes than the rest of the follow-ups.
• If a follow-up node is created before the main node gets front-paged, the follow-up node can attract a lot more votes than if the follow-up node is created later.

These factors are all active, regardless of the actual "quality" of the node involved.

Quality-related factors are prevalent, too. For example, an RTFM follow-up can win over an RTFM-bait question, or an insightful and informative follow-up can garner points over an RTFM follow-up.