The root of the problem is that with the current setup, theres a huge 'luck factor' into whether or not your Show HN post most makes it off of 'New' and onto the first page. Its often 1 or 2 votes that can mean the difference between a post reaching the front page where it can then go on to recieve double/triple digit upvotes, versus remaining on 'New' and only getting 2-3 votes (in which case someone searching 'Show HN' thinks to themself 'well that post must not be very good, since it has so few votes'.
Of course the same could be said about news articles, however people dont spend hundreds of hours writing a news article (in fact it's rarely even the poster's work at all). While it would certainly be unwise to rely on a Show HN post as the sole means to launch your project, it certainly one of the top 5 traffic generators when you are just getting off the ground, and it sucks when your thread falls into obscurity because you didnt get that one extra vote to move you off of 'New' onto the first page.
That's why the "smart" thing for someone to do is to game the system, either through ring voting, asking friends to upvote on twitter. I can't blame them, thigh it's technically a bit borderline. I guess it's more legit for show hn than blogspam though.
I really think that if you have a group of friends who are regular participants of HN, the ringvoting detector doesnt come into play. (not that I've tried)
But maybe it's "okay" if the people are actually regulars? Hard to say since I'm not a mod here.
Of course the same could be said about news articles, however people dont spend hundreds of hours writing a news article (in fact it's rarely even the poster's work at all). While it would certainly be unwise to rely on a Show HN post as the sole means to launch your project, it certainly one of the top 5 traffic generators when you are just getting off the ground, and it sucks when your thread falls into obscurity because you didnt get that one extra vote to move you off of 'New' onto the first page.