That initial minor boost is enough to throw a submission high up the frontpage - even 2 points, given close enough together in time, can do it.<p><i>simple solution</i>: remove the automatic upvote given when an article is submitted that has already been submitted. If people want to upvote it, it's negligible effort to do so once they get to the story on HN. <i>bonus</i> submitting an article is a quick hack to find it on HN. Often one would also want to upvote the article, but not always e.g. one might be seeking the comments to help evaluate the article. Counting these "submissions" as "upvotes" is inaccurate.<p><i>summary</i>: auto-upvoting of submissions is a needless, inaccurate and distorting convenience.