I'll be honest, I've not been nearly so good about doing my time on the 'new' page. In your experience, are there any strong patterns in good submissions? What I'm getting at is basically: are there any views on the new submissions list that would make finding the under-rated ones substantively simpler?
That's a tough q. for me- I generally have to just open 3 or 4 of them and make a decision of whether or not to up-mod it then do it again sometime later. Two kind of related thoughts, though, for those who don't spend a lot of time working on the "new" page:
If you concentrate on the top of the new page and like a submission and mod it, it will get exposure near the top of the top page and get some real good input usually, so that's the best place to start- just look at the 3 or 4 submissions at the top of the page and spend a few minutes.
Nevertheless, there are some amazing submissions that because they don't get a point in their first hour of existence (because everyone is eating lunch or busy submitting their own etc.) end up moving clear down the list without anything. If you want some good karma (the real kind) spend time with the 4 or 5 at the bottom of the list giving belated deserved credit for some posters.
Cain, if you're looking for up to date startup news, it is better to simply subscribe to rss blogs. Here are a few good ones: TC, Mashable, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, OnStartups, PaulGraham, Startup Reviews, The Startup Journey, etc.
On YC, it sometimes helps to simply sift through a user's past posts and comments.
