While not specific to ASK HN submissions, in my experience it's almost useless to submit in the evening (EST). I have submitted several interesting stories that were ignored due to the time of their submission.
I've referenced that article in my post - and used the same dataset as they have. The (other) article is about all posts. I've focused exclusively on Ask HN - where the post's objective is not to educate/entertain/inform but to solicit feedback. The hypothesis is that an Ask HN post demats a higher level of involvement from the reader and hence may exhibit different trends.
15 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 57.2 ms ] thread[1] http://www.mattmazur.com/2010/03/six-months-of-hackernews-fr...
The comments submissions are displayed by 'average' while the 'Ask HN' submissions are by 'percentage'.
Two examples:
IBM and the Jeopardy Challenge: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1566395
The Day Einstein Died: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492997
It's from a while ago, so things may have changed.