Ask HN: A first (or early) upvote bonus?

No, it encourages to upvote things in new, but most things in new, shouldn't be upvoted by definition, right? It is supposed to funnel to the main page.

If you're curious, don't forget about other ways of ranking the homepage like https://news.ycombinator.com/classic

Wouldn't that just encourage vote spamming?

What about a bonus for up-voting a story that eventually receives a high score? Or is that what you meant?

No.