There's something called a second-chance queue for overlooked submissions https://news.ycombinator.com/pool (listed on https://news.ycombinator.com/lists)

Some older users (I think YC alumni) can nominate articles and moderators give them a boost. The timestamp doesn't change, I've seen 2 day old articles appearing. It's a bit confusing, I think it was hacked in years ago but works good enough.