If I may share from my personal experiences and observations, I think:

• posts that detail a unique experience of the OP (like persuading merchants to go onboard the LN, leveraging Stacker News as a content creator) do well because they make our hearts warm and help us believe that we each can play a part and make a difference
• posts that ask an open-ended question resonate with Stackers because they allow people to dig deep and share their insights/perspectives. People come to find commonalities and differences in the responses available, which adds value to the OP’s post

Just my two sats’ worth