Post interesting content, do NOT post content we find offensive, childish, or immature. But Hubski isn't one person, so your content may appeal to some, and not to others. People may follow you that I follow, and even if I don't follow you myself, I still might see your content that the people I follow share, and I already follow them because I enjoy what they post, so I'll probably read it. So even just having one follower, depending on who it is, could put your content infront of a lot of people. For the most part, if content is good, and I see a lot of good posts come from someone that I continually enjoy, I'll follow them. If they post stuff I do not like and don't want to see, i'll ignore them. If it's just middle of the road stuff that doesn't bother or wow me, I'll just do nothing. I feel like this is kind of how many people here approach following others. My advice, don't worry about gaining followers in the beginning, and don't look at followers like a scoreboard like Reddit karma points are. Just read through posts, and follow people and tags you find interesting and kind of see how things work.
If you put in a URL that has already been linked to it won't let you post.
does that mean that if someone posts an interesting article here and has no followers and almost nobody reads it, and then 3 years in the future when there are very different people on the site who would be interested, it is impossible for anyone to post it or read it?
You could search for it, find it, and comment on it or share it. To my knowledge that would bring it back into the feeds once again. But I am not sure. You'd have to get a response from MK, b_b, thenewgreen, or one of the other Hubski peeps.