Best ways to ask 'Ask HN' questions on HN for a good response

First off I suppose I should ask if its okay to ask questions about asking questions, but maybe its too late for that now.

Anyways I am considering asking a question on HN and have not done so before so would like any advice on best pactices/methods..

So can anyone advise on how best to ask questions on HN to get really focused good quality responses, how to lead people to give most relevant information first yet still allow for some minor tangential digression without too broader question that insights lots of off topic response.

Also possibly making request for submission formatting such that automatic processing of the thread is possible.

For example if I asked submitters to try to make all answers in a form such that single sentence on a line with a '+' at the beginning showing that is a good thing to do, or a '-' at beginning showing its a negative factor toward goal.

How can I pique users interest to get the maximum number of replies?

What length of question is optimal, do longer question make the reader click next without bothering to finish reading?

Does anyone have any data on what topics have shown most interest(comments/replies) on HN and what proportion of really important highly rated comments go to which topics?

Should I specifically list things I do not want answered in the question?

Is there a best time to post a question on HN that it would get maximum viewing before falling off the first page yet still get good number of eyeballs on the post (when are highest rate of new submissions and highest number of reader viewings).

What have I not though of here in my question, am I missing something?