Side note: the link didn’t make it to the front page of HN, despite early upvotes. Other links with worse stats (votes at a certain age) rose to the very top. Anyways, it’s currently ranked 78. I guess I don’t really understand how HN ranks things. I hope someone will explain this to me. Does the source “youtube” vs “nytimes” matter? Do flag-votes count as silent mega-downvotes? Does the algorithm punish posts with numbers in them?
Side note: the link didn’t make it to the front page of HN, despite early upvotes. Other links with worse stats (votes at a certain age) rose to the very top. Anyways, it’s currently ranked 78. I guess I don’t really understand how HN ranks things. I hope someone will explain this to me. Does the source “youtube” vs “nytimes” matter? Do flag-votes count as silent mega-downvotes? Does the algorithm punish posts with numbers in them?
Yes—HN users with flag privileges can flag posts. Flags operate as silent mega-downvotes.
(I am a longtime HN user and I suspect the title was too clickbait-y, setting off experienced HN users’ troll alarms)