

Ask HN: Why did this submission get penalized? - mck-

Moments ago, this post[1] was in the Top 10 (30 points in 5 hours). It is now bumped down to the third page. Is there something I need to understand?<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7203866
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ColinWright
As others have said, there is a heuristic flame war detector. It seems that a
penalty is applied if an item has more than 40 comments, and fewer points than
comments. It's actually a good idea, but it has many false positives.

That said, if people want to comment on something but don't think it's worth
upvoting, maybe it really doesn't belong on the front page.

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codezero
It's kind of old now, 5 hrs with 30 up votes is sort of stale and it has more
comments than up votes so probably got dinged by flame war detector too.

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clarkm
If something is controversial and doesn't have very many upvotes, its rank
takes a nosedive once it reaches 40 comments.

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mck-
Thanks, learned something new :)

