By the way, you can't derive story rank from points and submission time—HN's system is more complex than that. That's all that "WTF" means here.
In other words, HN is not ranking posts by votes, but by some (presumably handcrafted) algorithm that shapes which topics are more likely to make it to the front page. TIL.
This is how HN has always worked. There are three components to the system: community, software, and moderation. You need all three in order to keep a place like this functioning. None of this is secret; we post about it all the time and are happy to answer questions.
Which is a shame because I'm sure it is fascinating.
That's like blaming the dog for a fart.
The truth is that everyone operating HN would rather keep users in the dark about how and why stories land where they do. The idea being that if we could predict what the software might do, we'd try to manipulate the narrative, and if we knew when the hand of god intervened we might dare blaspheme.
But that gives up the truth anyway, because if we cannot know what "the software" will do, then we are prevented from knowing such facts, only in service to a false narrative, and that, in and of itself, is an unnatural intervention and willful deception.
When the software does a thing I say the software did it. When moderators do a thing I say moderators did it. Who knew that was controversial?
Well, yeah. Did you think that was a secret?
Who prevented you from asking how the rankings work?