People flag things they don't like, and it increases the decay rate.
I'm sure it depends on a few different factors (upvote, comments, possibly keywords). Mods can also pin or de-list stories as they see fit.
It also depends who does the flagging, more karma == more power. If one abuses the function I imagine mods can / will [silently] neuter the account to have less (or no) effect.
There was also an interesting story recently about hacking HN ranking. The author created a bunch of accounts and got stories delisted from the frontpage by having too many noob accounts give a story an upvote over a short time period, apparently this triggered an anti-spam mechanism.
At some point it seems like a waste of time with poor ROI. You can make a story go away, so what? It's not like it'd work indefinitely, if it became widely abused the mods will catch on and modify the system.
I think the goal of HN is to have fun and interesting conversations, and connect with people. Excessive manipulation would be harmful with no real upside.
Here's the link:
https://reverseengineeringtogether.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33255477
Hehe, it got death by flagging. That's pretty funny.
Pretty sure this is not true.
The easiest way to 'manipulate' what's on the front page is to just send the mods an email about posts that could use a bit of a downward shove. Pre-announcements, dupes, etc regularly get tossed out. The front page would be all dupes and rage if that didn't happen.
As for the flagging, it's what I've seen claimed but don't know for sure. Thank you for the reality check, @pvg!