Upvotes do counter flags. It's just that in this case the flags overwhelmed the upvotes.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
We aren't opposed to tweaking and testing it, but the tweaks would need to be small.
I'd hazard that someone is waiting-not-waiting, like Smaug, for a systems quant (bonus: lisper) to enter the cave to do equilibrium teleportation experiments on votes and flags
(I am secretly hoping that this is a silent-smoke-out-of-ears --and not self-extinguishing-- comment)
A couple hours at least, would be my guess.
What's the reasoning for not having a vouch feature for stories like comments?