> It doesn't take many flags from ordinary users to get an item off the front page. Flags carry a heavy penalty, and it seems that just three or four will take an item a long way down the rankings. If one person points out that they think an item is inappropriate, or isn't really of "deep interest" to the hacker culture/mentality, others will stop to wonder, and then they may also flag. Thus a single comment like that will often result in enough flags to take the item down quickly.

So the one person, plus a couple of others is all it takes to surpress a story!

> I've found a good predictor is the ratio of points to comments. The item you mention has 23 points but 42 comments. People are replying without upvoting, and that is a predictor of something that many will think is not really contributing value to the site as a whole. Correlation is not causation, etc, etc, but I've found it to be a good predictor of what I personally want to read.

Or it could be a good talking point. On a subject people are interested in -- hence the votes to get it to the front page in the first place.