This story itself serves as the perfect example. When it was submitted four days ago [0], it quickly took a huge ranking hit and dropped off the front page. When a story drops off the front page this quickly, it's nearly impossible for it to get the upvote momentum required to gain any additional visibility. And the same URL can't be submitted again, so the opportunity for discussion of the article has essentially been removed.
Then, we're left discussing a breaking story as the top item four days later, when a summary report about the original story that contains no new information is published on Slate.
One might be quick to blame moderators, but in the discussion of another recent First Look story, dang said most of the penalty came from users flagging the story. [1] How many users flagging the story does it take to produce this outcome? Does GCHQ just need three accounts with a little karma to seriously diminish visibility here for days? Safeguards should be developed to prevent this sort of malicious activity. Maybe some sort of collusion penalty, where if the same users are flagging the same stories, the effect is diminished? Or a greater restriction on the maximum penalty?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8031791
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8008472
EDIT: And it's happened again! This story was #1 when the link was to [3]. About a half hour ago, the link was changed to firstlook.org, and within minutes, the story fell to the center of the main page. Now, thirty minutes later, it's at number 47 (with 200 points after six hours). It was at the top for hours, then dropped to 47 within thirty minutes of the link being changed. The fact that flagging happened right after the link was changed seriously suggests that some someone has automated monitoring for First Look links to flag.
[3] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/07/15/documents...