Nah, that causes a story to move from page 1 to page 2, for example. (Or more precisely, to drop in rank by ~10 to ~20.) I made certain to check the front two p

Nah, that causes a story to move from page 1 to page 2, for example. (Or more precisely, to drop in rank by ~10 to ~20.) I made certain to check the front two pages for this story, and it wasn't on them, immediately. Then [flagged] popped up later. It was a sharp step function, not a gradual change. If flagging caused a story to disappear from the front two pages, there would never be a need for [flagged] -- a story would be as good as flagged without it. It'd be a clarifying signal, but it wouldn't have any material impact on the story's rank. Again, none of this really matters, but it's fun to talk about. :) Maybe it was buried via a torrent of flags. If three flags showed up within a few seconds of each other, that might have caused the behavior. EDIT: see http://hnrankings.info/15267221/ http://hnrankings.info/15267221/