The author writes: From my understanding of how HN operates, there are two possibilities to explain this anomaly * It was moderated by the admins (W

The author writes: From my understanding of how HN operates, there are two possibilities to explain this anomaly * It was moderated by the admins (Which I do not believe was the case) * It was flagged seriously (which I believe was the case) There is another force at play. Items which are text, and not links to external sites, are penalised. I don't know how severely, or whether this is enough to explain all of the ranking differential you perceive, but it is very definite. Just saying there may be things that were missed.