As an amateur HNologist, it's been my observation that controversial topics DO tend to fall off the first page quickly, much more quickly than tech topics. I su

As an amateur HNologist, it's been my observation that controversial topics DO tend to fall off the first page quickly, much more quickly than tech topics. I suspect that there's some part of the algorithm that detects when there are a lot of downvotes on comments, and it counts against the thread itself.