My guess is that it isn't actually the "NSA" keyword that is penalizing those articles but maybe some other type of filter. For instance, what if it instead pen

My guess is that it isn't actually the "NSA" keyword that is penalizing those articles but maybe some other type of filter. For instance, what if it instead penalizes topics basic on keywords relative to other articles? Basically a way to keep the content of the homepage fresh and unique, instead of having 6 different topics at one time on the NSA, or 6 topics on bitcoin, it instead penalizes those popular keywords to prevent a flood of similar content, with this filter actively changing based on the popular keywords at that time, If this was the case- I would actively encourage this filter, the thing that I love about HN is that it doesn't beat a dead horse.