And, of course, I just realized - if it is a moratorium on discussing HN itself, then there is a chance that this post will never get seen (or answered) either...
This sort of question and paranoid conspiracy-mongering would probably not come up as much if articles simply had a visible down-vote instead of the hidden down-vote applied when people flag an article (but not early enough to kill it).
When you say #38 you mean this discussion and not the article that someone submitted today, correct? Is that what you think happened then, it was simply voted down? Who would be able to confirm or deny it then? I just went through all 690 submissions visible from the homepage onward and didn't see the one someone submitted today at all. You would think it would show up somewhere in that list, wouldn't you?
This sort of question and paranoid conspiracy-mongering would probably not come up as much if articles simply had a visible down-vote instead of the hidden down-vote applied when people flag an article (but not early enough to kill it).