[subwindow]

Why was this article suddenly de-ranked? It was on the front page, and literally 10 seconds later it is on page 3. Is there some kind of rule that this article violated? Who makes this decision? Why is there not any transparency on if an article is de-ranked and why?

[corin_]

There's an argument, though I don't want to put words into PG's mouth regarding his reasoning, that lack of transparency is a form of protection against voting manipulation, as it's harder to trick a system if you don't understand the system - security through obscurity really.

As it dropped only to page 3, not further, I would hazard a guess that it's more to do with timing, for example maybe a post that's <60 minutes old requires less votes to get a high position than a post that's 60+ minutes old, and it's a hard line rather than gradual? Pure speculation on my part, but if you're interested the answer may (or may not) lie within https://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/lib/news.arc