[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