[ok_craig]

Maybe people who are actually just average HN users don't find those stories to really be worth reading as much as other stories.

Occam's razor, you know. Not everything is a conspiracy.

[recoiledsnake]

Note that the complaint is not about lack of upvotes, it's about people going out of their way to use their flagging powers which is meant only for spam links.

[ok_craig]

How do you tell if something's flagged?