[dang]

> I suspect the mods do this (maybe programmatically, maybe not) with articles that are likely to be "controversial"

We do this (no need to suspect—it's not a secret) but the greater effect comes from user flagging.

Why do we do this? Because hot controversies automatically get upvotes due to being hot and controversial. If there were no countervailing factor, HN's front page would consist of those, plus celebrity stories, trends of the moment, and the like.

The site's mandate is for stories that are intellectually interesting. That's far from the most powerful kind of interesting, so it needs to be protected from the other kinds.

Moderators doing this is not a perfect solution or even a good one, but it works, and has worked this way for years. We're definitely interested in finding a better solution long-term, though. In the meantime, I think most (though not all) of the users flagging stories are doing so responsibly and with the mandate of the site in mind.