SpaceX CRS-3 Mission

>>ColinW+(OP)
Is this submission being flagged by users, or has it tripped some sort of scoring penalty?

Dropping suddenly from 3rd to 20th on the front page suggests some sort of penalty being applied, but is it community driven, or automated? Even with the new openness about the actions of the moderators on HN I still find some things deeply confusing.

Added in edit: This does bring home just how important upvotes are. I've seen how disproportional the effect is of downvotes on an item's ranking - one downvotes out-weights many upvotes. If you like something, upvote it, or see it sink without trace.

>>ColinW+U7
I put a moderate moderator flag on it so that it would be lower, but still on the front page. My reasoning: Space X is cool and interesting, but it isn't a major story every time they do a launch.

Edit: We took the penalty off several hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7611240

>>dang+Al
That is a bummer. Compared to other stuff I see sitting on the front page for hours, I'd say a Space X launch that is testing first stage recovery is a pretty big deal.

>>sitkac+4u
We heard that, which is why the post went back to the top 10. We're not experts, so it takes feedback to get this right.

You make a good point about stuff sitting on the front page for hours, though. I've been wondering whether the mega-popular posts of the last day or two are choking out good new stories.

>>dang+Vz
I've noticed some stories hang out on the front page for days recently. Is that recent change?

>>waterl+8A
No, we haven't made any change that would affect that. The most popular stories get much higher vote totals than they used to. That might explain their inertia.

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