This question is answered in the first paragraph of the text at the top (https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=26998309). Of course it's manual. If it weren't, we'd have software that could identify good stories, and I'd be somewhere eating grapes. Well, not grapes; and perhaps not eating. writing code, more likely.
HN's system consists of community, software, and moderators, just as it always has. Moderation is a feedback module tacked on to try to prevent the system from landing in any of its default failure modes. That, alas, requires humans.
HN's system consists of community, software, and moderators, just as it always has. Moderation is a feedback module tacked on to try to prevent the system from landing in any of its default failure modes. That, alas, requires humans.