This isn't the first time anyway. Pretty much any post mentioning Microsoft in a not bad light seems to get flagged by people with good karma abusing it.
Edit: It's at 325 points(posted 4 hours ago) right now and stuck at #14. Has to break some record for the most upvoted and flagged story.
I think some sites have a bonus point degrader applied to them, so they age off faster. Prevents what may otherwise be popular sites from dominating the front page.
I should hope so. I didn't flag this (as robber baron parasites go, Gates is pretty interesting and topical) but #1 on the Reddit front page isn't exactly obscure.
Looks like even mentioning the flagging is taboo. My top level comment on this story[1] calling out the flagging is sitting at the bottom of the comment pile, very grayed out.
Flagging on HN isn't really the same as downvoting on Reddit.
From the HN guidelines:
If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.)
I think 27182818284 is talking about the downvoting of your comment, not the flagging of the original story.
Also, Reddit has the same guideline as you quote (only downvote things that don't belong) whereas HN has the creator saying that downvotes can be used to express disagreement.
http://i.imgur.com/hFFueFf.png
This isn't the first time anyway. Pretty much any post mentioning Microsoft in a not bad light seems to get flagged by people with good karma abusing it.
Edit: It's at 325 points(posted 4 hours ago) right now and stuck at #14. Has to break some record for the most upvoted and flagged story.