In the context of social media, or more generally, user-submitted and user-generated content, which would subsume HN, "algorithm" is virtually always shorthand for algorithmic amplification, with an end-goal of increasing time-on-site, engagement, addiction, outrage, and similar measures. And that is what HN explicitly does not have.

<https://knightcolumbia.org/content/the-myth-of-the-algorithm...>

To the extent that HN does utilise specific procedural mechanisms to adjust the priority of content, it's virtually always away from the typical patterns of algorithmic amplification: less emotion, less outrage, fewer hot takes, less nationalism and relgious flamewars, and specifically toward "intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation": <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404>.

It would be possible, yes, though incredibly disingenuous, to argue that what HN is doing is itself amplification. Yes, any curation is an amplification of some content over other, but in a world where "algorithmic content" means clickbait, brain-crack, and stickyness, HN is quite clearly aiming for something else.

Another facile objection is that HN fails to achieve its stated goals. Well, yes, it does, and the mods freely admit this (see, e.g.: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20188101>). Why does HN fall short? Because the problem is hard (see, e.g., <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163743>).

If power-law dynamics were purely the result of manipulative algorithmic amplification, we'd see them only in online media subject to such amplification. And that's simply not the case. Power laws are fundamental to not only all of human communications and interactions (word and letter frequencies, for example, neither of which suggest a strong influence by algorithmic amplification), but to all manner of natural phenomena, including those entirely outside the realm of biological activity (e.g., frequency/magnitude plots of earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroid impacts, and stellar novae).

And in the realm of interpersonal online communications, HN's goals and interventions (mods, voting, and some programmed mechanisms) are desperately trying to swim upstream. As someone whose online tenure pre-dates the Web and extends to pre-Eternal September Usenet, HN has done remarkably well, and outlived many of its antecedents' and competitors' useful or entire lives (Usenet, Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, Google+, et cetera). Trust me, I'd love to see it do better (a view often voiced by mods as well). But in an ordinal ranking with what actually exists it's an exemplar.

This isn't a nitpick, it's a core and central point with (literally) universal applicability.