[flagged] submissions aren't [dead] (killed), they are still active and can be upvoted and commented upon.

> if you compare its rank to that of other stories with a similar age and number of points.

Ranking is complicated enough here even before weighting, speed of initial upvotes can play against ranking, number of comments and the shape of the comment tree also affect ranking. And yes, various subjects and submission sources do get weightings that impact ranking.

What's funny, to myself at least, is that any attention at all is paid to "HN front page ranking" - I've been on again off again active here since 2008 .. and can't recall ever really looking at a default HN "front page" ever.

( There's /newest /newcomments /active etc to browse and sites such as https://hckrnews.com/ )