I was thinking along similar lines -- that somehow, somebody, somewhere had flagged the article because of the subject matter.

I'm a hacker. I like knowing how things work. If I have a little up and down arrow, I want to click it and watch the little number get bigger or smaller. It's not too much to ask, is it?

It's already impossible to determine how the system sorts -- but I think that bit of obscurity works for everybody. Having buttons appear or disappear randomly sounds like a way to annoy people.

There's also the issue of the buttons not actually changing the score -- another pain for some users.