However, it seems the 40-comment penalty is being applied to Show HN posts, which seems counter-productive to me. Isn't the whole point of Show HN to generate healthy discussion and answer user questions? Shouldn't they be exempt?
(Yesterday I posted a Show HN that had reached #15 on the front page when the 40th comment came in. Ding! Welcome to page 3. Irony: Several comments were my own, replying to questions.)
Source: http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really-works.html