Ranking content is commonplace, not every one of ten, a hundred, or a million comments per hour can be placed on a pedestal as #1.
Not tagging some posts as spam leads to spam flooded sites, marking probable spam and making it less visibile (ala HN for example) doesn't remove content but does reduce the impact garbage spam has and makes other content more visible.
In the context of this specific thread the article author's complaint is that their content was flagged, suspended, reviewed, and restored.
These are the edge cases of the ever present spam riddled nazi bar problem.
Not tagging some posts as spam leads to spam flooded sites, marking probable spam and making it less visibile (ala HN for example) doesn't remove content but does reduce the impact garbage spam has and makes other content more visible.
In the context of this specific thread the article author's complaint is that their content was flagged, suspended, reviewed, and restored.
These are the edge cases of the ever present spam riddled nazi bar problem.