He did this quite often!

"But on the other hand, that's kind of a destructive process because if I name the place - and I don't always when it's a place like that - I've changed it. The next time I go back, there's tourists. There's people who've seen it on the show. And then I might hear from the same person from that neighborhood say, you ruined my favorite bar, (laughter) you know? All the regular customers have run away and it's filled with, you know, tourists in ugly T-shirts and flip-flops. There are times that I have looked at the camera and said, look, I'm just not going to tell you where this place is. I don't want to change it. It should stay like this forever. I do do that now and again."

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/20/558792269/anthony-bourdain-on...

That can happen when the votes all occur in short succession.

And it won't last very long at all unless someone else boosts it.

Fascinating. Are you certain of this or is this conjecture? Feels like this could be exploited if true.

Maybe it's more sophisticated like votes must be from people with high karma points?

It can definitely be gamed. I always used to notice links to the nautilus science site would instantly get 6 or so upvotes. While pondering this was when I realised they were YC backed, and stopped wondering if they'd get called out on it....