>So a simple "most viewed in last month" page would trigger a loss of protection?

The key word there is "page". I have no problem with news.ycombinator.com/active, but that is a page that a user must proactively seek out. It's not the default or even possible to make it the default. Every time a user visits it, it is because they decided to visit it. The page is also the same for everyone who visits it.

To be clear, even the front page of Hacker News is not just a simple question of upvotes. Views, comments, time since posting, political content down ranking, etc. all at a factor in the ordering of posts.