Ask HN: Why do small voting or ranking projects get flagged as spam so easily?

I’ve been experimenting with a very small side project: a simple voting/ranking tool. Everyone gets one vote, results are shown as a ranked list, and the goal isn’t decision-making but discussion.

What surprised me is how quickly these kinds of projects get treated as spam across communities, even when there’s no monetization, no ads, and no growth hacks involved. In some places, just mentioning “I built a small ranking tool” seems enough to trigger suspicion or moderation.

I’m not trying to promote anything here. I’m genuinely curious about the dynamics:

- Do voting/ranking tools have a bad reputation because they’re often used for manipulation or low-effort engagement?

- Is the problem the format itself (polls, rankings), or the way they’re usually introduced?

- From a community’s point of view, what would make an experiment like this feel acceptable rather than spammy?

If you’ve built or moderated communities, or shipped small experimental tools, I’d really like to hear how you think about this.