This comment is more for other readers than yourself, since you're already acquainted with the source code.

It's great to ask these questions. It's even better that verified team members answered them in a detailed fashion. I still recommend that one goes and reviews the source code (see link in page footer), since it's open source.

It's been discussed before, but how do we verify that the code running at https://stacker.news is the same code in the referenced GitHub repo? I guess we can't. But in the spirit of bitcoin: don't trust, verify.