By legitimate, I meant "not off topic" as defined in the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidel

By legitimate, I meant "not off topic" as defined in the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The guidelines also state clearly that flagging should only be used for something that is spam or off topic, not for expressing disagreement. And I think users who consistently flag stories about climate change (if such users do in fact exist) are clearly using flags for the latter purpose which it was not intended for, and deserve to be penalized.