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>> "The discussion isn't killed; you just posted in it." I should have been more clear. I meant that discussion is 'effectively' killed as anybody interested w

>> "The discussion isn't killed; you just posted in it." I should have been more clear. I meant that discussion is 'effectively' killed as anybody interested will not be able to find the story. I don't know how many flags it generated but one second it was on the front page, I refreshed and couldn't find it going back three pages. My frustration stems from the fact that when the 'hide' function was introduced I had hoped people would use that more and only use flag for actual spam. If something gets up voted to the front page there are clearly quite a few people who want to discuss and there would probably be more but others won't find it once it's been flagged. Maybe if a page reaches enough up votes within n minutes or reaches a certain rank on the front page within n minutes we can presume it's not spam and disable flagging for an hour. That way those who don't want to participate can ignore or use the new hide feature and those who do want to participate can find it.

SamReidHughes 10y ago
Imagine if you posted this story on a knitting subreddit. It's like that. Edit: I didn't know there was a knitting story on the front page when I wrote this!
tptacek 10y ago
A flagged story isn't necessarily "spam". That's not what flagging means. Far more commonly, for stories that briefly kiss the front page and then vanish, they're simply off-topic for the site. That's probably because everyone knows how to vote, and so people who don't understand the guidelines vote off-topic stuff up. The people who flag stories tend to be more acquainted with the guidelines, and also always a step behind the upvoters.
dang 10y ago
A sensible approach might be to work on making such stories more findable, except it's not clear that this would be good for HN. Having more conversations like "We must get rid of Merkel and the refugees" followed by "What do you suggest, gas chambers?" would build up internet toxins that are already at uncomfortably high levels and bad for the body of the community.

SamReidHughes 10y ago

Imagine if you posted this story on a knitting subreddit. It's like that. Edit: I didn't know there was a knitting story on the front page when I wrote this!

tptacek 10y ago

A flagged story isn't necessarily "spam". That's not what flagging means. Far more commonly, for stories that briefly kiss the front page and then vanish, they're simply off-topic for the site. That's probably because everyone knows how to vote, and so people who don't understand the guidelines vote off-topic stuff up. The people who flag stories tend to be more acquainted with the guidelines, and also always a step behind the upvoters.

dang 10y ago

A sensible approach might be to work on making such stories more findable, except it's not clear that this would be good for HN. Having more conversations like "We must get rid of Merkel and the refugees" followed by "What do you suggest, gas chambers?" would build up internet toxins that are already at uncomfortably high levels and bad for the body of the community.