4 ms·

Of course you are allowed to say that, but at the same time, I would have totally flagged that story if I had seen it for the same reasons I flagged this one: I

Of course you are allowed to say that, but at the same time, I would have totally flagged that story if I had seen it for the same reasons I flagged this one: I don't live in the US, I don't care about politics, and I have no interest in random rumors.

midgetjones 9y ago
Plenty of other people thought the opposite and got this thread on to the front page though. Brilliantly, this also got posted by the twitterbot before it was flagged https://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/864149156004335617 https://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/86414915600433561...
- dang 9y ago
  > the twitterbot Your use of the definite article compels me to point out that that isn't official at all. Plenty of people do third-party things with HN stuff. We mostly don't mind and we also mostly don't know.
  - midgetjones 9y ago
    My apologies for making assumptions :)
camillomiller 9y ago
This same thread has bene flagged after rising to the top of the home page... What the heck?
- dang 9y ago
  Before putting out a volley of "what the heck", "something smells foul", etc., posts, it might be good to familiarize yourself with how HN works. Users flag stories all the time. This is a community action. It's completely routine. So is moderators marking stories as duplicate when they've already had significant attention on HN. The (non-)controversy here boils down to (a) users disagree about what belongs on HN, and (b) not every user sees every thread. Those are structural issues in the sense that they follow inevitably from the structure of the site.
joshmanders 9y ago
> I would have totally flagged that story if I had seen it for the same reasons I flagged this one: I don't live in the US, I don't care about politics Why flag though? Is it because parent threads don't have downvotes so people opt to flagging? Politics and rumors aside, I'm confused by why people flag something that they just don't care to read, instead of going onto the next story. If a post makes the front page, it's probably a good case that it's a subject people want to talk about. By flagging it because you don't care for it, makes no sense to me.
- dang 9y ago
  > I'm confused by why people flag something that they just don't care to read, instead of going onto the next story. It's because the front page space is so limited. Each story there takes a place that could go to many other interesting things.
  - joshmanders 9y ago
    But "other interesting things" is subjective... I don't know how many flags it takes for it to be taken down but if it makes it to the front page, does the number of upvotes change how many flags it takes?
    - dang 9y ago
      It's subjective in the sense that people disagree about specific cases and that there's interpretation involved—that's true. But HN's notion of 'interesting' as described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html is narrower than you might think. For example, it is not the same thing as 'like'—not even close. Of course people use upvotes to signal 'like' all the time. That's inevitable, and one reason why both flags and moderation are necessary as counterweights.
      - joshmanders 9y ago

midgetjones 9y ago

Plenty of other people thought the opposite and got this thread on to the front page though. Brilliantly, this also got posted by the twitterbot before it was flagged https://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/864149156004335617 https://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/86414915600433561...

dang 9y ago
> the twitterbot Your use of the definite article compels me to point out that that isn't official at all. Plenty of people do third-party things with HN stuff. We mostly don't mind and we also mostly don't know.
- midgetjones 9y ago
  My apologies for making assumptions :)

camillomiller 9y ago

This same thread has bene flagged after rising to the top of the home page... What the heck?

dang 9y ago
Before putting out a volley of "what the heck", "something smells foul", etc., posts, it might be good to familiarize yourself with how HN works. Users flag stories all the time. This is a community action. It's completely routine. So is moderators marking stories as duplicate when they've already had significant attention on HN. The (non-)controversy here boils down to (a) users disagree about what belongs on HN, and (b) not every user sees every thread. Those are structural issues in the sense that they follow inevitably from the structure of the site.

joshmanders 9y ago

> I would have totally flagged that story if I had seen it for the same reasons I flagged this one: I don't live in the US, I don't care about politics Why flag though? Is it because parent threads don't have downvotes so people opt to flagging? Politics and rumors aside, I'm confused by why people flag something that they just don't care to read, instead of going onto the next story. If a post makes the front page, it's probably a good case that it's a subject people want to talk about. By flagging it because you don't care for it, makes no sense to me.

dang 9y ago
> I'm confused by why people flag something that they just don't care to read, instead of going onto the next story. It's because the front page space is so limited. Each story there takes a place that could go to many other interesting things.
- joshmanders 9y ago
  But "other interesting things" is subjective... I don't know how many flags it takes for it to be taken down but if it makes it to the front page, does the number of upvotes change how many flags it takes?
  - dang 9y ago
    It's subjective in the sense that people disagree about specific cases and that there's interpretation involved—that's true. But HN's notion of 'interesting' as described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html is narrower than you might think. For example, it is not the same thing as 'like'—not even close. Of course people use upvotes to signal 'like' all the time. That's inevitable, and one reason why both flags and moderation are necessary as counterweights.
    - joshmanders 9y ago