Although I agree that flagging (at least your top-level comment) seems a clear abuse of that system (which appears only to have been "acted upon" in a purely au

Although I agree that flagging (at least your top-level comment) seems a clear abuse of that system (which appears only to have been "acted upon" in a purely automated fashion), commenting on it in-thread (especially without a link to the original, for interested parties ;)) tends not to help. I believe the encouraged best practice is to e-mail hn@ycombinator.com to call the situation to the attention of the moderators. Even if they don't completely agree with your position, I suspect they will at least have a user or two's suspicious flagging behavior to keep under observation and/or revoke.