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Quoting: > The downside of this being an obscure feature is that > knowledge of it could be abused by the less scrupulous > to push undesired articles of

Quoting: > The downside of this being an obscure feature is that > knowledge of it could be abused by the less scrupulous > to push undesired articles off the homepage using a > series of flags. > > Another way to abuse this is by downvoting everything > except for the articles that you upvote PG has stated elsewhere that he has an "indiscriminant flagger" detector, and that when it gets triggered, subsequent flags from that person don't get counted.

DanielStraight 16y ago
This is somewhat frustrating to me. I understand why it's there, but I hate having to be in fear of being tossed out when I'm genuinely trying to improve the site. I really think people who trip a detector should be notified of it so they can understand why. Failing to notify seems like a DRM-type move: basing a decision on preventing abuse rather than empowering honest users.
- duck 16y ago
  Yeah, that reminds me of the recent story on how most crosswalk buttons don't actually do anything.
- joe_bleau 16y ago
  I tend to aggressively flag stories from new accounts, especially if they're obviously spam or political. Did not realize that I was setting myself up to be ignored. I guess the safe move is to no longer flag stories.
  - bruceboughton 16y ago
    Surely it makes no difference: if you flag too much and you're ignored, you have no effect; if you don't flag, you have no effect. Why not go on flagging? You might be having an effect.
    - joe_bleau 16y ago
      Because I feel like a chump, not knowing if my flag effort counts or is being secretly ignored. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel like it's in the spirit (or what I perceive as the spirit) of the site to trick me like that. I'm not sure if I'd want to know my flags are being ignored. I know I was pretty disappointed to lose my downvote ability a few weeks ago (I was one of the 200-500 karma notch babies). Knowing that I'd lost an unearned flag ability might be even worse. On the other hand, if I knew, I wouldn't bother with the noobstories page anymore.
      - dolinsky 16y ago
        I hear what you're saying, and as someone who has been on this site for about two years and still treated as a sandboxed user, there are times where I wonder "why bother flagging" when there is no feedback provided to show me my affect on the system. Then I take a breath, close the browser tab, get back to work and realize that I care too much at that moment about something very low on the totem pole that isn't going to increase my effective output for the day. We can't have it both ways, unfortunately. The more transparent the voting and flagging mechanisms are on the site the more likely they are to be gamed. I'm ok with just 'doing' and not worrying how much of an effect it has on the site.
  - Huppie 16y ago
    That will probably not be any problem, since you're flagging stories that lots of others flag as well. It probably works by checking if you flag completely different from 'most' people.
    - joe_bleau 16y ago
      Yeah, but I also flag stuff that I don't like but others do (judging by their eventual front page status), such as some of the recent TSA and Wikileaks submissions. I flag social media stuff from time to time if it doesn't seem very technical. I even admit to sometimes flagging submissions without reading the linked content.
  - davi 16y ago
    No, the safe move is to assume that pg is doing as good a job as he can to make the rules line up with the collective behavior he wants to see. If you systematically flag every story by an established user whose comment you just downvoted, that would probably trigger a reduction in the weight of your flags. However if you flag lots of spam, and it really is spam, that's good. Please keep doing it. (And by the way, thank you.)
- aw3c2 16y ago
  Some angry moderator once ghosted my account. It was very bad because I could not even get any help on the site itself. In the end I had to directly mail pg.
- mortenjorck 16y ago
  Greater transparency in the UI would be welcome, but what I think would be the best solution is a "temperature meter." Think barrel temperature in some action games -- fire a lot all at once and you'll overheat; fire efficiently and you'll be able to fire whenever you need to. It could be displayed as simply as a numerical percentage in the top right. The same system could even be applied to other user actions such as voting, replying, and story submission, to help emphasize quality over quantity.
tnorthcutt 16y ago
I wonder if that's a permanent change? If someone indiscriminantly flags for a while, but then slows down, will their flags begin to be counted again?
- stcredzero 16y ago
  Doing that opens the system to being gamed easily. If the penalty is temporary, then a large number of logins can be acquired and scripted to enable down-voting cabals. If the penalty is permanent, then new accounts with sufficient karma would need to be "farmed."
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Downvoting cabals are no worse a problem than upvoting cabals; probably actually less bad. And I think pg said he's running some cabal detection.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      No, downvote cabals are worse. They are also harder to detect. Note that the distance from 1 to -4 is much less than the distance from 1 to 99.
      - hugh3 16y ago
        I can easily see the point of an upvoting cabal -- you'd use it to get your stories onto the front page. And you'd only need five accounts in order to do that quite successfully. What's the point of a downvoting cabal? To allow you to severely punish comments you don't like? Sounds petty even by internet standards. And if you do manage to get a comment down to -4, then I notice that comments in severely negative territory which aren't obviously awful tend to get rescued anyway.
        memetichazard 16y ago
        See the effect of a downvoting cabal on Digg here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1579444 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1579444 Upvoting a story keeps it on the front page longer. Downvoting a story makes it disappear before people can see it.
jcr 16y ago
I have accidentally tripped the "indiscriminant flagger" detector, so I can tell you about what happens. I can't type well or much these days, so I rarely post and spend nearly all of my time reading. When PG was kind enough to reset the password on my account, I ended up with an ancient account but no karma due to simply not using the account much (never logging in). Given my situation, I thought I would try to help out the quality of the site by both up-voting "good" stuff and flagging obvious spam. In trying to be useful and helpful, I obviously tripped the "indiscriminate flagging" detector on the first day of flagging spam. It only took a flagging a few (under five) articles, and the "flag" link disappeared. I can no longer flag anything. I believe the detection code incorporates karma of the account due to the low threshold I've seen compared to the experiences stated by other high-karma people (jacquesm, yourself, ...). It would be better if the abusive flagging detection code took into consideration whether or not the post/article was eventually deleted or marked dead, then reverse the "damage" to become a "benefit" to the person who flagged something (i.e. you actually helped in identifying something inappropriate).

DanielStraight 16y ago

This is somewhat frustrating to me. I understand why it's there, but I hate having to be in fear of being tossed out when I'm genuinely trying to improve the site. I really think people who trip a detector should be notified of it so they can understand why. Failing to notify seems like a DRM-type move: basing a decision on preventing abuse rather than empowering honest users.

duck 16y ago
Yeah, that reminds me of the recent story on how most crosswalk buttons don't actually do anything.
joe_bleau 16y ago
I tend to aggressively flag stories from new accounts, especially if they're obviously spam or political. Did not realize that I was setting myself up to be ignored. I guess the safe move is to no longer flag stories.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  Surely it makes no difference: if you flag too much and you're ignored, you have no effect; if you don't flag, you have no effect. Why not go on flagging? You might be having an effect.
  - joe_bleau 16y ago
    Because I feel like a chump, not knowing if my flag effort counts or is being secretly ignored. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel like it's in the spirit (or what I perceive as the spirit) of the site to trick me like that. I'm not sure if I'd want to know my flags are being ignored. I know I was pretty disappointed to lose my downvote ability a few weeks ago (I was one of the 200-500 karma notch babies). Knowing that I'd lost an unearned flag ability might be even worse. On the other hand, if I knew, I wouldn't bother with the noobstories page anymore.
    - dolinsky 16y ago
      I hear what you're saying, and as someone who has been on this site for about two years and still treated as a sandboxed user, there are times where I wonder "why bother flagging" when there is no feedback provided to show me my affect on the system. Then I take a breath, close the browser tab, get back to work and realize that I care too much at that moment about something very low on the totem pole that isn't going to increase my effective output for the day. We can't have it both ways, unfortunately. The more transparent the voting and flagging mechanisms are on the site the more likely they are to be gamed. I'm ok with just 'doing' and not worrying how much of an effect it has on the site.
- Huppie 16y ago
  That will probably not be any problem, since you're flagging stories that lots of others flag as well. It probably works by checking if you flag completely different from 'most' people.
  - joe_bleau 16y ago
    Yeah, but I also flag stuff that I don't like but others do (judging by their eventual front page status), such as some of the recent TSA and Wikileaks submissions. I flag social media stuff from time to time if it doesn't seem very technical. I even admit to sometimes flagging submissions without reading the linked content.
- davi 16y ago
  No, the safe move is to assume that pg is doing as good a job as he can to make the rules line up with the collective behavior he wants to see. If you systematically flag every story by an established user whose comment you just downvoted, that would probably trigger a reduction in the weight of your flags. However if you flag lots of spam, and it really is spam, that's good. Please keep doing it. (And by the way, thank you.)
aw3c2 16y ago
Some angry moderator once ghosted my account. It was very bad because I could not even get any help on the site itself. In the end I had to directly mail pg.
mortenjorck 16y ago
Greater transparency in the UI would be welcome, but what I think would be the best solution is a "temperature meter." Think barrel temperature in some action games -- fire a lot all at once and you'll overheat; fire efficiently and you'll be able to fire whenever you need to. It could be displayed as simply as a numerical percentage in the top right. The same system could even be applied to other user actions such as voting, replying, and story submission, to help emphasize quality over quantity.

tnorthcutt 16y ago

I wonder if that's a permanent change? If someone indiscriminantly flags for a while, but then slows down, will their flags begin to be counted again?

stcredzero 16y ago
Doing that opens the system to being gamed easily. If the penalty is temporary, then a large number of logins can be acquired and scripted to enable down-voting cabals. If the penalty is permanent, then new accounts with sufficient karma would need to be "farmed."
- hugh3 16y ago
  Downvoting cabals are no worse a problem than upvoting cabals; probably actually less bad. And I think pg said he's running some cabal detection.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    No, downvote cabals are worse. They are also harder to detect. Note that the distance from 1 to -4 is much less than the distance from 1 to 99.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      I can easily see the point of an upvoting cabal -- you'd use it to get your stories onto the front page. And you'd only need five accounts in order to do that quite successfully. What's the point of a downvoting cabal? To allow you to severely punish comments you don't like? Sounds petty even by internet standards. And if you do manage to get a comment down to -4, then I notice that comments in severely negative territory which aren't obviously awful tend to get rescued anyway.
      - memetichazard 16y ago
        See the effect of a downvoting cabal on Digg here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1579444 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1579444 Upvoting a story keeps it on the front page longer. Downvoting a story makes it disappear before people can see it.

jcr 16y ago

I have accidentally tripped the "indiscriminant flagger" detector, so I can tell you about what happens. I can't type well or much these days, so I rarely post and spend nearly all of my time reading. When PG was kind enough to reset the password on my account, I ended up with an ancient account but no karma due to simply not using the account much (never logging in). Given my situation, I thought I would try to help out the quality of the site by both up-voting "good" stuff and flagging obvious spam. In trying to be useful and helpful, I obviously tripped the "indiscriminate flagging" detector on the first day of flagging spam. It only took a flagging a few (under five) articles, and the "flag" link disappeared. I can no longer flag anything. I believe the detection code incorporates karma of the account due to the low threshold I've seen compared to the experiences stated by other high-karma people (jacquesm, yourself, ...). It would be better if the abusive flagging detection code took into consideration whether or not the post/article was eventually deleted or marked dead, then reverse the "damage" to become a "benefit" to the person who flagged something (i.e. you actually helped in identifying something inappropriate).