You're right that it may arouse less anger if you don't reply, but I don't know that it works reliably. I've seen plenty of top-level comments flagged as well.

You're right that it may arouse less anger if you don't reply, but I don't know that it works reliably. I've seen plenty of top-level comments flagged as well. So much so that I've switched off show-dead because it annoyed me so much to see the harmlessness of comments that were flagged down. Better to ignore it instead of getting angry. And it feels like a workaround instead of a fix. Like a jolt of pain every time you put weight on your left leg and deciding to just not put weight on it. It does mitigate the symptom, but it doesn't solve the problem.