4 ms·

Flagging is entirely broken on Hacker News, which is a problem I've pointed out to the moderators before. It's basically a super-downvote and allows people to c

Flagging is entirely broken on Hacker News, which is a problem I've pointed out to the moderators before. It's basically a super-downvote and allows people to censor opinions that they don't like. Comparing with downvotes: - Flags work on comments and posts, but you can only downvote comments. - Flags work on replies to your comments; downvotes don't. - A few flags will remove a comment entirely, downvotes can only make it grey. - A few flags will remove a post entirely, and even with showdead enabled you have to see it in /new or at the last page of /hot, then choose to vouch for it to rescue it. This almost never happens. A flagged post is basically a death sentence for that post. - You get flags at 31 karma, but can't downvote until 501. So the answer is that flags are utterly broken and vulnerable to abuse, and /new is where it shows most strongly. Tons of posts are killed there. Controversial topics almost cannot be discussed on HN because it only takes a few people to vanish the post for good.

Lewton 6y ago
> Controversial topics almost cannot be discussed on HN because it only takes a few people to vanish the post for good. feature not a bug
- jb775 6y ago
  This works for technical topics, but quickly falls apart in certain topics of conversation. When a user-base skews one way politically, this is a terrible feature. People are blind to the fact they're chiseling their own echo chamber. Edit: how is downvoting political opinions (and therefore reducing the post's visibility) beneficial to anyone? It's a shallow way to make the down-voter feel good temporarily, and dissuades actual discussion of other philosophies. At the very least, political downvotes should require a response.
polote 6y ago
> Controversial topics almost cannot be discussed on HN because it only takes a few people to vanish the post for good. Yes but that's a choice, because these topics tend to create flame war discussion, so they don't belong to HN. It doesn't mean, these topics should not be discussed. Hn is just not the right place for it. > This almost never happens. A flagged post is basically a death sentence for that post. I'm not sure for that. I've rescued post, and I've seen post being rescued. But it could be easier to rescue a post, I agree. Hn works as a filter for submitted content, which works pretty well but tend to filter always the same kind of posts
r721 6y ago
>A few flags will remove a post entirely, and even with showdead enabled you have to see it in /new or at the last page of /hot Good place to look for popular (with many comments) flagged posts is https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active (Most active current discussions)

Lewton 6y ago

> Controversial topics almost cannot be discussed on HN because it only takes a few people to vanish the post for good. feature not a bug

jb775 6y ago
This works for technical topics, but quickly falls apart in certain topics of conversation. When a user-base skews one way politically, this is a terrible feature. People are blind to the fact they're chiseling their own echo chamber. Edit: how is downvoting political opinions (and therefore reducing the post's visibility) beneficial to anyone? It's a shallow way to make the down-voter feel good temporarily, and dissuades actual discussion of other philosophies. At the very least, political downvotes should require a response.

polote 6y ago

> Controversial topics almost cannot be discussed on HN because it only takes a few people to vanish the post for good. Yes but that's a choice, because these topics tend to create flame war discussion, so they don't belong to HN. It doesn't mean, these topics should not be discussed. Hn is just not the right place for it. > This almost never happens. A flagged post is basically a death sentence for that post. I'm not sure for that. I've rescued post, and I've seen post being rescued. But it could be easier to rescue a post, I agree. Hn works as a filter for submitted content, which works pretty well but tend to filter always the same kind of posts

r721 6y ago

>A few flags will remove a post entirely, and even with showdead enabled you have to see it in /new or at the last page of /hot Good place to look for popular (with many comments) flagged posts is https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active (Most active current discussions)