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Hacker News gets it most wrong with the flagging system, which is ripe for abuse (and is constantly abused). I sent this to dang some time ago, and was met with
by ddevault 6y ago
Hacker News gets it most wrong with the flagging system, which is ripe for abuse (and is constantly abused). I sent this to dang some time ago, and was met with a muted response:
I realized something interesting the other day - users gain access to downvote comments once they reach 501 karma. I've always inferred that this is to make it so that users cannot downvote until they have demonstrated some understanding of the community and an ability to fit in with its norms.
However... users get access to flagging at 31 karma. A flag is basically
a super downvote in several respects:
- It works on comments and posts
- It works on direct replies to your own comments
- Just a few flags is enough to remove content entirely
- A flagged post cannot be vouched for until after it's been removed, whereas a post can be upvoted before it's downvoted.
It's a bit weird to me that the OP version of downvotes is available to users 16 times sooner than the neutered version. I feel like HN has a problem with flagging being abused for censorship - this might provide an explanation.
- type0 6y agoYeah, I think the guidelines should state that you can't just flag everything you disagree with, there should be consequences for that sort of behavior.
- akerl_ 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836 May be of interest to you, notably the part about flagging privileges being removed if somebody is misusing the feature.