4 ms·

Well, now it's flagged so much that it actually is removed. I can only read "[flagged]". I really dislike this particular HN design decision. Reddit handles th

by tpmx 5y ago

Well, now it's flagged so much that it actually is removed. I can only read "[flagged]". I really dislike this particular HN design decision. Reddit handles this case much better.

ttt0 5y ago
You can show dead or flagged posts by turning on showdead in settings.
- tpmx 5y ago
  Wow. It actually works, too. Makes me think of the "Beware of the Leopard" Douglas Adams quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on-display-on-display-i-eventually https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on... Still, it's removed for the vast majority of readers, by design. That's how defaults work, particularly when the settings page is so vague.
  - ttt0 5y ago
    You can always vouch for the comment if you think it was flagged unfairly. I think each comment can be "resurrected" only once though.
    - tpmx 5y ago
      You can only vouch for a dead comment if you do this showdead settings change. (Otherwise you can't see it.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
simonh 5y ago
Downvoting is a form of free speech too. You have the freedom to say what you like, but there’s no obligation on anyone else to listen to it or like it, or publish and distribute it.
- jetrink 5y ago
  However, in any community where the down vote is used for mere disagreement, there is no room for dissenting opinions. An open discourse requires that people are willing to listen to those whom they disagree with. Down voting liberally is counter to that principle.
  - 6foot4_82iq 5y ago
    Vile racists like jacobsenscott are undeserving of nuanced discussion.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    I disagree. Downvoting for disagreement is a way of saving time in the discussion from reading lower value comments. To much low value content can mask more thoughtful discussion.
    - jetrink 5y ago
      Just because I don't agree with someone's perspective, doesn't inherently make it low value or not thoughtful. I find I often learn much from people I disagree with, even if their argument didn't change my mind.
      - dv_dt 5y ago
        No the disagreement doesn’t make it inherently make it low value, and I personally don’t downvote purely for disagreement, but for disagreement with argument methods wether I agree with the positions or not.
  - krapp 5y ago
    People forget that Hacker News is explicitly not a forum for free speech or open discourse. It's a forum for curated speech, sometimes aggressively curated, preferring fewer comments of higher quality over more comments of lower quality, even at the cost of open discourse. It gets on my nerves too but that's Chinatown, as it were.
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
You can enable showdead in your settings, and even low contrast messages can be spoken aloud by your friendly neighborhood TTS or pasted somewhere friendly for your reading displeasure. Not to say that ample downvotes don’t show some particular biases of the HN crowd, but it’s not like those comments disappear and you can make your own mind if they are low quality drivel or inconvenient dissent.
- tux3 5y ago
  It is, quite literally, like comments disappear. That's intentional, not an exageration.
  - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
    Well, if they did disappear completely, you'd have no way to retrieve their contents. They are extremely faded, true, but I've spent many of my childhood years watching cartoons on an old B&W television set with an extremely faded CRT, so I may be a bit desensitized. I'm not overflowing with boundless adoration for the HN forums (I've heard someone calling them "like Reddit, but made of galaxy brains" and it made me laugh out loud) and feel that the overall crowd here does display certain biases and flaws (myself included, of course), and that it has a set of wrongthink taboos for which you can be downvoted into oblivion, but at least there is a setting which will show you the downvoted, flagged, and dead comments at all so you can see for yourself and make your own judgement if it was fair. Unsurprisingly, most of the flagged/dead content is a sort of toilet humor, or some memespeak interjections devoid of content at all. Some messages are interesting, but they are few and far between. (I enjoy reading dead/flagged stuff nevertheless.) There exist forums which moderate messages in a way that the inconvenient/wrongthink/irrelevant/taboo/spam content disappears along with all the replies, as if it never appeared there. I doubt you'd want it quite like that.
- marcusverus 5y ago
  I enabled showdead and refreshed, but the message above is still displayed as "[flagged]".

by tpmx 5y ago

Well, now it's flagged so much that it actually is removed. I can only read "[flagged]". I really dislike this particular HN design decision. Reddit handles this case much better.

ttt0 5y ago

You can show dead or flagged posts by turning on showdead in settings.

tpmx 5y ago
Wow. It actually works, too. Makes me think of the "Beware of the Leopard" Douglas Adams quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on-display-on-display-i-eventually https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on... Still, it's removed for the vast majority of readers, by design. That's how defaults work, particularly when the settings page is so vague.
- ttt0 5y ago
  You can always vouch for the comment if you think it was flagged unfairly. I think each comment can be "resurrected" only once though.
  - tpmx 5y ago
    You can only vouch for a dead comment if you do this showdead settings change. (Otherwise you can't see it.)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

simonh 5y ago

Downvoting is a form of free speech too. You have the freedom to say what you like, but there’s no obligation on anyone else to listen to it or like it, or publish and distribute it.

jetrink 5y ago
However, in any community where the down vote is used for mere disagreement, there is no room for dissenting opinions. An open discourse requires that people are willing to listen to those whom they disagree with. Down voting liberally is counter to that principle.
- 6foot4_82iq 5y ago
  Vile racists like jacobsenscott are undeserving of nuanced discussion.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dv_dt 5y ago
  I disagree. Downvoting for disagreement is a way of saving time in the discussion from reading lower value comments. To much low value content can mask more thoughtful discussion.
  - jetrink 5y ago
    Just because I don't agree with someone's perspective, doesn't inherently make it low value or not thoughtful. I find I often learn much from people I disagree with, even if their argument didn't change my mind.
    - dv_dt 5y ago
      No the disagreement doesn’t make it inherently make it low value, and I personally don’t downvote purely for disagreement, but for disagreement with argument methods wether I agree with the positions or not.
- krapp 5y ago
  People forget that Hacker News is explicitly not a forum for free speech or open discourse. It's a forum for curated speech, sometimes aggressively curated, preferring fewer comments of higher quality over more comments of lower quality, even at the cost of open discourse. It gets on my nerves too but that's Chinatown, as it were.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

You can enable showdead in your settings, and even low contrast messages can be spoken aloud by your friendly neighborhood TTS or pasted somewhere friendly for your reading displeasure. Not to say that ample downvotes don’t show some particular biases of the HN crowd, but it’s not like those comments disappear and you can make your own mind if they are low quality drivel or inconvenient dissent.

tux3 5y ago
It is, quite literally, like comments disappear. That's intentional, not an exageration.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  Well, if they did disappear completely, you'd have no way to retrieve their contents. They are extremely faded, true, but I've spent many of my childhood years watching cartoons on an old B&W television set with an extremely faded CRT, so I may be a bit desensitized. I'm not overflowing with boundless adoration for the HN forums (I've heard someone calling them "like Reddit, but made of galaxy brains" and it made me laugh out loud) and feel that the overall crowd here does display certain biases and flaws (myself included, of course), and that it has a set of wrongthink taboos for which you can be downvoted into oblivion, but at least there is a setting which will show you the downvoted, flagged, and dead comments at all so you can see for yourself and make your own judgement if it was fair. Unsurprisingly, most of the flagged/dead content is a sort of toilet humor, or some memespeak interjections devoid of content at all. Some messages are interesting, but they are few and far between. (I enjoy reading dead/flagged stuff nevertheless.) There exist forums which moderate messages in a way that the inconvenient/wrongthink/irrelevant/taboo/spam content disappears along with all the replies, as if it never appeared there. I doubt you'd want it quite like that.
marcusverus 5y ago
I enabled showdead and refreshed, but the message above is still displayed as "[flagged]".