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Ask HN: Can someone tell me why my post got flagged?
Hi all,
A post of mine got “flagged”:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28706378
The string ‘[flagged]’ got added to the title.
The link is to a free tool which can be used by anyone to generate youtube name ideas, so not particular the reason for getting it flagged
- krapp 5y agoYou seem to be using Hacker News to post links to a "weekly newsletter." Seems a lot like spam and it's probably against guidelines. This is a forum meant for substantive conversation, not your personal blog.
- Anil1331 5y agoSorry but there is no newsletter. I have built a free tool and thought would be useful for anyone interested
- readonthegoapp 5y agomaybe you have to do a 'Show HN:...'? prob read the faq and see what is says about advertising/self-promotion?
- Anil1331 5y agoYeah I have kept it as a SHOW HN: itself, not in the main feed and the tools is a free tool and there is no upsell so not sure what is the reason
- mindcrime 5y ago"Flagging" is done by individual users, at their own discretion, for more or less arbitrary reasons. If a posts accumulates enough "flags" it goes into the state you are seeing. It's really hard to say why a specific post received flags, unless the exact individuals who chose to flag it decide to speak up. I wasn't one of the people who flagged your post, so I can't really say much more than that.
- Anil1331 5y agoThis is a sad state as it can give power into the hands of mobs who can bring down any post if they wish but I guess I would have to live with it
- mindcrime 5y agoI don't know for sure, but I presume that the moderators can resurrect a post that they deem to have been flagged to death unfairly. I also don't know how many "flags" it takes to kill a post. I don't think they publicize that, and probably for good reason. From what I've seen though, "bad" uses of flagging don't happen that often. Usually it's for blatant spam or troll posts. But I guess there will always be exceptions...
- jjk166 5y agoSomething being flagged doesn't automatically make it go away. The moderators review flagged posts (they are flagged for review) and decide if it should stay up or not. The worst a mob can do is alert people that there's a decent number of users who don't think a post should be on the site, which is true.