2 ms·

I was so puzzled when I got flagged that, for only the second time in many years, I emailed pg. Asked him what happened. Hell I thought it was a system bug. It

I was so puzzled when I got flagged that, for only the second time in many years, I emailed pg. Asked him what happened. Hell I thought it was a system bug. It had five votes in something like 20 minutes, then it was flagged. It went from being like 17th place to not appearing anywhere that I could find in the first 500 headlines. It wasn't just punished -- site volume was so high it was effectively gone. That means any one person veto power over whatever you create, simply because they can, because they've been around. With a huge number of folks on-site, the system just can't work like that.

ColinWright 15y ago
The problem is that spam and genuinely inappropriate items need to be flagged and deleted quickly, but people now seem to flag things simply because they don't like them, disagree, or are grumpy. I flag stuff that contains nothing to make me think. I frequently upvote things I disagree with provided they have some depth and make me think. But so much stuff here is now complete fluff. The balance is difficult. What should a flag mean? What should the effect of a flag be? Certainly it should penalise the ranking, and certainly enough flags should result in an item being deleted, but what is "enough"? It's a problem. Personally I don't see it getting fixed - I'm not convinced the existing structure can be fixed. That's why I'm doing something different.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Strangely, the pure spam doesn't seem to get turned dead very quickly, which is as you point out part of the difficulty with just changing the threshhold. A few times a day, something selling New Jordan Shoes or with an all-Chinese subject line leading to a not-HN-related-at-all ecommerce site, will stay on the New page long enough that it only falls off naturally due to age.

2 ms·

I was so puzzled when I got flagged that, for only the second time in many years, I emailed pg. Asked him what happened. Hell I thought it was a system bug. It

by DanielBMarkham 15y ago

ColinWright 15y ago
The problem is that spam and genuinely inappropriate items need to be flagged and deleted quickly, but people now seem to flag things simply because they don't like them, disagree, or are grumpy. I flag stuff that contains nothing to make me think. I frequently upvote things I disagree with provided they have some depth and make me think. But so much stuff here is now complete fluff. The balance is difficult. What should a flag mean? What should the effect of a flag be? Certainly it should penalise the ranking, and certainly enough flags should result in an item being deleted, but what is "enough"? It's a problem. Personally I don't see it getting fixed - I'm not convinced the existing structure can be fixed. That's why I'm doing something different.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Strangely, the pure spam doesn't seem to get turned dead very quickly, which is as you point out part of the difficulty with just changing the threshhold. A few times a day, something selling New Jordan Shoes or with an all-Chinese subject line leading to a not-HN-related-at-all ecommerce site, will stay on the New page long enough that it only falls off naturally due to age.