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On the contrary, I think people should flag away -- but go to the new stories page first. There's plenty of spam and politics and duplicate content and other of

by dminor 15y ago

On the contrary, I think people should flag away -- but go to the new stories page first. There's plenty of spam and politics and duplicate content and other off-topic humdrum. And if you happen to come across an interesting article about hacking or startups, vote it up -- it might even make it to the front page.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Not sure if you know this or not, but flagging an article as it first appears prevents all other HNers from seeing it. Flagging it later on causes it to sink rapidly off the top page. This means that a very few people could prevent huge chunks of legitimate stories from being seen by fellow HNers by flagging. Flagging, for whatever reason, is much more powerful than voting. If you flag, you not only note that the article is bad, you prevent others from having a choice. That's why it should be used sparingly. If everybody flagged 10 articles a day, it's not that lots of bad articles would get sorted out, it's that nothing new would appear on the front page at all. Voting means "I don't like it" Flagging means "I decide nobody else should look at it" It's a completely different thing. Also appropriate material for HN is material of interest to hackers, not just hacking or startups. If you're flagging it because it's not hacking or startups, you're actively preventing the rest of us from seeing material that might be considered pretty good if we had a chance to rate it. You probably already know all of that. Just wanted to point it out for those who didn't.
- dminor 15y ago
  > Not sure if you know this or not, but flagging an article as it first appears prevents all other HNers from seeing it. As I understand it, this is not the case. If enough people flag a story before it gets some upvotes, then it gets auto-killed, but one flag won't kill a story. It does make it harder to get to the front page though. > Flagging it later on causes it to sink rapidly off the top page. This is exactly how I'd expect a downvote to function, so I'd say flagging is serving a sort of dual purpose. If you look at the front page, there's no lack of quality stories. It's harder these days for any individual story to make it to the front page, but that's a function of greater submission volume. Quality discussions on the other hand have become more sparse as HN has grown. Perhaps it's a function of community size and there's no real fix for it.
- benjiweber 15y ago
  This is a bit worrying. It's very easy to accidentally hit flag when using a mobile device; The links are all very small and close together, and there is no confirmation dialogue.
  - jcr 15y ago
    If you flag something by mistake, you can 'unflag' it. The 'flag' link turns into an 'unflag' link. I believe there is a time-limit on how long you have the ability to 'unflag' something. I believe the time limit is similar to being able to edit or delete your comments for a 2 hour period after you made them.

by dminor 15y ago

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Not sure if you know this or not, but flagging an article as it first appears prevents all other HNers from seeing it. Flagging it later on causes it to sink rapidly off the top page. This means that a very few people could prevent huge chunks of legitimate stories from being seen by fellow HNers by flagging. Flagging, for whatever reason, is much more powerful than voting. If you flag, you not only note that the article is bad, you prevent others from having a choice. That's why it should be used sparingly. If everybody flagged 10 articles a day, it's not that lots of bad articles would get sorted out, it's that nothing new would appear on the front page at all. Voting means "I don't like it" Flagging means "I decide nobody else should look at it" It's a completely different thing. Also appropriate material for HN is material of interest to hackers, not just hacking or startups. If you're flagging it because it's not hacking or startups, you're actively preventing the rest of us from seeing material that might be considered pretty good if we had a chance to rate it. You probably already know all of that. Just wanted to point it out for those who didn't.

dminor 15y ago
> Not sure if you know this or not, but flagging an article as it first appears prevents all other HNers from seeing it. As I understand it, this is not the case. If enough people flag a story before it gets some upvotes, then it gets auto-killed, but one flag won't kill a story. It does make it harder to get to the front page though. > Flagging it later on causes it to sink rapidly off the top page. This is exactly how I'd expect a downvote to function, so I'd say flagging is serving a sort of dual purpose. If you look at the front page, there's no lack of quality stories. It's harder these days for any individual story to make it to the front page, but that's a function of greater submission volume. Quality discussions on the other hand have become more sparse as HN has grown. Perhaps it's a function of community size and there's no real fix for it.
benjiweber 15y ago
This is a bit worrying. It's very easy to accidentally hit flag when using a mobile device; The links are all very small and close together, and there is no confirmation dialogue.
- jcr 15y ago
  If you flag something by mistake, you can 'unflag' it. The 'flag' link turns into an 'unflag' link. I believe there is a time-limit on how long you have the ability to 'unflag' something. I believe the time limit is similar to being able to edit or delete your comments for a 2 hour period after you made them.