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I really appreciate the level of detail in this post. Not too little. Not too much. It does seem that being in school made this experiment distinctly different

I really appreciate the level of detail in this post. Not too little. Not too much. It does seem that being in school made this experiment distinctly different from just living in a tent. In a sense, tuition was rent. It paid for showers, electricity, and a living room with air conditioning (the library). It also provided a supportive community. School and even society at large is more inclined to help a poor student than an adult trying to cut rent. I make this observation not to diminish the experiment's value. I am just putting it in context to arrange its utility in my mind. (edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged. It is def life- hacking if not tech hacking.)

5mv2 1y ago
Appreciate the feedback! 100%. It's a lot easier when you live next to a Google campus. And it sorts all the menial matters that make a huge difference, like access to washing machines. About the flagging, you seem to have been here for a while, any hint? I get the word usage can comes across as disrespectful now that people mention it, but didn't think a link would get flagged for that.
- Hnrobert42 1y ago
  I have been here for years. Most things that get flagged are extremely objectionable or touch a political nerve. I could see conservatives disliking that it questions capitalism's viability post AI. I could see liberals thinking you are making light of folks experiencing homelessness. I think those are absurd, but with a low vote count, your post may only need a few absurd people to flag you. Naturally, there could be other reasons things get flagged, but I never see them because they disappear too fast. You could always ask @dang to weigh in. He might see something which violates the guidelines.
  - 5mv2 1y ago
    Makes sense. Thanks for sharing! Looks like it might have to do with the title, or at least the title was changed before it got unflagged. Good learning!
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    > Most things that get flagged are extremely objectionable I unflag completely normal posts every day on the "New" page of HN. Many of them are actually very good posts, and some of them reach the number one spot of the front page after being unflagged. Very rarely do I see the flagged posts being very objectionable.
neilv 1y ago
> edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged. Flagging seems to be one of the big vulnerabilities of HN. Maybe flaggers should be required to state the reason for flagging, and this reason should be exposed. Flagging means "no one should even see this on HN", and random people shouldn't get arrogant or cavalier about swinging around that power.
- jimmaswell 1y ago
  I have my account set to show flagged comments. A lot of flagged comments are simply some form of "wrongthink" but not violating any guidelines. So I've used the function often to "save" a flagged thing but it seemed to have stopped working for me at some point. I can only speculate why, but I think I saw some other commenters saying that happens if you unflag too much.. wrongthink. I want to give the site admin the benefit of the doubt though. Maybe it's simply an automated process that notices you unflagged too many things that were flagged by others too much?
  - neilv 1y ago
    I also have that setting, and occasionally vouch for an inexplicably flagged comment I notice. There's definitely wrongthink/ideological flagging and downvoting going on. (On some comments I make, I know when I make it that it's going to get downvoted, because it pushes against an opinion of the kinds of people who will downvote to suppress criticism. It used to be that criticizing cryptocurrency would get downvotes, but now it's popular to criticize. I can get reliably downvoted any time that I suggest that adding a fee for some basic public infrastructure (e.g., to drive on street in a city), in a "market-based" way, is a handout of the basic public infrastructure to the wealthy. Also, suggestions that there's still any bias against women, in anything, somewhere, seems to reliably get downvotes, no matter how relevant; I don't know why, but I'd guess it's because the topic has a lot of general angry sentiment, and people who are angry the other direction aren't represented as much on HN.) I'd distinguish wrongthink from something being off-topic and done-to-death or a flamewar magnet. Maybe one mental exercise test for this is whether the same person would also still downvote as "topic" if the opinion of the post/comment were flipped.
iainctduncan 1y ago
It was flagged because it originally had a totally different (and inappropriate) title.
- gsf_emergency 1y ago
  I want to be able to upvote this comment just to show everyone how rules like "don't change the headline as originally given by website" or "let randos (with unpredictable emotional structure) flag stuff" lead to suboptimal outcomes
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
    Sure, but any system of rules leads to suboptimal outcomes. Which isn’t to say the devil you know is better than the one you don’t, just that this being a suboptimal outcome is not in itself a reason to change those rules. In that context, the title rule is rather agreeable. I usually see people complaining about misleading headlines when it does not match the linked article. To be fair, it is sometimes an improvement but the point is that it’s always editorializing. Keeping that to a minimum only when the article’s headline is particularly objectionable seems to be better than letting every poster editorialize as a matter of course.
    - gsf_emergency 1y ago
      For these above reasons, I like the "don't editorialize" rule by itself. BUT it seems especially suboptimal in comparison to its combination with the "let people flag stories without justification" rule. No worries, I got ya, buddy: Imho instead of eschewing quantification altogether, rules should have a ELO style rating computed from the effects of their pair-wise combinations :) The hard part could be the combinatorial explosion lol

5mv2 1y ago

Appreciate the feedback! 100%. It's a lot easier when you live next to a Google campus. And it sorts all the menial matters that make a huge difference, like access to washing machines. About the flagging, you seem to have been here for a while, any hint? I get the word usage can comes across as disrespectful now that people mention it, but didn't think a link would get flagged for that.

Hnrobert42 1y ago
I have been here for years. Most things that get flagged are extremely objectionable or touch a political nerve. I could see conservatives disliking that it questions capitalism's viability post AI. I could see liberals thinking you are making light of folks experiencing homelessness. I think those are absurd, but with a low vote count, your post may only need a few absurd people to flag you. Naturally, there could be other reasons things get flagged, but I never see them because they disappear too fast. You could always ask @dang to weigh in. He might see something which violates the guidelines.
- 5mv2 1y ago
  Makes sense. Thanks for sharing! Looks like it might have to do with the title, or at least the title was changed before it got unflagged. Good learning!
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  > Most things that get flagged are extremely objectionable I unflag completely normal posts every day on the "New" page of HN. Many of them are actually very good posts, and some of them reach the number one spot of the front page after being unflagged. Very rarely do I see the flagged posts being very objectionable.

neilv 1y ago

> edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged. Flagging seems to be one of the big vulnerabilities of HN. Maybe flaggers should be required to state the reason for flagging, and this reason should be exposed. Flagging means "no one should even see this on HN", and random people shouldn't get arrogant or cavalier about swinging around that power.

jimmaswell 1y ago
I have my account set to show flagged comments. A lot of flagged comments are simply some form of "wrongthink" but not violating any guidelines. So I've used the function often to "save" a flagged thing but it seemed to have stopped working for me at some point. I can only speculate why, but I think I saw some other commenters saying that happens if you unflag too much.. wrongthink. I want to give the site admin the benefit of the doubt though. Maybe it's simply an automated process that notices you unflagged too many things that were flagged by others too much?
- neilv 1y ago
  I also have that setting, and occasionally vouch for an inexplicably flagged comment I notice. There's definitely wrongthink/ideological flagging and downvoting going on. (On some comments I make, I know when I make it that it's going to get downvoted, because it pushes against an opinion of the kinds of people who will downvote to suppress criticism. It used to be that criticizing cryptocurrency would get downvotes, but now it's popular to criticize. I can get reliably downvoted any time that I suggest that adding a fee for some basic public infrastructure (e.g., to drive on street in a city), in a "market-based" way, is a handout of the basic public infrastructure to the wealthy. Also, suggestions that there's still any bias against women, in anything, somewhere, seems to reliably get downvotes, no matter how relevant; I don't know why, but I'd guess it's because the topic has a lot of general angry sentiment, and people who are angry the other direction aren't represented as much on HN.) I'd distinguish wrongthink from something being off-topic and done-to-death or a flamewar magnet. Maybe one mental exercise test for this is whether the same person would also still downvote as "topic" if the opinion of the post/comment were flipped.

iainctduncan 1y ago

It was flagged because it originally had a totally different (and inappropriate) title.

gsf_emergency 1y ago
I want to be able to upvote this comment just to show everyone how rules like "don't change the headline as originally given by website" or "let randos (with unpredictable emotional structure) flag stuff" lead to suboptimal outcomes
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  Sure, but any system of rules leads to suboptimal outcomes. Which isn’t to say the devil you know is better than the one you don’t, just that this being a suboptimal outcome is not in itself a reason to change those rules. In that context, the title rule is rather agreeable. I usually see people complaining about misleading headlines when it does not match the linked article. To be fair, it is sometimes an improvement but the point is that it’s always editorializing. Keeping that to a minimum only when the article’s headline is particularly objectionable seems to be better than letting every poster editorialize as a matter of course.
  - gsf_emergency 1y ago
    For these above reasons, I like the "don't editorialize" rule by itself. BUT it seems especially suboptimal in comparison to its combination with the "let people flag stories without justification" rule. No worries, I got ya, buddy: Imho instead of eschewing quantification altogether, rules should have a ELO style rating computed from the effects of their pair-wise combinations :) The hard part could be the combinatorial explosion lol