6 ms·

Flagged articles should just list the usernames that flagged it--in a queryable way so anyone could do an analysis and see who is operating in bad faith.

Imustaskforhelp 10mo ago
100%
dang 10mo ago
Sorry, but I can't imagine doing that - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581665.
- ryandrake 10mo ago
  You could publish hashes of the flaggers' usernames rather than the usernames themselves. The point is not to go on witch hunts--it's to stop the endless discussions and questioning around whether what we are all seeing (certain topics always seeming to disappear quickly) is the result of flagging activity that is evenly distributed across the site or coming from a relative handful of brigaders.
  - dang 9mo ago
    Everything I know about internet dynamics and human nature tells me that that wouldn't work—it would just exacerbate the conflict. The problems we're talking about come from the fundamentals: how HN is defined (i.e. its mandate), how the site is structured (one front page that everyone shares, only 30 stories per page, etc.), how people feel, and what's going on in the world at large. Given those fundamentals, these conflicts are inevitable. All we can do is work on how we respond to them—trying to respond better, more creatively, more relationally. By "we" I mean all of us: mods qua mods, users qua users, mods qua users, and users qua mods. That's not going to happen to anyone's satisfaction, but if it can happen at all, that has to be good enough. I feel like Freud telling you guys you're all doomed to frustration!
    - ryandrake 9mo ago
      Thanks. Ultimately, as users, we need to trust that you guys are taking the right actions to defend against what appears from our point of view to be a sustained and coordinated cyber attack on the website. I hope I speak for a lot of my fellow users, that we trust it is being treated with the seriousness that you'd treat any other security vulnerability.
      - dang 9mo ago
        I went through and looked at all the accounts that flagged the current thread, which took a long time since there were many of them. I found a handful (about half a dozen) who looked to be flagging for exclusively political reasons. That's a small fraction of the total. In other words, the situation on this story turns out to fit the usual pattern as I described it a few weeks ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818): The accounts that flag these stories are almost always established accounts, so I'm not too worried about them being sockpuppets or paid influencers. From everything we've seen, flags on political stories are a coalition between (1) users who don't want to see (most) political stories on HN, and (2) users who don't like the politics of a particular story they are flagging. In other words, users who care about the quality of the site, and users who care about a political struggle. This dynamic shows up on all the main political topics. There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights. This, so far, seems sufficient to me. If we start to see indications that it's not sufficient, we'll take more action. To make the point clearer, I went through all the other accounts that flagged the OP (i.e. not including the half dozen abusive cases) and collected examples of other stories they had flagged. I'll put that list in a reply to the current post since it's so long. I think anyone who browses that list will see what I mean when I say that most of these accounts are not flagging for purely political reasons. I don't know if that assuages your concerns—probably not, because it's in the nature of the internet that people feel this way and explanations, data, etc., don't address those feelings—but we can at least try.
        9mo ago

Imustaskforhelp 10mo ago

100%

dang 10mo ago

Sorry, but I can't imagine doing that - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581665.

ryandrake 10mo ago
You could publish hashes of the flaggers' usernames rather than the usernames themselves. The point is not to go on witch hunts--it's to stop the endless discussions and questioning around whether what we are all seeing (certain topics always seeming to disappear quickly) is the result of flagging activity that is evenly distributed across the site or coming from a relative handful of brigaders.
- dang 9mo ago
  Everything I know about internet dynamics and human nature tells me that that wouldn't work—it would just exacerbate the conflict. The problems we're talking about come from the fundamentals: how HN is defined (i.e. its mandate), how the site is structured (one front page that everyone shares, only 30 stories per page, etc.), how people feel, and what's going on in the world at large. Given those fundamentals, these conflicts are inevitable. All we can do is work on how we respond to them—trying to respond better, more creatively, more relationally. By "we" I mean all of us: mods qua mods, users qua users, mods qua users, and users qua mods. That's not going to happen to anyone's satisfaction, but if it can happen at all, that has to be good enough. I feel like Freud telling you guys you're all doomed to frustration!
  - ryandrake 9mo ago
    Thanks. Ultimately, as users, we need to trust that you guys are taking the right actions to defend against what appears from our point of view to be a sustained and coordinated cyber attack on the website. I hope I speak for a lot of my fellow users, that we trust it is being treated with the seriousness that you'd treat any other security vulnerability.
    - dang 9mo ago
      I went through and looked at all the accounts that flagged the current thread, which took a long time since there were many of them. I found a handful (about half a dozen) who looked to be flagging for exclusively political reasons. That's a small fraction of the total. In other words, the situation on this story turns out to fit the usual pattern as I described it a few weeks ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378818): The accounts that flag these stories are almost always established accounts, so I'm not too worried about them being sockpuppets or paid influencers. From everything we've seen, flags on political stories are a coalition between (1) users who don't want to see (most) political stories on HN, and (2) users who don't like the politics of a particular story they are flagging. In other words, users who care about the quality of the site, and users who care about a political struggle. This dynamic shows up on all the main political topics. There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights. This, so far, seems sufficient to me. If we start to see indications that it's not sufficient, we'll take more action. To make the point clearer, I went through all the other accounts that flagged the OP (i.e. not including the half dozen abusive cases) and collected examples of other stories they had flagged. I'll put that list in a reply to the current post since it's so long. I think anyone who browses that list will see what I mean when I say that most of these accounts are not flagging for purely political reasons. I don't know if that assuages your concerns—probably not, because it's in the nature of the internet that people feel this way and explanations, data, etc., don't address those feelings—but we can at least try.
      - 9mo ago