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Forgive my ignorance, but what are user flags, and how are they used to kill a post? I did notice that this post dropped off the front page quite quickly.
by rhapsodic 12y ago
Forgive my ignorance, but what are user flags, and how are they used to kill a post? I did notice that this post dropped off the front page quite quickly.
- dang 12y agoAfter your account has a small amount of karma, a link that says "flag" will appear beside each story. When you see a story that you think is off-topic or otherwise harmful for Hacker News, you can flag it. Flags cause a story's rank to fall and, if there are enough of them, kill the story altogether. When flags kill a story, we sometimes unkill it so the existing discussion can continue. I did that here. I'd guess that the flags on the current post are because the it is just a reprise of a story from earlier this week, so more or less a duplicate. A caveat. Please don't flag stories merely because they are on some unusual topic. If a post is intellectually substantive, and not flamewar prone, but somehow obscure or out-of-the-way, it is welcome here. Here's an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5979384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5979384. We definitely want such diversity on Hacker News. (I mention this in case anyone still has the misconception that HN is for technology and startups only.)
- rhapsodic 12y agoThanks dang. I don't think the story should have been killed, since it added very relevant information that was not included in the previous post.