5 ms·
> To prevent abuse, moderators review flagged stories and comments and revoke flagging privileges from users who flag inappropriately. This seems like one of t
by rspeer 12y ago
> To prevent abuse, moderators review flagged stories and comments and revoke flagging privileges from users who flag inappropriately.
This seems like one of the cases where HN's moderation is both draconian and completely opaque. I can't flag comments, and I have no idea why. I certainly don't think of myself as an abusive user.
Maybe I accidentally clicked the "flag" link once. If that gets flagging privileges removed, HN should at least consider creating a way to undo an action!
- yoha 12y agoI am in a similar situation. I do remember having mis-clicked on a "flag" link once.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- spicyj 12y ago> I can't flag comments, and I have no idea why. Make sure you're clicking "link" through to the comment's page -- the flag links don't appear when comments are shown in a thread.
- BoppreH 12y agoAre you sure you are looking at the right place? To flag a comment you must click on "link", and only then the "flag" option appears. TFA mentions the threshold for flagging is only 30 karma. This has been the source of much confusion and I'm not 100% sure on the reason why it was implemented.
- weaksauce 12y agoThere is a karma threshold (iirc, I know there is one for downvotes) to be able to flag and a link threshold that if you don't know where to find it, you won't use it. only the experienced HN people will 1. care enough to use it and 2. have the karma for(old members) it so it's a low pass filter of sorts against poor commenting.
- cs702 12y agoMore than once, I've unintentionally downvoted comments I meant to upvote, upvoted comments I meant to downvote, and/or clicked on a button I didn't mean to click (that includes clicking on 'reply' after writing something that doesn't really add any value and almost instantly regretting it). So I agree, it would be great to have more/better undo options!
- couchand 12y agoI've done this, too. If you e-mail the mods they'll reverse it pretty quickly. On the same hand, if you e-mail the mods all the time they might have more of an incentive to implement a self-undo.
- cs702 12y agoThanks for the tip. I'll consider doing that next time, even though I'm somewhat reluctant to try it, because I have a sense the mods already dedicate a lot of time to HN -- the last thing they want or need is a barrage of emails asking for essentially unimportant reversals.
- stock_toaster 12y agoAgreed. I wish the up/down vote links were on opposite sides (I would prefer they were bigger too, but at least spacing them would be preferable). Something more like this.. ▲ cs702 31 minutes ago ▼ | link note: they are supposed to be the same size.. oddly unicode down triangle is rending larger for me.
- gojomo 12y agoAlso it's sufficiently typical to have the timestamp be the permalink to the post/comment, that the "| link" could be eliminated.
- stock_toaster 12y agogreat idea!
- dang 12y agoAs other users have pointed out, to flag a comment you have to click on 'link' to go to the comment's item page [1]. I don't know why PG designed it this way but have always assumed it was a speed bump to reduce impulsive flagging, since flags are more powerful than downvotes. We never remove flagging privileges because of just one flag. The concept of a mistake is all too familiar over here. 1. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=author%3Adang+flag+link#!/comment/sort_by_date/0/author%3Adang%20flag%20link https://hn.algolia.com/?q=author%3Adang+flag+link#!/comment/...
- chimeracoder 12y ago> We never remove flagging privileges because of just one flag. The concept of a mistake is intimately familiar to us, I assure you. Is it possible to either allow people to upvote a comment they have previously downvoted (or vice versa), or at least to undo an accidental upvote/downvote? Especially on mobile devices, the margin of error here is very low, and I know I have accidentally downvoted a comment that I meant to upvote. (In addition, I know some people may upvote/downvote a long comment before they have finished reading the entire text. This probably isn't behavior that should be encouraged or catered to, which is why allowing people to change their mind on votes[0] may be overkill. But at least allowing people to revoke an incorrect upvote/downvote might mitigate this effect.) [0] ie, the way Reddit does
- nightpool 12y agoAlso, FWIW, all flag actions can already be undone.
- DanBC 12y agoIs there any way for me to tell if my flags are useful or stupid? I tend to pre-emptively flag stories which I know will draw out the worst bits of HN. That's probably a bad thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if it caused my flags to be ignored.
- gaius 12y agoSame here. I generally flag gender stories, not because I disagree, but because the comments quickly deteriorate.