Comment by franciscop
9 years ago
I totally agree, but there are two things to note:
- I think for many the "flag" button is in a grey area between downvote and an actual flag button. I am pretty sure many people use it as a downvote button with the original meaning of StackOverflow's downvote, so it might be partially unintentional and with no ill intention.
- HN should probably implement a downvote for stories, leaving the flag for truly abusive behaviour. Then implement their algorithm based on (Up/Downvotes radius) * (Total votes).
This would probably allow for conversations like this, polarized/controversial but still valid, to remain in HN.
My observation from other communities with downvote buttons is that they encourage more groupthink, not less.
With no downvote button, it's at least possible for a subcommunity to get a thread near the top for a while. Downvotes let the majority suppress these.
But what's worse, an actual downvote button, or not being able to stop people from using flag as one?
Yes, it is mostly used as a downvote, which doesn't make it always right.
Btw. in fact there was a downvote for stories for some time. But leadership decided to take it out due to it being misused like flagging is misued by some now. At least by calling it "flag" for many people it's still clear that "this is content that doesn't belong on HN, like Spam, ads, sexual content etc".
Hacker News now has the ability to hide stories. This should be the default reaction to stories which one simply doesn't want to engage with, but which are not obviously egregious, rather than flagging them. It also hides comments from those stories.