Comment by gwbas1c
1 year ago
> I sent an email to the moderator. @dang, who was very kind and quick in his response, explained to me that the Story had been flagged by users even without being explicitly [flagged], and that he could therefore only hypothesize the causes of the flag.
Maybe this is a consequence of Hacker News not having a way to downvote stories?
I only flag stories that are blatant violation of HN's guidelines: SPAM, politics, racist... Otherwise, if I don't like a story I don't do anything.
Maybe I'll start flagging stories that I don't like?
Yea, I suspect a sizable number of people use "flag" as a mega-downvote for things they passionately don't like, rather than for policy violations and spam.
For anyone that is concerned about over flagging, please consider turning on showdead and vouching responsibly!
If as many people thoughtfully vouched as maliciously flagged it may be less of an issue.
I see dead comments, (there's one in this thread,) but I never see dead stories.
I also pretty regularly vouch.
Wait, how do you vouch for something that has been flagged? I don't see that option, even with showdead turned on.
2 replies →
[flagged]
Yeah, like you I would have never thought to use the flag unless it was violations etc but turns out it's a weird behaviour of many users. Not sure why or when it originated but seems like its been driving the up/downs of a number of topics/posts for years now. Still use with moderation.
Where do you see that quote in the OP? I searched for it and didn't find it.
"WHY? Feel free to skip this part or click to expand"
looks like you didn't feel free.