Comment by dang
15 days ago
Of course. I've spent most of my time this week posting explanations and answering emails about this, so it's a bit odd to hear that I'm denying it, but I understand how these perceptions arise.
It may seem strange, but both of these things are true:
(1) it's the most-discussed topic that exists on HN right now; and
(2) most of the submissions about it are getting flagged.
If you think about how the internet (and HN) work, it's to be expected: there's a tsunami of submissions; some are getting through and producing condition #1; others are getting flagged and producing condition #2.
This has happened many times on HN over the years, and every time it happens, the community splits between the people who want more and the people who feel like it's too much.
For example, here's a case from 2020 where someone felt that HN was suppressing stories about what in fact was the most-discussed topic on the site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962. This dynamic has been around a long time.
Thank you, Dan! I really appreciate all the work you do making HN what it is
How about you just show who is flagging instead of talking around people? It's trivial to show data about moderation here, but you never do. Why?
Voting and flagging are intimate data—I wouldn't dream of disclosing that about anyone. I think most HN users would take that as a betrayal of the basic community contract.
Also, I don't see what good would come of it. It would lead to much more conflict, and would change the character of the site. People would no longer feel free to express their preferences—actually they would no longer be free to express them. This is not a way to fix the problems we face as a community.
Maybe the number of flags a given post has could be exposed? Or other, non PII information about flags, like number of flags from old accounts or accounts with high karma, or showing that a post has the flag shield enabled? Just spitballing here but theres a lack of transparency into the process that throws some people into conspiracy theory land so just imo but it kinda seems like there's got to be some changes that could be done to assuage the fears of the more rational readers, so that we don't get the same boring accusations of some shadowy cabal burying inconvenient stories on every contentious subject. Maybe just linking to the active thread for an MOT for the flagged&dead posts so people can see the topic is being allowed, just elsewhere? Maybe allowing users to mark a thread a dupe instead of just flagging?
(sorry if this has already been asked & answered. I saw the post about turning flags off but haven't seen anything about exposing when it has been)
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