Comment by EcommerceFlow
2 days ago
Tom, please fix the flag abuse problem. It's gotten to the point where I realize there's no point in commenting on many threads, given my opinions, some of which are very normal nationally.
2 days ago
Tom, please fix the flag abuse problem. It's gotten to the point where I realize there's no point in commenting on many threads, given my opinions, some of which are very normal nationally.
When I've found myself being publicly tsk'ed by the people around me, I've taken a moment to try go figure out why they disapprove of what I'm saying. It's been a useful life exercise.
Sometimes you're right, sometimes they are. Sometimes, as the Rick & Morty quote goes, "Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer."
For sure, but then the followup question is "do I want to spend my time and energy around a bunch of people I think are wrong?'
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Shouldn't that be directed to those with an agenda who and are flagging certain posts?
Those of us who complain about this highly targeted flagging just want to avoid censorship. I can't see how we need to reflect on this.
Forums like this are "censored" and that's a really good thing. We don't need a steady stream of (for example) hate for women, minorities, and trans people that you see on truly uncensored forums.
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They are flagging posts that they see as pushing an agenda. There isn’t some official separation of agenda-less and agenda-full ideas.
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I don't think the person getting flagged is always deserving of the dogpile. Your comment implies "you should take this time in timeout to think about your actions" which is just a gentler form of rhetorical struggle sessions, and not always warranted.
For sure. I've had comments flagged that I thought were perfectly reasonable and non-controversial. My first reaction was to be angry and annoyed. But then my kinder angels suggested that perhaps I phrased my idea poorly and people misunderstood that I was largely agreeing with them, or at least very respectfully disagreeing. And then I decided to be more careful with my phrasing next time.
Yeah the flagging is definitely much worse than it used to be. I’ve seen very legitimate LLM critical posts with lots of upvotes and comments flagged
Many people feel that flagging is worse than it used to be, but they don't agree at all on what should or shouldn't be flagged. That makes this feedback less actionable than one might assume.
HN gets tons and tons of threads that are critical of LLMs, so it's possible that the ones you're seeing get flagged are just below median quality and/or overly repetitive of previous discussions.
Hey, Dan. I'd be really interested if you could share more about the metrics. As the climate of the world around us has changed, I think a lot of us at least feel flagging has become a cudgel used to silence opposition. Me, for criticism of the current administration. Others, for their views on topics like gender.
Maybe we just care more and notice it about that subject now. Maybe it's always been this way. But while you often leave long comments that go into how these systems work and the struggles with trying to adjust them or understand of it's even necessary (good stuff), I would be fascinated to see a blog post or something where you really give us a talking to about the state of the community and anything y'all have been trying on your end.
Just a thought, obviously, you have a whole job moderating already! Have a good day!
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A political talking point can be nationally popular but still political, so, outside the scope of the site.
Anyway, which nation? I think we also aren’t allowed to push Communist party talking points here, despite that party being highly supported in some countries (not that I’d want to, just saying, nationally popular doesn’t mean much).
A lot of people don't read the Hacker News Guidelines⁽¹⁾ before submitting and deserve to be flagged. Quoting (emphasis mine):
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
⁽¹⁾ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You say that, but there was a big thread on Val Kilmer on the front page this morning...
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> unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon
Maybe time will tell if it was actually OT.
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