[spoonier]

So? Once a mod is informed, and the story is proven legit, the flag needs to be removed.

In fact, a user made a post - news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18577485 - calling for discussion on the removal of this thread, and the implications of such.

'dang', the moderator, accused him of "breaking site guidelines", "creating drama" and said the story needed to remain flagged to prevent "outrage".

So yeah, we need to talk about the mods now.

[DoreenMichele]

It does break the guidelines and it does create drama.

Dang is Dan Gackle. His handle is his first name and last initial, a fairly common format of member name used by such prominent members as Sam Altman (sama) and Jacques Mattheij (jacquesm). He does have a sense of humor about how his user name also works as a mild faux swear word or exclamation, but it isn't the primary reason he chose that handle.

I'm sorry you aren't happy about stuff being flagged or whatever, but this is not a good way to try to accomplish anything on this site. The mods do a good job and are generally pretty respected and the rules exist for a reason.

[CompanionCuuube]

"Outrage" is from users, not moderators.

[cwkoss]

EDIT: see comment reply, appears person I replied to turned an 8 into a 6

You link returns 'no such item' looks like perhaps mods used a hard-delete on it.

[DoreenMichele]

I think they probably mean this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577485

So, you can put your tin foil hat away. There's no conspiracy here, just a typo in the link.

[cwkoss]

Thanks. Odd typo error, perhaps the person I was replying to typed the URL out by hand?

[DoreenMichele]

No clue. I post a lot from my phone and auto-corrupt does all kinds of maddening things that make me spit nails.

[cwkoss]

There have now been three articles on this subject that have been flagged off the front page.

Kind of smells like censorship, or at least mod indifference to a group of users improperly flagging these:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16579219

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16578715

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16576569

[krapp]

The story is mainstream politics, which is off topic. It presents no new or interesting phenomenon of intellectual interest, nor does it bear an even tangential relationship to technology. And, as expected, the threads posted have mostly devolved into partisan shit-flinging or complaints about the mods.

This isn't censorship or improper flagging, it's an attempt to keep Hacker News from descending even further into the cesspool of politics. The bar for these kinds of stories needs to be set much higher than it has been.