[gervu]

The flag button is the report button.

Flagging puts stuff in the moderation queue to be reviewed for abuse / spam. Please don't abuse it for other purposes.

Downvotes exist, but are hidden until you've posted more than some threshold I forget the exact value of.

The idea is to help prevent the downvote button from being even more of a "I don't like what you're saying but can't muster a convincing response to it" button than it already is, while making it convincingly difficult to manipulate via spam accounts.

It's much better at the second than the first, people being what they are, but it does seem to help with both at least enough to justify the feature's continued existence.

[souprock]

That's for comments. AFAIK, there is never a downvote button for stories. I think the standards are different for comments and stories. Flagging a comment should be for something kind of abusive, but flagging a story could be just because it doesn't fit here or because it is the zillionth story on the same topic.