[throwawaysleep]

I assume you are talking about the current conflict in the Middle East. That is generally off topic per the guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> 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.

Israel vs Palestine is an old conflict with few updates but troop movements and body counts.

[heyheyhouhou]

I understand that there is certain guidelines to maintain sanity.

I totally agree with that. But I've seen very strange behavior in the last weeks with the submitted stories or even comments suddenly removed or shadowed.

How could this be flagged?

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37975898

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37997076

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38018995

Or why this very relevant story is not showing in the front page? It has considerably a lot of comments and upvotes

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38045514

[defrost]

> It has considerably a lot of comments and upvotes

As of this comment it has 100 upvotes and 400 comments.

That alone, regardless of subject matter and guidelines keeps it from the front page as the placement algorithm favours posts with more upvotes than comments.

Threads that attract many many comments but relatively few upvotes in comparison are weighted down.

[austin-cheney]

Anybody can flag at any time. It only takes 4 sad people for a thread or comment to achieve flagged status. As an example anything with negative commentary about Julian Assange is instantly flagged because there is a cult that hangs on his every word.

[throw310822]

It's a mechanism that makes sense to prevent flamewars and a lot of silly political discussion; however it's also an invaluable tool for anyone who doesn't want some topic discussed at all.