[treyp]

this is why there's a flag link for each submission

Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[koko775]

I can do that (I think I can flag, but this was not always the case), and silently grow to hate the content on HN as flagging fails to catch the borderline cases (and possibly devalue each individual flag).

Or I can break that rule to voice displeasure and hope that someone shared that opinion enough to point me somewhere better, create somewhere better, or effect change.

> If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)

My account is over a year old (and I've lurked for longer). Therefore, I'm good!

But in all seriousness, while it probably is not turning into Reddit, I'm certainly planning to relegate HN, for the purposes of my news browsing / time management, to a category shared with other spammy news sites, for somewhat similar reasons.

[krschultz]

I've been here over 4.5 years, and I can say that HN is not turning into Reddit. The quality of the front page has not declined.

The volume of stories submitted has grown dramatically, making it harder for the good content to get on the front page.

But this article definitely has no place on the front page. I flagged it, hopefully it will be gone soon.

[oinksoft]

Also, having an account that is less than a year old doesn't mean very much. I've been using Hacker News since early 2008, but Oinksoft is only about a year old, hence the age of this account.

[pooriaazimi]

Well, I used my [flag] button about 4-5 times in a single day (I didn't do that everyday - it just happened that I saw 5 stupid stories on a single day) and now I've lost my shiny weapon :-). I think one of my flags (which I've forgotten what it was) was incorrect and I shouldn't have done it so I don't blame it entirely on mods.

And I'm also guilty of sometimes submitting un-techy (but vaguely related to computers) stories on HN - a practice I decided a few days ago is best to abandon.

And I up-voted this submission too. I'm sorry, I usually don't vote before reading the linked article. I thought it was about a case where they wanted to execute Mr. X, but accidentally executed his jail mate, Mr. Y.

[wglb]

Flagging is different in that you can un-flag.

[ktsmith]

> (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.)

The OP is below this threshold.