[krapp]

As far as I know, flags come from the community, not the mods. Hacker News is designed so that it doesn't even take many flags to affect a thread.

You can complain to the mods all you like but there's nothing you can do about the zeitgeist. The mods also won't change their own policies.

[dang]

Flags mostly come from the community; sometimes from the mods. When the post is a submission (as opposed to a comment), they almost always come from the community.