[cptcobalt]

I would like to see more DF on HN. The something rotten in Cupertino was a shattering post—people in my circle who do not read DF were discussing and sending it around, and I work at a place where so many dang people read HN. So I agree with Gruber’s concern.

I’m surprised this post too is already flagged.

[jgruber]

Me too.

[epaga]

Agree!

To be clear though it is not some backend thing by dang etc. but rather users with enough reputation to get the flag button are flagging your posts just because they don’t like you. That is the likeliest explanation.

[jgruber]

But the only post on the recent submissions list that is actually marked "[flagged] is this one. If it's because enough high-karma users are clicking "flag", wouldn't they all show up as "flagged"?

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=daringfireball.net

[ryandrake]

The only explanation I have heard that makes sense is: The [flagged] tag only appears after a certain threshold amount of user-flags, however each user-flag contributes to the down-weight of the story.

So if the [flagged] threshold is 10 user-flags, then 9 people can flag the article, burying it, and then only at the next user-flag, [flagged] shows up in the title.

Of course, nobody but HN staff truly knows if this is how it works.

[thomassmith65]

The apparent 'ban' may related to the site's popularity.

Who knows how the algorithm here works exactly, but people submit daringfireball links regularly...

...and few HN users would like HN to function as a link aggregator that just shows a random selection of the same dozen sites, day after day.

One solution would be to penalise domains a little the more frequently they are submitted. Seems like a plausible explanation.

[jachee]

The frequency with which Wikipedia links hit the front page sorta bucks this idea.

[thomassmith65]

That may be right. Unfortunately, while I have seen Wikipedia articles on HN, my memory is not sharp enough to recall for how long they stuck around on the front page.

[spacedcowboy]

Well, if John is correct, it's not too surprising that it is flagged...

I've noticed that being critical of Musk or Trump is a flag-magnet as well.. I guess either the owners of the site are cough "free-speech absolutists" or there's some concerted effort to prevent criticism of them - the former seems a lot more likely.

[theshrike79]

I'm pretty sure it's just individual people with enough karma doing a knee-jerk flagging on articles they don't like.

Would be nice if someone with access to the backend checked the flagging stats to see if there's a ring of people doing it.