[neilv]

I also have that setting, and occasionally vouch for an inexplicably flagged comment I notice.

There's definitely wrongthink/ideological flagging and downvoting going on.

(On some comments I make, I know when I make it that it's going to get downvoted, because it pushes against an opinion of the kinds of people who will downvote to suppress criticism. It used to be that criticizing cryptocurrency would get downvotes, but now it's popular to criticize. I can get reliably downvoted any time that I suggest that adding a fee for some basic public infrastructure (e.g., to drive on street in a city), in a "market-based" way, is a handout of the basic public infrastructure to the wealthy. Also, suggestions that there's still any bias against women, in anything, somewhere, seems to reliably get downvotes, no matter how relevant; I don't know why, but I'd guess it's because the topic has a lot of general angry sentiment, and people who are angry the other direction aren't represented as much on HN.)

I'd distinguish wrongthink from something being off-topic and done-to-death or a flamewar magnet. Maybe one mental exercise test for this is whether the same person would also still downvote as "topic" if the opinion of the post/comment were flipped.

[throw4453267]

Throwaway here.

I’ve lived in China for a few years and I noticed anytime I write anything even remotely positive about my experience there I will get downvoted or flagged. Even completely neutral comments sometimes gets downvoted.

[ibaikov]

Russian here. I can't show -any- cool tech made here or an optimization that we do that western countries don't because people would say I praise Russia no matter how much more often and harsher I criticize. They don't even know what I think about the country, I just can't speak about it.

I appreciate people who are saving flagged comments because what made HN great 10-15 years ago was that I often changed my views because people would articulate why they are right and they sometimes indeed were.

[dgfitz]

I don’t think anyone doubts there are good things that come from China. Using a throwaway account won’t help your cause marketing China. Like every other “superpower” China has their major, major flaws. The kicker is trust. Pro-China rhetoric on a highly-moderated forum should be met with skepticism.

This isn’t opinion. The great firewall of China isn’t a farce, it would be good to remember that.

[t1E9mE7JTRjf]

So because there are bad things in China nobody can say anything that's not negative about China? Or how do you see things?

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

It sounds more like the concern is that a post coming from China has a significantly higher likelihood to be state-sponsored propaganda than a resident’s/citizen’s genuine opinion. It makes sense on its face that it would be “higher” (that’s the point about the Great Firewall) but it seems to be a matter of personal opinion how “significant” that increase is.

[gosub100]

> won’t help your cause marketing China

by what means did you determine that was his cause?

[ksec]

>There's definitely wrongthink/ideological flagging and downvoting going on.

I actually vouch for a lot of comments I disagree with that was flagged, and upvoted it because I want it to be shown to the world. And in other times I disagree with it but vouch and upvoted because I dont want HN discussions to be one sided.

[gosub100]

one common misconception is that "the downvote is not a disagree button". it absolutely is. I made that mistake before, in the early days of reddit they used to stress that mantra, and I made the false assumption it was true here. You are getting downvoted because people disagree or don't like what you have to say. simple as that.

[pbhjpbhj]

Downvotes sadly are endorsed by pg (the owner of HN) for use to indicate disagreement.

Flags are not downvotes and are not to show disagreement. They do seem to get used that way.

I like the others above have show-flagged enabled. "90%" of things I vouch are things I disagree with that represent what I consider a point of view that deserves to be known, has been at least reasonably well presented, and isn't flame-bait.