[cherry_tree]

IMHO the problem with flagging on HN is its ability to kill a discussion thread in its infancy, preventing most users from ever seeing its existence or having the opportunity for discussion.

Flagging should be just that; a flag for the moderation team to review the submission/comment. It should not at all come with an immediate downranking of the content itself until the moderation team has reviewed the flag and upholds it as appropriately flagged.

If flagging wasn’t a simple way to kill young discussion threads and instead users had to downvote the submissions they don’t like; then discussions couldn’t be so severely impacted by a minority of users.