[sgnelson]

And of course it's flagged. Because the use of technology built from companies funded by VC has nothing to do with Hacker News and Ycombinator.

Dang and company are such a joke (yes, that's a direct violation of the rules, maybe it'll get their attention) for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged.

The idea that this is only about "politics" or it's "controversial" and thus should be hidden from view is such a copout. These are the important stories that should absolutely be discussed in a place like this.

Save your breath in replying: "well, it might make people upset and we want to have nice conversations here." And whatever other platitudes arguing for censorship of obviously important topics that deal directly with the technology, companies and employess that frequent this site.

[Schmerika]

After having been here a long time and paid close attention to what gets flagged: They're not a joke. They're collaborators. The wave of flags around everything Thiel and Musk and Israel in the last year has been extraordinarily disturbing, and the rationalizations for it have been tissue thin.

When people call it out they tend to quickly catch bans for minor slights (plausible deniability). Start working on some alts with a VPN now if you want to keep a voice here.

[dredmorbius]

Moderators don't flag content, members do: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39169622>.

If you believe a story shouldn't have been flagged, email mods at [e-mail].

(Mods also don't see mentions of their names, email is how you attract moderators' attention.)

[JumpCrisscross]

> Moderators don't flag content, members do

Moderators are ultimately responsible for moderation. The moderation system is failing when it comes to technology issues with a political tint. (In contrast, it has been pretty good with rage bait foreign policy stuff. Genuinely good discussions around quality content.)

If folks are bandwagon flagging content with a consistent bias, the system should shadow ban their flags for a while.

[philipkglass]

People do get their flagging powers revoked for excessive flagging. It happened to me a while ago. Most people who lose flagging powers won't notice it because the UI doesn't change and there is no direct indication that your flags are being ignored. I eventually emailed the mods to pledge more judicious use of flags and ask for my flagging rights to be restored, which was enough to get them back.

[dredmorbius]

And mods do step in, but the mechanism for drawing their attention, as I've noted, and as the HN Guidelines note (<https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>), is email. Not long HN threads about abysmal moderation.

[JumpCrisscross]

Sure. I'm saying it's fair to say this system is showing signs of failing in the current context. That's in part due to people not emailing mods. But that requirement is one that's controlled by the moderators.

[dredmorbius]

What suggestions would you have to improve the situation?

[mzajc]

For a more proactive approach, browse https://news.ycombinator.com/active to catch these kinds of stories. As far as I know, it ignores flags completely.

[Schmerika]

They don't care about making no one aware of these stories. Blocking 98% will do just fine for them.

[jemmyw]

> for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged

I believe, from reading responses on other stories, that they need to manually do something to prevent a story being flagged. So there's no allowing, it just happens.

I don't disagree with you though. I haven't found "flagged" a good indicator on whether a story is interesting or has worthwhile discussion in it. It's just "some small number of people don't want this link here". It would be nice if instead people put their energy into upvoting the stories they do like.

Or add a downvote instead of flag so we actually have a consensus.

[28304283409234]

> These are the important stories that matter.

This. A thousand times this.

[Gud]

We need a diverse set of online communities again.