[MichaelApproved]

That's exactly what the down-vote is meant for. If you think a comment is off-topic, down vote the post and perhaps add a comment as to why you think it deserves to be down-voted.

Flagging is expensive, in that it requires mod (human) attention. It should be reserved for spam and other egregious posts. Let the mods spend their valuable time on more important tasks.

[andrewljohnson]

I wasn't aware that flags required moderator attention. I assumed that once an article was flagged enough times, a mod would be alerted, but not that each flag would trigger an alert.

I would very much like to get moderators' attention or feedback on this. I don't think these kind of comments should be banned, but I think they would be curbed if there was a community guideline.

[MichaelApproved]

Good point. I don't know how the HN software is written but my guess is that when it's time to take action (X number of flags), it's something a looks at.

There could be a level of automation built into this where X number of high reputation members flag something, it could automatically be banned.

Either way, I think flagging is more fitting to abuse than off-topic. I agree with you that it would be great to get a mod to weigh in on this.

[tomrod]

Unfortunately, many of us don't have downvote rights yet. If this were the case, I definitely wouldn't flag unless community standards were flagrantly violated!

[nitrogen]

Don't worry; if you wanted to vote a post down, there's probably someone with high enough karma who also wants to downvote the same post.

[tomrod]

Strangely enough, that's comforting!

[AUmrysh]

How do you get downvote abilities? I had them on my old inactive account from a few years ago but not this one. Is there a karma quota or something?

[AngryParsley]

Do moderators actually go through all flagged items? If so, that would probably explain why I can't flag anymore. I assumed flagging was automated, so I basically used it as down-vote for articles.

I emailed info@yc about my lack of flagging ability a couple months back. They said nothing was wrong with my account. Now I feel bad that I wasted someone's time. :(

[MichaelApproved]

I should have been more clear that I was speculating that a flag ultimately required mod attention. I'm going based on personal experience with forums and software development.