[jsnell]

Tagging users like that is not a site function. If you want to get in touch with the moderators, send email with the contact link in the page footer.

"flagged" always means that users flagged it, not moderator action.

And there are a lot of readers who will flag all submissions about US politics, no matter the polarity of the article.

[i_cannot_hack]

> "flagged" always means that users flagged it, not moderator action. And there are a lot of readers who will flag all submissions about US politics, no matter the polarity of the article.

The thing is that dang has generally not unflagged any posts about topics like these in the past, so there's little reason to think the flagging is only a result of temporary inaction by the moderation team. Rather it is a consistent pattern permitted to exist by said team.

[metadat]

If you're really curious, something more effective and productive than hypothesizing into the void is emailing [e-mail]. Dang et. al. have always replied and been helpful and forthcoming in answering my questions and concerns.

[i_cannot_hack]

I have sent an email linking to this discussion, but I think it would be more constructive if the helpful and forthcoming answers happened in public rather than in sent in private email threads to everyone wondering.

Calling discussing something on HN "hypothesizing into the void" is a strange choice of words, either meant to be patronizing toward me specifically or toward all HN users.

[dang]

> I think it would be more constructive if the helpful and forthcoming answers happened in public

You're in luck, because there are thousands of public answers and you can search them easily: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang&type=comment&dateRange... (by dang), https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (by tomhow). The answers we give by email are no different from the ones we give in public.

Whether they are helpful or forthcoming you'll have to decide. They are repetitive (and are even more tedious to write than they are to read) but here are some places to start:

stories with political overlap - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

not a current affairs site - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

consistency in moderation is impossible - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

flags and turning off flags - https://hn.algolia.com/?query=flags%20off%20turn%20by%3Adang...

repetitiveness makes a story and a discussion less interesting in HN's sense - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306 - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

If you take a look at some of those answers and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. But it would be good to familiarize yourself with the standard explanations, because they're nearly always adequate to explain what you're seeing, although they will probably leave you frustrated if you feel strongly about the politics of a story.

FWIW, here's a short version: users flag things for various reasons; we turn off flags on a few such stories, but not more; that's because HN isn't a political or current affairs site; which stories get flags turned off is never going to satisfy anyone's political priorities, because the community is in deep disagreement with itself and because moderation consistency is impossible.

People dislike it when a story whose politics they agree with doesn't get to stay on the frontpage, but since it's impossible for all such stories to be on HN's frontpage, this frustration is unavoidable.

[i_cannot_hack]

> FWIW, here's a short version: users flag things for various reasons; we turn off flags on a few such stories, but not more; that's because HN isn't a political or current affairs site;

I think you have misunderstood the request. The request was not to clarify the general moderation policy, but rather clarify the reasoning why this specific story was not considered as one of the few stories where such action was taken.

I have already clarified my specific concerns regarding flagging and this specific story in another post in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46745562

People are curious to hear the reasoning for keeping the flag on this specific post, since thought has obviously been put to it and a decision to keep it was made after thoughtful consideration. I.e. which of the several different policies you highlighted had the most weight in this decision, and which mitigating circumstances were considered as reasons for bypassing this policy and removing the flag (even if they were discarded in the end).

It is precisely because consistent moderation is not possible that this is needed (otherwise it would be easy to just refer to the consistent guidelines). The quality of the moderation depends on the judgement and reasoning of the moderators, and the only way for the users to form their own picture (good or bad) of this judgement is to ask to hear how it is applied to specific scenarios where it is ambiguous.

I am very sympathetic to the fact that it must be tedious and sometimes repetitive, but if the decision is controversial I think it is an important part of moderation and important for the community as a whole.

[93po]

> but rather clarify the reasoning why this specific story was not considered as one of the few stories where such action was taken.

i think if you read more past discussions around moderation (including one dang directly linked) the reason for this would be obvious. read the search results for flags being turned off.

moderators try, as they said, to let the community moderate itself. they try to impress very little bias into the system. but they do try to promote constructive and interesting conversation, and the more things deviate from that mission, the less likely it is to be actively encouraged to be on HN

the likelihood of the conversation around this news post is very unlikely to be interesting and constructive. people have very entrenched beliefs and no one's mind is going to get changed from emotionally loaded comments on this post

additionally, this is now also the third post of this nature to be on HN in the past weeks, and there's unlikely to be anything new to the conversation added this time that wasn't covered by the previous thousands of comments on previous submissions

they are not actively reducing the visibility of this post. they're just declining to artificially inflate its visibility above the same criteria 99% of submissions also have

[dang]

My post contains all the information you need to answer that question. The current story is obviously a flamewar topic, a political battle topic, and a repetitive topic. I'm not saying it isn't important—of course it's important, far more important than most things on HN's front page*. The issue is that HN's frontpage is not optimized for importance but for something else (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Optimizing for importance would make this a current affairs site, which is not its mandate. Actually we have to expend a lot of energy preventing that outcome, because the default pressures point in that direction, and are quite strong. One can really see that at moments when passions are heated, as they are in this thread.

* If you look at some of the old links I dug up here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46747388, you'll find that this point has also been around a long time. Specifically these:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23380817 (June 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453883 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16968668 (May 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948011 (Dec 2017)

[slg]

With the direction we're headed, there's a non-zero chance that some day soon I'll click on over to https://news.ycombinator.com/active and see "[flagged][dead] US Erupts in Civil War" and I'll click on the comments to see a copied and pasted comment from dang with a link to a dozen other comments explaining why this political story doesn't belong on HN.

"Politics" doesn't care about your apolitical spaces. It's coming for everything and you'll have to draw the line somewhere.

[dang]

People have been making a version of this argument for as long as I've been doing this job. There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different, how-can-you-not urgency. I'm not saying that's wrong, but there's a counterargument. The counterargument is that political flames have a way of consuming everything they touch and that if we had listened to this argument in the past, HN would have ceased to exist years ago.

I believe that the bulk of this community favors the counterargument, and that it would be a big mistake to let political passions dominate how the site is operated, since that would be the end of HN qua HN. We think a website that's not overwhelmed by politics and political battle—that clears space for other things that gratify curiosity—has a right to exist. I believe most HN readers agree with that and are grateful that we haven't pulled the plug at moments of pressure.

I'm not saying anything radical here - this is the standard way that HN has always operated, and I'm repeating what I've always said:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26253103 (Feb 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25785791 (Jan 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23380817 (June 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453883 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16968668 (May 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16581518 (March 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648 (Feb 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948011 (Dec 2017)

[testing22321]

[flagged]

[dang]

I feel fairly confident that the bulk of this community would not want us to operate HN based on feelings like this, regardless of how right you are, or feel you are, on the issues.

[rolph]

unless you alays have your email open on your device, its a tiny PITA to fire it up, login, remember your issue, and compose a proper message.

so when you [@user] tag a user rather than email its kinda like a rhetorical question, your not expecting a reply, but if someone just happens to pass by and notice your tag, they might answer.

also @user might mean wasted desire to some, but other users here might see a previously agreed upon heuristic is in play, and act in that context.

for example if someone from a very small subset of usernames that i recognize, were to @rolph me, i might SMS them at a previously agreed mobile number, if i see the signal in a reasonable time.