[dang]

You left out the parts about how and when we turn flags off, about how a certain amount of political overlap is both necessary and inevitable, but that it also can't be too much. All of those are important factors, and I've posted many explanations of them:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

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

We can't, however, turn off flags on threads we don't know about. You guys (I don't mean you personally!) unintentionally assume that we're omniscient. We aren't, so we need people to tell us about cases like this.

In this case, no one told us; I ran across it randomly. Randomness is only good for partial results. For reliable message delivery, someone needs to email [e-mail], and please remember that it takes time to work through that (er) rather active inbox.

[computerex]

I literally can’t say anything pro humanity without it being flagged even if it hints negativity towards Israel.

[EvgeniyZh]

Can you remember any pro-Israeli posts you turned flags off for since the October 7 attack?

[dang]

I can't remember virtually anything - this is not a joke - having one's brain be sandblasted by the firehose every day turns memory into a dodgy thing (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). I believe there have been some, though not as many. That's largely a function of the submission feed, i.e. which articles the community submits, upvotes, or flags. All we can do is respond case-by-case, and we try to do that in a principled way. The principles we apply (or try to) have been explained many times and can be found via https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... and links from those comments.

If you feel like the submission feed and/or the moderation decisions on top of it are biased, all I can tell you is that everyone feels that way, especially on any topic they are passionate about. You needn't look far for examples of commenters complaining that we're suppressing and censoring the Gaza story - there are some in this thread.

What I feel a lot more confident talking about, in terms of balanced moderation, is the comments. We've moderated, warned, and banned many accounts for breaking the site guidelines while posting anti-Israeli (and sometimes even anti-semitic) comments, and we'll continue to do that. That's something we take very seriously, and of course, we do the same the other way round as well.

[EvgeniyZh]

Thanks for the answer (and what seems to be unflagging the comment). Having some experience moderating (of course, much smaller) communities I understand it's impossible to keep everyone satisfied.

I, of course, can't judge the intent or the effort. What I can say is that I read all captions of 150+ votes submission, rarely skipping any, and I saw 20+ pro-Palestine ones and zero pro-Israeli ones. I think this is quite objective measure.

At some point I thought it might be intentional but now I think it is just bias amplification: these submission are flagged too fast and upvoted too slow to get anywhere.

[throwworhtthrow]

Coincidentally, I just used hn.algolia to look up one of your old comments where you describe being sandblasted, and was surprised to find the most recent use of "sandblasted" on HN is by you, linking to an algolia search of you saying "sandblasted".

Thank you sincerely for your sacrifice, Dan. Whenever I have an urge to flame, I picture my impending comment as one more grain of sand speeding towards your cranium, and instead I step away from the keyboard.

[underdeserver]

Can you point to any pro-Israeli posts on HN since October 7, flagged or not?

[computerex]

They don’t get flagged though.

[EvgeniyZh]

Yes they are, just like the comment you answered to will.

[a456463]

This is such a garbage assessment. I have don't see post of pro-Israel companies and startups that fund/enable this massacre being flagged for political content?

What is this facade of impartialness and too much politics? Tell that to the people massacred.