Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We try to apply the charitable interpretation when possible To the people we're debating with, yes! That doesn't mean everyone needs to have wide-eyed naivety about every possible person, institution or event that could be discussed. > the lab-leak theory has a dark undercurrent: "China is bad". > So flagging the lab-leak postings was in line with the HN's tendency to go for the charitable interpretation. This is a…
> select one of a handful of reasons for flagging A version of this idea was discussed when the flagging feature was introduced [1]: A flag is enough. People around here are pretty smart. The reasons why will mostly be obvious. > if the selected reason doesn't seem justifiable, those people lose flagging privs. It's in place right now, except for the selected reason. If the flagging does not seem justifiable, those p…
I don't think that belief worked out there. I browse with showdead turned on. Many, many stories end up dead and it's often very unclear why. For comments you can usually guess but that guess is never more precise than "this upsets some people a lot" which is almost tautological. You can speculate about what exactly upsets them, but it becomes only pop psychology, and anyway, hiding whole discussions because some people didn't like it even if it was polite and intelligent goes against the stated goals of the site. It actually incentivizes people to shoot the messenger.