I've seen articles breaking down the science of white supremacist shooting. I've seen articles on the lack of diversity in tech. They seem to get flagged pretty frequently by hacker news. Why? Do they get flagged because the comments start to get out of control? Or is it something else?
Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
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Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#2The mods do a decent job, I commend them. Articles get flagged by users. Users have a wide spectrum and differing opinions on what is relevant to be discussed here.
In my experience, articles directly related to tech, like diversity in tech will stay open to comments for a long time before mods respond to flags and lock it, allowing a decent amount of discourse.
Articles that are science, but not directly related to tech (white supremicist shooting research) tend to be shut down faster if they are flagged. Why do users flag them? Probably because the arguments, potentially from either side make them uncomfortable and they’d rather it not be discussed here. The mods are just responding to user flags.
I have seen threads get uncivil, at which time the mods will lock them down, which I think is also fine.
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#3The mods do a decent job, I commend them. Articles get flagged by users. Users have a wide spectrum and differing opinions on what is relevant to be discussed here. In my experience, articles directly related to tech, like diversity in tech will stay open to comments for a long time before mods respond to flags and lock it, allowing a decent amount of discourse. Articles that are science, but not directly related to…
Why not just flag the comments. Why shut down the whole discussion? Seems like a heavy handed approach. I mean of course talking about the rampant racism in tech will make many white males uncomfortable, that the reason we post and talk about it. So that people become more comfortable talking about it. The mods aren't helping the problem they are exacerbating it by coddling.
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#4everyone has different reasons for flagging,
some people flag because they disagree in some way with the topic others flag because theyve seen the subject before ad nauseum, and it always leads to a degenerate commentary.
I have a hunch some flaggers may not yet have enough karma to downvote, but enough to flag so they flag in lieu of downvoting but thats just a guess.
another thing to consider, is that HN comments do show up in google searches at times, so cleaning things up quick is a positive thing regarding, profanities, or potential liabilities.
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#5The mods do a decent job, I commend them. Articles get flagged by users. Users have a wide spectrum and differing opinions on what is relevant to be discussed here. In my experience, articles directly related to tech, like diversity in tech will stay open to comments for a long time before mods respond to flags and lock it, allowing a decent amount of discourse. Articles that are science, but not directly related to…
> In my experience, articles directly related to tech, like diversity in tech will stay open to comments for a long time before mods respond to flags and lock it...
Actually, the mods generally don't get involved in this at all. If an article is flagged by enough users it automatically gets killed (marked "[dead]"), at which point you can't add any more comments.
Sometimes the mods will revive a killed article if it's not off-topic and people ask for it to be reopened.
You can reach the moderators at hn@ycombinator.com if you have concerns about moderation issues.
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#6The mods do a decent job, I commend them. Articles get flagged by users. Users have a wide spectrum and differing opinions on what is relevant to be discussed here. In my experience, articles directly related to tech, like diversity in tech will stay open to comments for a long time before mods respond to flags and lock it, allowing a decent amount of discourse. Articles that are science, but not directly related to…
Why not just flag the comments. Why shut down the whole discussion? Seems like a heavy handed approach. I mean of course talking about the rampant racism in tech will make many white males uncomfortable, that the reason we post and talk about it. So that people become more comfortable talking about it. The mods aren't helping the problem they are exacerbating it by coddling.
If it is just a case of one or two people being uncivil, they will just delete the comments. If an article/post gets a bunch of flags they are responding to the community, which is signallng that the post should not be part of the community and the whole thread will be locked.
See comment above, it appears to be automated.
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#7The mods do a decent job, I commend them. Articles get flagged by users. Users have a wide spectrum and differing opinions on what is relevant to be discussed here. In my experience, articles directly related to tech, like diversity in tech will stay open to comments for a long time before mods respond to flags and lock it, allowing a decent amount of discourse. Articles that are science, but not directly related to…
> In my experience, articles directly related to tech, like diversity in tech will stay open to comments for a long time before mods respond to flags and lock it... Actually, the mods generally don't get involved in this at all. If an article is flagged by enough users it automatically gets killed (marked "[dead]"), at which point you can't add any more comments. Sometimes the mods will revive a killed article if it'…
Cool!
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#8Maybe because a "racism" thread will inevitably turn into a political shitstorm. There's thousands of other places to discuss politics.
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not just flag the comments. Why shut down the whole discussion? Seems like a heavy handed approach. I mean of course talking about the rampant racism in tech will make many white males uncomfortable, that the reason we post and talk about it. So that people become more comfortable talking about it. The mods aren't helping the problem they are exacerbating it by coddling.
If it is just a case of one or two people being uncivil, they will just delete the comments. If an article/post gets a bunch of flags they are responding to the community, which is signallng that the post should not be part of the community and the whole thread will be locked. See comment above, it appears to be automated.
> See comment above, it appears to be automated.
That's correct: if a comment either (1) gets too many more downvotes than upvotes or (2) gets flagged, it's automatically killed.
Also, users can "vouch" for a dead comment or article to bring it back to life if they believe it has been wrongly killed.
Re: Why Does Hacker News Flag Many Scientific Articles Regarding Discrimination
#10everyone has different reasons for flagging, some people flag because they disagree in some way with the topic others flag because theyve seen the subject before ad nauseum, and it always leads to a degenerate commentary. I have a hunch some flaggers may not yet have enough karma to downvote, but enough to flag so they flag in lieu of downvoting but thats just a guess. another thing to consider, is that HN comments d…
> I have a hunch some flaggers may not yet have enough karma to downvote, but enough to flag so they flag in lieu of downvoting but thats just a guess.
Flagging is only supposed to be used for violations of site guidelines (off-topic, spam, uncivil or unsubstantive comment, duplicate submission, etc.), not for disagreement. People who flag on-topic articles or comments may get their flagging privileges revoked by the moderators.