Ask HN: Why is the abuse of flagging allowed?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35230366

by O__________O • 3 years ago

5 28 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

@Dang: Please explain why HN tolerates/allows flagging without having an explanation per flag that’s traceable to guidelines system has logged the related user as having been notified of prior?

As is, to me, I understand balance of HN, having too many rules, injecting rules/systems that upset the feel of HN, but I feel like users abusing flags is toxic to the spirit of HN and if any user is found to be abusing flags they should be ban from being allowed to use flags and disputing flags should be possible; if a user repeatedly falsely disputes flags, they should be ban.

pettycashstash2• 3 years ago

I believe its a self regulating system.

O__________O14• 3 years ago

Agree, which is why I posted this, but to me at the point any pattern is toxic to the spirit of HN — Dang has a responsibility as the only official moderator to address it.

austin-cheney2• 3 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler's_veto

The only purpose of flagging is always a heckler’s veto. The problem is whether such deliberate censorship occurs to satisfy disagreement or community standards. At this time there is no way to know.

O__________O14• 3 years ago

No, all the following an more is possible: public logs of flags, admin logging of rules viewed by users to do X action, requiring flags be tied to an existing rule, having flags audited users, banning flagging rights from users abusing them, banning users repeatedly falsely disputing flags, etc.

Users abusing flags though is clearly toxic to the spirit of HN and should not be tolerated — it has no place in the HN community.

austin-cheney2• 3 years ago

Where is the distinction defined that determines abuse? It appears flags when used in a non abusive manner almost only apply to submissions and not comments. Punishing abusive comments appears to almost exclusively occur with maximum down votes while flagging comments appears to only occur on comments that have too many upvotes suggesting a silencing of a difference of opinion.

warrenm3• 3 years ago

Why should someone be forced to explain why they vote the way they do?

O__________O14• 3 years ago

Flags are NOT votes — which is part of the problem, HN treats flags as votes and users are abusing it. Down voting is not even possible for submissions unless you flag a submission. Down votes on comments is not possible unless you have 500 rep, but only 31 Karma, they can flag submissions — which is a super downvote and frequently abused, and Dang for sure is aware of this.

Source for rep required to downvote or flag on HN:

- https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m...

warrenm3• 3 years ago

If "Flags are NOT votes" ... but "HN treats flags as votes"

...then flags ARE votes, friend :)

ClapperHeid• 3 years ago

  >I feel like users abusing flags is toxic to the spirit of HN...

But it's always going to happen. Same with the upvotes/downvotes. People will flag a post or downvote a comment they don't like, whether or not it happens to be true, relevant or accurate.

The secret is not to let it bother you. At the end of the day your karma ratings here are just "internet points" and flagging or downvoting are just people proclaiming that "Someone is wrong on the internet!". It really is no different to Twitter or Reddit, in that regard. We just like to delude ourselves we're a cut above those kind of sites.

O__________O14• 3 years ago

Down voting of submissions is not possible — unless a user flags a submission, which is NOT what flags are for, they’re for flagging the violation HN guidelines.

AnimalMuppet• 3 years ago

Some submissions are in foreign languages, which is a violation of HN guidelines. And some are spam, which also is. So, yes, flagging submissions is appropriate.

You may say that it's used more broadly than that on submissions, but flagging submissions is not inherently wrong.

O__________O14• 3 years ago

And this submission is FLAGGED — how specifically is it a violation on HN’s guidelines?

This is toxic - and claim that some how Dang is able to moderate the toxicity is telling — as is the claim the HN is a community based on spirit of curiosity and open reasoning.

* Please feel free to click the timestamp for the submission then click “vouch” if you feel this submission should NOT be flagged; if it’s unclear how to do so, happy to try to make how more clear.

dtagames• 3 years ago

It's not surprising this is flagged. If you read the recommendations, discussions of downvoting (and flagging certainly counts) are not welcome because they're circular, uninteresting, and don't contribute positively to the site content.

Why are only ranked users able to flag? My guess is that after someone invests enough time in HN to accumulate 500 karma, that person has some idea of the spirit of what's wanted here. Ads and job postings are certainly not, nor political flames, etc. So a "karma'd" user might spot that pretty quickly. I don't get out my flag flyswatter very often but when I do, it's because I'm trying to help keep the garden clean, so to speak.

O__________O14• 3 years ago

> It's not surprising this is flagged. If you read the recommendations, discussions of downvoting (and flagging certainly counts) are not welcome because they're circular, uninteresting, and don't contribute positively to the site content.

This applies to doing so as a response to within comment where the topic itself is NOT the abuse of flagging.

> Why are only ranked users able to flag? My guess is that after someone invests enough time in HN to accumulate 500 karma

Only 31 rep is required to flag; this is mentioned numerous times already in the comments to this submission.

anenefan3• 3 years ago

My two cents worth.

The problem is this, is the person who only has low karma any less skilled in spotting a topic that isn't exactly fit for posting or discussing further, than one who has a lot more karma? Do those who have over 500 karma points, any better at remaining objective when they consider down voting a post?

Introduce reasons and I expect the outcome won't be much different to forums where some people over use a report feature and just select what passes ... generally the acting mods soon realise there's a pattern but it takes time to deal with the BS - actually it's a real time cost.

Presently as far as I see, the system at the moment discourages a user walking into hot topics where the ideologues aren't going to see reason anyhow, so there's little point to pile into the conversation. However if something inappropriate is submitted, a wider field of people can flag it. Sure some people might abuse it, but I would guess there's a list of flagged and dead submissions that staff can look over and review.

Actually for the last week I've been following flagged and dead posts - nothing firm but many are nearly the same or on about the same subject that was posted a couple days before ... if not a few hours before, many are simply advertising their own site, and goodness knows why idiots keep posting here about gummy bears. Today was the first I vouched for a dead post, since it was the shiny flag why not vetting who advertises on a website is very bad ... or hard core porn ads will kill a safe for work or kids will be using it website / service.

O__________O14• 3 years ago

> Do those who have over 500 karma points, any better at remaining objective when they consider down voting a post?

Understand your point, but ease of which abusing the system is to simple. I could easily automate creating 100s of accounts a week with a rep of 31, which is all that’s required to flag — and anyone that understands how flagging could even do this manually, if motivated. Gaining 500 rep though per account would take 16x the related rep.

Realistically only measure of skill at flagging is skill at flagging; aka there should be a reputation system for flagging alone and any abuse of it should result in a ban for access to flagging or reviewing flags.

> but it takes time to deal with the BS - actually it's a real time cost.

100% agree, but then don’t claim HN is community base on the spirit of curiosity, open reasoning, etc. Further, I don’t believe for a second that if Dang requested help creating open source moderation tools that were able to be integrated into YC’s legacy code that community would not help or be reasonably, if forced to do so publicly.

> Actually for the last week I've been following flagged and dead posts

Not aware of any way to see 100% of these without writing code to interface with API, am I missing something?

anenefan3• 3 years ago

It's in your profile settings. Only found it myself 10 days ago or so. I thought from the very start I was seeing dead submissions and comments but I must have been mistaken.

detaro2• 3 years ago

user is found to be abusing flags they should be ban from being allowed to use flags

That's how it works.

O__________O14• 3 years ago

Source?

detaro2• 3 years ago

dang has said so repeatedly, and I remember users talking about appealing to get their flagging permissions back.

Ask HN: Why is the abuse of flagging allowed?

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