
Ask HN: When does a story get flagged? - MichaelMoser123
I noticed that the moderators are flagging a lot of stories lately, are there any guidelines that should tell if a story should be flagged? Is there a way to appeal the process?
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Tomte
Most flagged stories were flagged by users, not moderators.

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gus_massa
The Guidelines and FAQ are linked at the bottom, some parts may be relevant.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

Do you have two or three examples? It's easier to explain what happened in
those cases.

In case you see something that is wrongly dead/flagged you can "vouch" it. If
that fails you can send an email to the mods hn@ycombinator.com . They usually
reply soon, but it's a manual process so use it wisely.

~~~
MichaelMoser123
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18706174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18706174)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696389)
\- this one got flagged yesterday, now it is no longer flagged. Wonder what
happened.

~~~
gus_massa
As Tomte said, remember that flags are done by users.

Also, when enough users flags the story it gets a penalty and drops in the
order, then it gets a [flagged] tag and then it is killed. The numbers of
users for each step is not public, it is part of the secret sauce, and may
change from time to time without warning. And also the mods can remove the
penalty/flag/dead.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18706174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18706174)
" _I hate Python. I hate it with a passion_ " (hackerfactor.com) I'm neither
know why it was flagged. Perhaps the title is too linkbaity. Perhaps python
fanboys get angry. Some claims are not accurate. I think it's a little too
controversial, but I don't agree with the flag.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696389)
" _The “Yellow Vests” Show How Much the Ground Moves Under Our Feet_ "
(criticallegalthinking.com) It's too political and about an event outside USA.
Both reason will case the article to accumulate flags from two sets of users.
In my opinion it's a big event but it's not something new. People don't like
to pay more taxes, and government will use any excuse to add more taxes, the
word has always be this way. Also, I'm from Argentina, so a big riot from time
to time is not surprising :(. I classified this article in the "ignore" bin,
no upvote, no flag, no vouch, just ignore it. (My only action is perhaps to go
to the comments threads and upvote a few gray comments (that are not offensive
or extremely wrong). I think that there are too many downvotes and it's better
to minimize the amount of gray comment to have a nice civil conversation.)

