
Ask HN: Why have been articles about terrorism attack in Nice been flagged? - gonvaled
Similarly off-topic articles are never flagged (see for example [1])<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11917265
======
dragonwriter
As someone who flagged one, because they were articles that clearly were
simple direct breaking news articles of general interest with no hook for
discussion beyond people's prejudices. They are important news articles, but
not something that people are going to miss without HN and not something well
suited to the kind of discussion HN exists to foster.

This is, of course, subjective, and people can disagree, but HN replies on
subjective and largely community-driven moderation to maintain its character.

~~~
gonvaled
I understand why they have been flagged, but I think flagging is used
inconsistently, and wanted to hear opinions on why that could be.

~~~
krapp
Flagging can't be expected to be consistent, because what gets flagged depends
on who happens to be online when a story they happen to want to flag gets
posted, and what mood they happen to be in.

Sometimes stories which probably should be flagged (in my opinion, far more
than _are_ flagged) quickly gain traction, which seems to negate attempts to
flag them later.

This may be a good time to remind people that they can hide stories as well as
flag them now.

------
greenyoda
As per HN Guidelines:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. ... If they'd cover it on TV
news, it's probably off-topic."

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

As for your example [1], I remember that there were dozens of articles about
the same topic that were killed by flagging, because they were off-topic for
the same reasons as the current story (TV news/politics/crime). You just
happened to find one that slipped through the cracks.

~~~
gonvaled
_All_ (7 / 8 ?) articles about the France terrorism attacks have been flagged.

I have been able to find 5 non-flagged articles about Jo Cox:

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11917265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11917265)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11916826](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11916826)

[3]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11919151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11919151)

[4]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11942191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11942191)

[5]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945171)

And one flagged:

[6]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11923941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11923941)

~~~
nl
Only one of them made the front page, and it only had 3 comments. Generally
things that aren't complete spam don't get flagged until they make the front
page and someone with flag privileges at the time sees it.

~~~
gonvaled
How do you know they didn't make the front page? I would like to verify your
explanation.

~~~
nl
You can't easily AFAIK, but they have so few points that it looks pretty
unlikely. The one with comments has 20 points and the next best is 6 points.
You'll note that the flagged on at 10 points, so it might have made it?

Why do you think it is?

~~~
gonvaled
Frankly, I have the impression that even though HN is supposed to be
apolitical and cosmopolitan (since technology and science, central topics to
HN are so), in reality HN is extremely anglophile (British + American centric,
with some Israeli vestiges)

I can not fathom a terrorist attack killing 100 people in Los Angeles being
flagged out of existence in HN; I can imagine that if 20 articles appear about
a specific incident, some will be indeed flagged, but surely not _all_.

Flagging is probably right according to HN guidelines, so that is what should
happen for all off-topic articles, but this is not what HN is doing.

I think the guidelines should be updated to reflect this fact: "flag off-topic
news unless they are relevant to the Anglo community"

~~~
nl
I think you might want to reconsider. I'd note that the Orlando nightclub
shootings were flagged[1]. This of course wasn't as bad as in Nice in terms of
fatalities, but is somewhat comparable (insofar as that is possible. What a
horrible thing to have to compare). Comments there seemed to try to imply it
was some kind of conspiracy, but I think the behaviour there was exactly the
same as with this attack. I think we are seeing fatigue over terror attacks -
people are just numb to the tragedies and feel like discussing it is useless.

I'm not sure if you are French or lost people in Nice, but if you are you have
my sympathy. I was in France only a few months back, and this event made me
both sad and angry.

HN is certainly Silicon Valley centric, but that is expected given its origins
and audience. However, my impression is that coverage of EU tech issues gets
more coverage than most places. There is certainly more coverage of US
politics than other places, but the majority of that is related to tech
issues.

(I'm not from the US, Canada or UK, nor do I live in any of those places)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11888228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11888228)

~~~
gonvaled
No, I am from EU, but not french.

Maybe you are right, but this morning the first think I saw about the terror
attack was on HN via Feedly, and I was very surprised to see that _all_
articles were flagged, including one about Facebook activating a special
crisis mode, which stroke me as strange since recently I have seen lots of
politics around here.

~~~
nl
The majority of politics on HN is about tech or politics impact on tech, or
new (and often quite strange!) economic theories and experiments.

Do you know how the flagging system works? Normal users get the right to flag
and/or vouch for stories periodically, after they have been on the site a
while. The details of what stays on the front page isn't publicly known, but
it is a combination of comments and upvotes vs flags vs vouches.

So if there is a lot to say about a topic, it is more likely to stay on the
front page.

The Turkish attempted coup made the front page (which of course isn't US or
Anglo-centric). I think that is mostly because it is an unfolding situation
and people have new things to say about it.

(I have flagging rights at the moment. I didn't flag it, but I rarely flag
things.)

