

HN: New flag feature - naish

Posts now appear with a flag link.  Anyone care to explain its proper use?
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pg
You guys are so fast I didn't have time to write anything about it. The
purpose is to let users over a certain karma threshold flag spam and troll
submissions.

It should only be used for spams and really egregious trolling, not for stuff
that's merely vapid or mistaken or off-topic.

Please don't click on it just to try it out. Flags are really being recorded,
so flagging something randomly could damage the reputation of the flagger
and/or the submitter of the thing that got flagged.

~~~
icey
Here's a random idea... Display a text box that requires a _reason_ for
flagging the post or comment.

That would cut down on flagging for the sake of flagging.

~~~
Hexstream
Isn't that premature?

And if some really use it inappropriately then they could just lose their
right to flag. No need to bother the vast majority who will use it when it's
deserved.

~~~
icey
Whether it's premature or not, I'm just putting the idea out there. The
question is, what does that take away? If the item is truly flagworthy, then
it shouldn't be any problem filling in a box.

The added benefit is that you have much less accidental flagging.

~~~
pg
_The question is, what does that take away?_

Simplicity.

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pmjordan
I suspect it's a "report this post to the moderators" feature, although so far
I've not really seen the need for it, so who knows.

EDIT: Ugh, it's already annoying me on the new/front pages, as the "<n>
comments"/"discuss" links are harder to see and click now.

pg, would you mind swapping the "flag" and "discuss" links on story listing
pages? Thanks!

EDIT2: same for the "parent" link on thread pages, I've had a couple near
misses in the last 2 minutes.

~~~
mechanical_fish
It's funny... I hadn't realized the extent to which my subconscious was
trained to scan down the right-hand side of the links, evaluating the "X
comments" display and using it as a guide for what to click on.

When I hit the homepage I got this sudden feeling of _wrongness_ in my
stomach, like vertigo. Only _then_ did I consciously see the new "flag" links.

So, yeah, I also vote to move the flag links to the left.

(This reminds me of Teresa Nielsen Hayden's stories about the superhumanly-
talented copy editors who perceive typos as literally _jumping out of the
page_ , or blinking, or who feel physical pain at the sight of misspelled
words.)

~~~
hugh
I agree with this. At the moment the "flag" link, which you want to use very
rarely, is more prominent than the "comments" link, which you want to use
often. Maybe changing the colours to make "comments" dark and "flag" light
might work as well.

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vlad
There should be a popup confirmation and the action should bring you back to
where you were last, instead of the top of the page. Ideally, the row where
the username where you clicked flag (starting from the point total and ending
with the flag link) would turn yellow, and also keep you on that same page,
like the voting buttons (which use ajax).

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mechanical_fish
I am _so_ tempted to just press it and see what happens. But I fear that I
will end up banishing you to the netherworld.

~~~
hugh
I'm hoping somebody will start submitting some rubbish stories so I can try
flagging them.

~~~
kirubakaran
I flagged this post :-) (the post, not your comment)

edit1: I did this before pg explained what 'flag' is for. Now I feel bad.

edit2: oops... I am used to clicking on the last link 'parent'. Did it once by
mistake on a comment.

~~~
ajbatac
i wish we could un-flag. some will be curious to what will happen if you click
on it.

~~~
pg
ok; here's the source, btw:

    
    
      (def flaglink (i user whence)
        (when (and user (> (karma user) flag-threshold*))
          (pr bar*)
          (w/rlink (do (if (mem user i!flags)
                           (pull user i!flags)
                           (push user i!flags))
                       (save-item i)
                       whence)
            (pr (if (mem user i!flags) "unflag" "flag")))))

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icey
The flag link still shows for deleted comments

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aggieben
heh...could we have a list of flagged posts, in the lists page?

~~~
eru
You want to see all your spam trophies?

~~~
aggieben
something like that..., but I was really thinking of something resembling the
"Best of the Worst" of the last-man-standing reality genre (American Idol,
Last Comic Standing, etc). It would be good fun to occasionally look at the
list of flagged posts just like it's fun to occasionally poke fun at William
Heng.

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run4yourlives
I'm sure he's writing it up as we type...but I would assume this is a
"downvote" compromise.

~~~
pg
Actually it's not related to the downvoting problem. I added it because spam
submissions have been increasing.

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ojbyrne
Having both a downvote and "flag" on comments seems a bit too much. Nobody
seems to spam the comments, and trolls get downvoted.

