Again, another flagged article. Moderation on this site is broken. HN is a shadow of what it once was. It’s now Slashdot, full of neckbeards and high school and college incels. And I’m sure I’m breaking some “rule” for pointing that out.
Whenever there's a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), the flood of submissions about it quickly exhausts HN's capacity to host substantive discussions. That goes double when a topic is divisive and enraging, like you-know-who is.
When this happens, the community always splits between one subset of users who feel strongly about the MOT, want a lot more of it, and feel like the topic is being censored and suppressed; and a different subset of users who don't want the repetition and don't want the site to be taken over by flamewars. The first subset is typically a minority, but more vocal; the second subset is typically the majority, but less vocal and more inclined to flag the submissions.
(This split has nothing to do with political sides, btw, because the same pattern shows up about any MOT regardless of its political valence. It's true that partisans flag stories that are bad for their side, but that alone isn't sufficient to create the pattern I'm talking about.)
As far as I can tell, the above is what's going on with the current MOT, just as it has with other MOTs over the years. So no, moderation isn't broken—or at least not in any way that wasn't broken 10 years ago. The problem is simply that the bulk of the community doesn't want as many threads about this as you do. A certain amount is ok, but that "certain amount" is just far lower than the amount that you, and others who feel strongly about the topic, want.
This leads to a seeming paradox where a topic which is by far the most discussed on HN over a period of weeks or months, at the same time feels completely suppressed and censored to users who feel like it's starving for oxygen. That is the "nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded" dynamic of MOTs.
Considering how awful, nasty, and repetitive these discussions have been getting, I agree with the bulk of the community. We've still been turning off the flags on some of these stories—that's standard practice for MOTs—but only some, and only when there's significant new information (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...) that has at least some chance of a substantive conversation.
Politically passionate users tend to want to go after each other. It's fine to want that, but it's not fine here, because name-calling, snark, and rage are not what this particular site is for. There are other places on the internet to do battle. I know that the strong feelings are justified and that these topics are important—far more important than most of what does make HN's front page—but it doesn't follow that we should just switch off HN's rules. The site would burn to a crisp if we did that, and what good would that do? Scorched earth is uninteresting, no matter what one's passions are.
You said "bulk of the community" twice here, what does that mean? Are you claiming that most users don't want to see these threads, and that the flagging system represents it? With how quickly threads get flagged (and seeing how they can even stay on /active for a day or 2 after being flagged) there is clearly not a reasonable quorum of users making these decisions.
I understand that a large number of users choosing to talk about a topic does not mean the topic should remain on HN (which I believe you've said before). But I'd like to see more evidence before you say what the "bulk of the community" wants.
> With how quickly threads get flagged (and seeing how they can even stay on /active for a day or 2 after being flagged) there is clearly not a reasonable quorum of users making these decisions.
Those seem like non sequiturs to me. There are a lot of users flagging the posts. Many (not all) are legit users who flag for the right reasons. I know that because I look at their history and see what else they flag.
If you see threads that you think should not stay flagged, you're welcome to let us know about them at hn@ycombinator.com. As I've explained above and in many other places, we're willing to turn the flags off under certain conditions, such as: the thread isn't disastrous, the article contains significant new information, and there hasn't been too much similar material recently.
The current thread, though, is a good example of when we wouldn't turn flags off. This kind of shallow-indignant discussion is not what HN is for.
But that is not only what is happening from the moderation side is it?
Accounts with years of history, solid karma, and virtually no record of missteps are suddenly being throttled—limited in the number of stories they can post and even in their ability to reply within discussions.
It appears that merely having a story flagged is enough to trigger these constraints. So, if these users weren't throttled before, what changed?
Are they simply falling victim to brigading?
And isn't it a striking irony that fresh accounts, even those with provocative names like "gulfofamerica," can comment freely while long-standing contributors are being throttled?
> Accounts with years of history, solid karma, and virtually no record of missteps are suddenly being throttled
We rate-limit accounts when we see them posting too many low-quality comments and/or getting involved in flamewars. Those are missteps.
> It appears that merely having a story flagged is enough to trigger these constraints.
That's definitely not the case.
> So, if these users weren't throttled before, what changed?
Nothing changed. The moderation practices around rate-limiting have been the same for many years.
> Are they simply falling victim to brigading?
No. "Brigading" implies groups of third-party users, and actions by such accounts have no effect on rate limits.
> And isn't it a striking irony that fresh accounts, even those with provocative names like "gulfofamerica," can comment freely while long-standing contributors are being throttled?
When people see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't, they frequently feel that the mods must secretly endorse it, but by far the likelier explanation is just that we didn't see it. HN has far too much content for us to read it all, and we can't moderate what we don't see. That might be regrettable but it's not a "striking irony", just a mundane limitation.
Btw, if you're asking about your own account, the problem is that you've been using HN primarily for political battle, which is not only (1) against the site guidelines and (2) the sort of thing we rate limit accounts for, but (3) is actually a line at which we ban accounts (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for lots of past explanations). You've also been breaking the site guidelines in other ways.
It's really very specifically around Musk-stuff; his fans flag anything that makes him look bad. HN's user-driven moderation system seems to have been basically designed assuming good faith.
Hi dang, I am unsure if flagged entries are still being shown, but this one seems like slam dunk where one party is claiming something without proof and the other is kind of an expert, should that not be visible to most visitors.
Of course I am not aware what the implications for you will be, but sometimes these things can be better for the greater good. One side is clearly using propaganda and the other sets the record straight.
Up to you of course, we talked a bit earlier on emotional responses to posts, and my emotional response is this such a clear lie by you-know-who that it feels unjust.
Posts marked [flagged] are still visible. If it said [flagged][dead] then only users with 'showdead' turned on would see it, but that's not the case here.
