Whenever someone flags a thread, the thread either gets globally flagged or not. If it automatically gets globally flagged, a mod may un-flag it. Or, it may not be automatically flagged, and a mod will flag it.
We can then find the probability that a user's flag will result in a "permanent, global flag" by looking at the user's history. We ought to use the lower bound of the Wilson score interval for this. This is the user's trust score, which needs to remain hidden from them.
We then set some threshold under which a user's flag will be shadow-ignored. This way, we only act on feedback that has a high probability of fitting the same pattern of mod behavior. Just make sure you have quality mods who consistently and correctly flag threads.
I get the motivations behind both, and in some situations it works great. But a lot of the time it helps to enforce a monoculture on the site: any disagreement, particularly strong disagreement, is seen as a negative signal and is vanished from the site. Next time you see a post about, say, women software engineers, you’ll be able to watch it happen in real time.
EDIT: Another example of semi-banned topics is criticism of HN. This post was number 1 on the front page a few minutes ago. It is already down to 11 with several older posts with fewer points higher up on the front page.
EDIT 2: And now this post is seemingly flagged killed. From number 1 to disappeared in roughly 10 minutes.
If you think this has been sunk inappropriately then email the mods. They are quite open to getting honest, constructive comments and suggestions. If you think this item and this discussion is of value to the community, let them know and they might agree and remove the flame-war penalty.
I haven't, but I can see why others would. Like it or hate it, the purpose of the voting system is to provide a direction for the content. You may disagree, but it's like elections - you get what "the community" deems valuable or relevant.
There's a lot of stuff I post that sinks without trace, and other things that get downvoted into obvlivion even though I personally think they are of positive value.
The community decides - you have to accept that.
I once spoke to the creator of a much larger forum than HN, who told me the biggest mistake they made was to add a meta facility to the site.
It's what happens on Lobsters, but whether or not it makes a difference is hard to say. The traffic is small enough that I doubt the effect is properly measurable.
> That would lead to a ton of comments saying why they had flagged or downvoted things. Such comments tend to be of low quality
It's only low quality if the reasons for down voting are low quality and since the purpose of forced replies is to weed out low quality moderation, I think the ends justify the means.
> and (if people could reply) would lead to endless bickering.
People already bicker about the moderation. Constantly. What I'd hope to see it fewer people impulsively moderating posts. Which might have the ironic effect of reducing some of the complaints.
Obviously those who have a tendency to bicker will likely continue to do so but that will be little change to what they're already doing now.
> I once spoke to the creator of a much larger forum than HN, who told me the biggest mistake they made was to add a meta facility to the site.
That may also turn out to be true for HN but equally it may not. Every forum and community is different so what works in one place might not work in another -- and visa versa. As it is, the quality of comments have and peer moderation has already been on a downwards trajectory for a few years now so it's probably worth trying some new ideas to see if it does shake the less confident yet still experienced engineers back into contributing thoughtful posts.
Except for eating, drinking and breathing, that's almost never absolutely true. All human contrivances are malleable.
This is by no means an under-represented topic on this site in relative terms. You may feel that it's under-represented in absolute terms, but that's true of every important topic, because front page space is the scarcest resource HN has.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
EDIT: This comment received two downvotes within 3 minutes of me posting. It is a comment buried half way down the comment section on a post that is 8 pages deep on HN. That type of immediate reaction seems strange and as a user it would be helpful to know whether something I said is unfit for this community or if there is some other reason for that reaction. Requiring users explain themselves for this behavior provides some immediate value for me on this comment.
We didn't unflag this article. We turned off the software penalty called the flamewar detector.
There's nothing odd about your comment being downvoted. Other users are still reading this thread just like we are. As for why they downvoted, perhaps they felt you were prosecuting the point in a repetitive way, or that the discussion has gotten too meta. Those things attract downvotes because they quickly get uninteresting.
I disagree about the gender thing and I'm not the only person to mention that specifically in this comment thread, but I recognize arguing that point isn't going to get us anywhere.
My point in that edit was that it is strange to see immediate and strong reaction on a comment that is buried so deeply. There are different expectations for a comment here compared to something on the front page in which many users are likely to see it as soon as it is posted. I have mentioned this to you before, but I think constructive feedback is important if you want people to actually become better community members here. Both you and I are left wondering why my comment received a negative response and I therefore have no direction on how to improve my comments.
Dang, do you see how that flagged comment reinforces my point?
Beyond that, I'm not sure what your point is, other than to complain about downvotes and flags, which is a discussion that gets increasingly repetitive and tedious, which is no doubt why the posts attracted further downvotes and flags.
For sure it sucks to see one's comments downvoted or flagged. The best response to this is to reflect on what in your comment might have led to that. Usually it's not so hard to see this if you're willing to look objectively. If you do see something, that's good learning for next time. If you don't, chalk it up to the quirks of other users and move on—it's priced in for everybody, and focusing on it further (e.g. by demanding reasons) is a poor use of energy and an especially poor direction for further discussion.