Hacker News Reader

Comment by ce4 | Hacker News Reader

HN thrives on the community and its discussion. And when there's little merit in the discussion threads because most have turned or started toxic it doesn't. So sometimes stuff may be flagged for the overall dynamics of a submission - maybe some sort of anti-"eternal September" reaction of the old user base. Especially certain political topics from 2016 to 2021 had this issue and Covid sometimes as well.

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HN is not just a discussion board, it also serves as a place to get caught up on the latest happenings around the world. Hence hacker news. Flagging a news article for removal just because the readers have no civility is untoward.

If anything, it is the community and moderation teams responsibility to ensure toxic comments are downvoted or removed.

If you decide to never allow anything “controversial” on HN, it is an easy backdoor for bad actors to get articles they don’t like flagged. All they have to do is make comments inciting controversy or astroturf the comments from both sides.

I haven't flagged this article, I just wanted to add some reasoning why others might have done so.

There might also be some kind of fatigue wrt. pandemic news.

Threads turn toxic because people treat eachother like the enemy. We constantly fail to respect the other person when he or she has a different point of view.

I think you're right and in vaccine discussions you see this the most I'd argue.

If your way of life is changed in a way you disagree with, e.g. forced vaccine or Use of Corona passport, then discussion can get heated and the respect is lost.

In this article i find it unprofessional to flag it, i would sincerely hope that Hacker News is better than that.

It should be the merit of the article and not politics that decide if something gets flagged or not.

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