That seems to be especially true on HN. Other forums there is some of that as well, but HN it seems nearly every single comment section is like 75% (random number) pointing out faults in the posted article.
I've found that pedantic conversations here seem to actually have a greater potential for me to learn something from them than other forums/social platforms. On other platforms, I see someone providing a pedantic response and I'll just keep moving on, but on HN, I get curious to not only see who wins the nerd fight, but also that I might learn at least one thing along the way. I like that it's had an effect on how I engage with comment sections.
In short, I've never seen somebody flagged simply for having the wrong opinion. Even controversial opinions tend to stay unflagged, unless they're incredibly dangerous or unhinged.
I agree that most dead posts would be a distraction and good to have been kept out.
OTOH I don’t like flagging stories because good ones get buried regularly. But then HN is not a great place for peaceful, nuanced discussion and these threads often descend into mindless flame wars, which would bury the stories even without flagging.
So, meh. I think flagging is a moderately good thing overall but it really lacks in subtlety.
On stories however, I think the flag system is pretty broken. I've seen so many stories that get flagged because people find them annoying (especially AI-related things) or people assume it will turn into a flame war, but it ends up burying important tech news. Even if the flags are reversed, the damage is usually done because the story fell off the front page (or further) and gets very little traction after that.
Can you back this up with data? ;-)
I see citations and links to sources about as little as on reddit around here.
The difference I see is in the top 1% comments, which exist in the first place, and are better on average (but that depends on what other forums or subreddits you compare it to, /r/AskHistorians is pretty good for serious history answers for example), but not in the rest of the comments. Also, less distractions, more staying on topic, the joke replies are punished more often and are less frequent.
- either critique is solid and I learn something
- or commenter is clueless which makes it entertaining
there is very seldom a “middle”
People who agree with an article will most likely just upvote. Hardly anyone ever bothers to comment to offer praise, so most comments that you end up seeing are criticisms.