And the worst of it gets flagged and even dead-ed so most skip it after a bit, as I assumed would happen recently
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.
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.