This conversation already has comments on one side flagged to invisibility. If you are going to allow these conversations, but only allow one side, then Hacker News is not about discussion but about what?
The moderation intention is for comments which break the site guidelines to be flagged, regardless of which side they are or aren't on. It's not possible to reach this state perfectly, of course.
as example, just below there is reply to you saying that flagging been abused, been flagged
That number is much too high IMO, so I assume we interpret the site guidelines very differently.
> as example, just below there is reply to you saying that flagging been abused, been flagged
I assume you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221396? No, you'd see "[flagged]" if that were the case. The comment is [dead], but it was killed by software, not flagged by users. I'll restore it.
That one doesn't seem to violate the rules, and there is a lot of discussion below it.
Or this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221631
Or this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221972
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221631 is not flagged. That might be because we'd already turned off flags on it (I can't remember).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221972 I agree should not be flagged and I've unflagged it.
In threads that are, unfortunately, adversarial, abusing the flag button is a stable Nash equilibrium. I think it's a shitty equilibrium, though, and makes real, substantive conversations--ostensibly the goal on this forum--harder to achieve.
I think it's high time to reconsider the current 'flag' mechanics. At the very least I think we would all be better off if flags were simply disabled on highly controversial topics.
I recognize that's a big ask for an already-overburdened mod. I just don't see any good alternative.
Separately, I want to express that while I don't always agree with you, I think you generally do an excellent job moderating and I appreciate your efforts to keep this community free and healthy.
- immune system flagged this story because it thought that this story doesn't deserve to be on this site and it won't contribute/create any productive discussion (you can see this sentiment from many people who flagged it). Based on your comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46218920) you turned off flags on this story and created gesturing around this. You essentially did what you just here criticized.
- immune system comes with interesting thing: autoimmune diseases
Whether flagging is available or not, nothing is gained in such polarized discussions. Of course it would be best if we could lower that polarization over time, but I am pretty skeptical that discussion boards & comments are a mechanism that will achieve that. I suspect their actual effect is to increase it.
Nobody will ever think "That was a well-reasoned argument I now believe war crimes were, or were not, committed".
The best thing to do on posts like this is avoid reading them, or flag them.
It feels like there's an obviously correct side to most of these issues, the problem is half the audience here believes their side is correct and yours is wrong.
I think there are useful discussions to be had on these topics, and in fact, we must have those discussions. The issue is that, if we want to do so productively and a comment section is the only venue for us to speak to each other, then we must be extremely patient with others and ourselves and reflect on what they say and what we say (i.e., discuss in good faith).
That burden may be too high for most people, but collectively, we don't have a better forum anymore, and we need to have these discussions and come to consensus before the world is engulfed in authoritarianism or war (which is not hyperbole).
Other venues - real life, talking to people in person - telephones, audio & video calling, talking to people - writing op-eds, blog posts, sub-stack newsletters - podcasts
None of these of course produce the dopamine hit of seeing your likes/retweets/karma go up and that of your opponents going down though, so we would have to give that up. I think that's a good deal.
We can call internet comment infrastructure "community" but that doesn't mean it actually is one or functions to enhance community.
Manually appealing to dang for unflagging is not a workable solution either.
This really is an entirely unsuitable forum for this discussion.
Maybe this is not the forum, but then what is? A philosophy class you took ten years ago?
Funny that you mention it, but Israel/Palestine was also a banned topic in the “Ethics and International Law” course I took circa twenty years ago.
I advocate concerning yourself with the things you can control, which does not include this forum’s idiosyncratic moderation style.
I can control my comments, which are a part of this forum's moderation style, and I can advocate in those comments for people to act in good faith, and appeal for help in figuring out how to make it more common.
If we can't discuss important topics in good faith on a nerd website, what hope do we have of discussing them elsewhere? It's not hyperbole anymore to say that if we don't come to some consensus we are going to end up in authoritarianism or war.
You think half the audience here or anywhere is on the side of israel and genocide? The only reason no discussion can be had is because of the influence of israel in tech, media, government and the bot farms they are allowed to employ all over social media.