Personally I am inclined to hit the flag button on: (i) any post from X (they suppress outlinks, inlinks should be suppressed), (ii) anything about Elon Musk (just a photo of him provokes an emotional response from people that makes people stupid). If it is a post on X by Elon Musk I will flag 100% of the time that I see it.
No. But if you want to get non-stop hagiography for him you can sign up for X. If you want to get non-stop hysterical hate there is a starter pack for that on Bluesky.
I don't think people are able to have a constructive conversation about him now. Non-constructive conversations are all over the internet. Your "free speech" is your cacophony that drowns out what I want to hear.
And actually I don't "flag anything about Elon Musk" but I sure think about it if it's not about rocketry or electric cars.
I did make a long decision long ago I was never going to make an auto-flagger or an auto-upvoter.
Also the "flag" is not a ban hammer. One person flagging something has no effect, it takes some N number of flags, not very big, to make a difference.
Wasn't a DOGE story on the frontpage yesterday with over 1000 comments?
Probably related "[flagged] Ask HN: Is Hacker News Being Manipulated?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42925174 (it's not, long standing users flag and IMHO hackernews users go to other forums for US politics)
The Hacker News community feels like a particularly knowledgeable group of people that could provide good insight into what is happening. Discussion around it is clearly being tamped down, for political reasons.
As I understand it (based on comments from dang, on several threads):
1. Most politics is off topic for HN. Sometimes stories are either relevant enough or important enough that they "should" be discussed on HN anyway. (No real great guidelines for which is which that I have seen.)
2. The second time a story is posted (even if it's a different source article), it's much more flag-worthy. We don't need to discuss it 17 times. (Repeat posts are fine, after, say, a year. Not after 12 hours, though.)
3. Politics threads have a higher-than-average chance of turning into flame wars, and a lower-than-average ratio of good comments. They still beat political discussions almost anywhere else, though, and should not be automatically flagged just because they're hypothetically likely to cause a flame war.
4. Misleading headlines and flamebait articles are much more likely to be flagged, and to deserve it.
5. It's not (mostly) coordinated. A bunch of us just don't want the 30 items on the front page to consist of 10 articles about Musk, 7 about DOGE, 5 about Trump, and 8 about what was "normal HN stuff" until about 2 weeks ago.
6. Flagged stories show as "flagged" up to a point, then "dead" if they are flagged more than that. Users can "vouch" for dead threads (but not for flagged ones). Do it too often and you lose your "vouch" privileges, though.
7. Dang un-flags some stories that are flagged that he thinks are important, even if the subject is political, and even if the larger story (Trump/DOGE) has already been discussed several times recently. That surprised me.
8 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 34.1 ms ] threadI don't think people are able to have a constructive conversation about him now. Non-constructive conversations are all over the internet. Your "free speech" is your cacophony that drowns out what I want to hear.
And actually I don't "flag anything about Elon Musk" but I sure think about it if it's not about rocketry or electric cars.
I did make a long decision long ago I was never going to make an auto-flagger or an auto-upvoter.
Also the "flag" is not a ban hammer. One person flagging something has no effect, it takes some N number of flags, not very big, to make a difference.
if y'all find joy in any of this, i envy you, as my mental health is shot.
Probably related "[flagged] Ask HN: Is Hacker News Being Manipulated?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42925174 (it's not, long standing users flag and IMHO hackernews users go to other forums for US politics)
1. Most politics is off topic for HN. Sometimes stories are either relevant enough or important enough that they "should" be discussed on HN anyway. (No real great guidelines for which is which that I have seen.)
2. The second time a story is posted (even if it's a different source article), it's much more flag-worthy. We don't need to discuss it 17 times. (Repeat posts are fine, after, say, a year. Not after 12 hours, though.)
3. Politics threads have a higher-than-average chance of turning into flame wars, and a lower-than-average ratio of good comments. They still beat political discussions almost anywhere else, though, and should not be automatically flagged just because they're hypothetically likely to cause a flame war.
4. Misleading headlines and flamebait articles are much more likely to be flagged, and to deserve it.
5. It's not (mostly) coordinated. A bunch of us just don't want the 30 items on the front page to consist of 10 articles about Musk, 7 about DOGE, 5 about Trump, and 8 about what was "normal HN stuff" until about 2 weeks ago.
6. Flagged stories show as "flagged" up to a point, then "dead" if they are flagged more than that. Users can "vouch" for dead threads (but not for flagged ones). Do it too often and you lose your "vouch" privileges, though.
7. Dang un-flags some stories that are flagged that he thinks are important, even if the subject is political, and even if the larger story (Trump/DOGE) has already been discussed several times recently. That surprised me.