HN Explorer

Ask HN: Are people misusing flags?

4 points by 3rd3 ↗ HN
For example this submission [1] is certainly provocative, but it's neither spam, trolling nor dumb and it did give rise to an interesting discussion. Yet, it apparently got lots of flags so that it's position ~105 (with 35 points in 5 hours) right now. I saw this in a couple of high to medium quality submissions lately. Is that really what flags are supposed to be used for?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7933386

5 comments

[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 16.3 ms ] thread
minimaxir
That one probably got hit by the flamewar detector, which applies when hitting a certain threshold of points, then num_comments >> num_points.
stcredzero
For example this submission [1] is certainly provocative, but it's neither spam, trolling nor dumb and it did give rise to an interesting discussion.

I'm pretty certain that people are targeting HN for forum-manipulation at this point.

Is that really what flags are supposed to be used for?

No. The prevalence of that many flags is certainly a sign of an attempt at willful manipulation of HN.

bmm6o
That was a terrible post and I flagged it.

Author dislikes X and finds some mathematical basis to argue that X is bad and you are bad for liking it. There's a reason the best critiques of things come from people who like them despite their flaws.

Also, if you want to suggest that people are "misusing flags", you need to describe how people are using them and contrast that with the correct way. I don't think you've done either.

3rd3
As I said, the submission was provocative (but not of low quality) and the discussion was good. I think these kind of more controversial topics can potentially resolve false beliefs all kind of sorts or give at least some food for thought.
bmm6o
If someone thinks that an article is low quality, they're supposed to flag it, right? You're entitled to your opinion, but I'm not surprised a lot of people flagged it.