Damn you people for asking good questions that go straight to the fuzzy areas!

I don't know for sure yet. But you're right that that would follow from what I said.

What I do know is that users should flag articles that they think don't belong on HN. But this should rely on their reading of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not just be based on a like/dislike reaction. That is, users should flag articles that they think break the site guidelines, not just ones they dislike.

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sph 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have been discouraging people from flagging ‘articles that they think don't belong on HN’, because you have disabled my ability to do so time and time again. In private conversation with you, you have confirmed that if I flag/vouch stuff you mods don’t agree with, I get the privilege taken away, even if I genuinely believe a post to fall outside of the guidelines.

So either I read your mind, or it is best not to flag unless something is obviously, unequivocally, running afoul of the guidelines.

I keep being annoyed at how arbitrary, and dare I say hypocritical, the entire flagging mechanism and its surrounding politics are.

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dang 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> In private conversation with you, you have confirmed that if I flag/vouch stuff you mods don’t agree with, I get the privilege taken away, even if I genuinely believe a post to fall outside of the guidelines.

People love to make vague claims like this based on things we supposedly said. How about you quote what exactly what I literally said so readers can make up their own minds?

Sorry if that is testy (well, it is testy), but I can't count the number of times that disgruntled users have posted falsely to HN threads to vent their residual frustrations with the mods.

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sph an hour ago | parent [-]

Sure, quoting select passages over multiple emails with you personally.

> I'm afraid we took vouching privileges away from your account because you vouched for too many comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines

> If you want to build up a track record for a while of vouching for good comments only, and then email so we can look at the recent vouches

Wondering how does one tell what is ‘good’ in your mind:

> Btw if you're unsure about a case you can always check with us about it. I know the borderline cases are not always easy to call.

—-

In other words, do as dang himself would do, or get penalised. I am not in the business of mind reading.

This was years ago. I am pretty sure lately I have been flagging/vouching stuff I genuinely believe were OK, though you have all the data in front to smite me with “ah, but on this day you vouched this bad comment! Gotcha!” so in the end it’s always a losing battle.

In any case, my issue is with you saying, I quote, ”users should flag articles that they think don't belong on HN”. Emphasis mine. No. It is more nuanced than that.

	▲	dang 44 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Kudos to you for responding exactly as I asked! That is rare to begin with, and even more so when I'm being irritable. Big respect. I can see how using the word "good" was confusing, but I just meant the opposite of "comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines". It just boils down to: what fits the guidelines or not. > Wondering how does one tell what is ‘good’ in your mind Since you can't read my mind (at least I assume you can't, and if you could you wouldn't have this question), that's not doable. What you can do is assess things according to your own reading of the site guidelines. If you assimilate https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and evaluate comments based on that and not just on what you like/dislike, then I imagine you won't end up too far from where the mods are, because that's what we're also trying to do. I'm sure there will always be individual cases where we disagree—even tomhow and I disagree on individual cases—but they should be a minority. If there are specific cases where you think we got it wrong, I'd be interested to see links, and we're always willing to hear a contrary argument.
	▲	IanCal 40 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		How were you penalised? Was it just losing the ability to flag? If however you see things isn’t lining up well with how they want things flagged, it makes sense to remove that from you. Unless there’s more punishment attached this seems very sensible regardless of how genuinely you believe in things.

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bellowsgulch 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Dan likes some people and you ain't in the group, buddy.

	▲	dang 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I like people who follow the site guidelines and want to use HN as intended. That doesn't mean I dislike people who don't, but that side of the moon is more...nuanced.
	▲	Barbing an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		He has no idea who I am. Privately, when I was new he was polite and helpful. (Tried to be polite, was returned.) /singular anecdote for reader reference

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haunter an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> users should flag articles that they think break the site guidelines

I'm more and more think that link actually hurts the site more than helps. It's a gotcha against everything, can be used a sword and a shield too.

See the part about politics. There is more and more US domestic politics post here (which I actually flag all the time) yet when the topic comes up people will say: "should hackers turn their back on when the world burns" So basically everything goes as long as it fits the narrative.

And the worst offender imo is the last part about reddit. Because I do _really agree_ that HN is more and more like reddit, if not already is. This very post with the comments where everyone is asking for a downvote button is a perfect example of that.

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causality0 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What I do know is that users should flag articles that they think don't belong on HN

If this is true then this statement should be added to the guidelines. Many a time I've seen a submission and thought "My god, this is the most moronic thing I've ever read in my life, nearly every single factual claim in this is wrong" but I don't flag it because "don't post utter drivel" is not in the guidelines.

	▲	dang 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What did you think flagging was for? (Genuine question) It's true that we don't spell things out precisely, but that's because it's impossible to spell things out fully precisely. If you start, where do you stop?

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bellowsgulch 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Generally speaking, HN seems to have more of a problem now of people just drive-by downvoting things because they don't like someone's opinion.

I know you hate the supposedly "noob" comment, as you've put it over the years, and as it is written in the guidelines, that HN is or isn't turning into Reddit, but this aspect of HN makes it indistinguishable to me as a long-time reader here whether you accept it from your perspective as a long-time moderator or not.

Because HN moderation allows people to downvote or flag things simply because they don't like something, it will always be like Reddit. There is no distinguishing feature to separate it otherwise.

One thing that would, would be forcing users to say why they downvoted or flagged something.

Edit: If you spend years saying "no, no, it isn't true" to people, you're just sticking your fingers in your ears. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

	▲	DANmode an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It’s not necessarily that it isn’t true - the most common problem voters have is that it just isn’t interesting or unique.
	▲	bluefirebrand an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Don't you need a certain number of upvotes on your account before you can even use the downvote button? I seem to remember that being a thing, has it changed? The fact you can't just make an account, log in and start downvoting is already a massive improvement over Reddit