zlacker

>>lordna+(OP)
Congratulations to "paulmd" for getting a flagged comment cited in The New Yorker!

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13094354 is the comment, which I find entirely reasonable but obviously people disagreed, or at least it was considered off-topic)

>>IfOnly+73
Really surprising to see that comment, which, full disclosure, I agree with, get flag-killed. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it get a few downvotes. But rarely have I ever seen a thorough, well-sourced, and civil comment actually be flag-killed. If anything, the shallow replies to his comment are the type of things that typically seem to get downvoted (though not necessarily flagged either).

>>danso+S5
I think this is a side effect of self-moderation. By making everyone in the community (over a certain threshold of participation) a mini-mod you turn rules enforcement into a popularity contest. Valid, interesting, yet unpopular points get suppressed. Rules violations that are popular get ignored, and sometimes even lauded.

There is no reason, based on the HN guidelines, that the referenced post should have been downvoted, let alone flagged. Whoever did so abused their power to make such decisions.

>>vonmol+d9
I agree with what you said, but my presumption has been that the HN status quo would generally be receptive to the argument that u/paulmd made, or at least, not offended/angered enough to flag it. Especially it being so well-written, and in response to someone whose argument was entirely speculative or based on emotional appeal, and who didn't bother using basic capitalization or punctuation.

It's even more surprising since HN had the "vouch" feature since before Dec. 2016 [0]. My best guess is that people might have reflexively downvoted/flagged upon seeing the opening sentence of "Black people are measurably less likely to own a car or have a bank account".

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11589410