zlacker

>>Robin8+(OP)
> In fact, I don't see a single story that I personally feel should not have been removed.

I don't understand why this story was removed: "It turns out the six-feet social-distancing rule had no scientific basis", >>39200511

On a forum with an overwhelmingly science-minded audience, it bothers me that an important topic like that is deemed untouchable.

>>ggdG+ib
Stories about COVID controversies are almost certainly getting flagged off the front page by users, not touched by mods. People look at the titles of these stories and think that's all flaggers are going by, but lots of people flag stories based on their experience of what the threads are like, and the threads on COVID controversies are fucking dreadful. I didn't flag (or see) that story, but I would have.

>>tptace+ug
But why must they be dreadful? Genuine question, I am not being obtuse. We should be able as a community to discuss conterversial subjects somehow.

I also think this sort of thing invites flag brigades. Or better yet, a small batch of bad actor can easily start brigading and forcefully associate such flamewar expectations with any subject they don't like to drive it off HN.

Maybe worth reconsidering how you flag? You might be getting played. Or not, I really don't know. No obvious answers.

>>vertic+6j
They're dreadful because people are coming from opposite places and are unwilling to be convinced otherwise, so the conversations are repetitive and dull, with little new information. We really don't need to hear for the 100th time how Covid was or was not a lab leak when there's no new real evidence one way or the other, but every time Covid comes up, there's gonna be some unresolvable argument in the comments that's just dreadful and not worthy of this site's time. Hence the flag. With a infinitely more heavy handed moderation team (or LLM) to judge comments before they got posted, we might be able to have good discussions on such topics, but until then, you can turn on show dead in your profile to see what kind of low-quality comments certain topics attract.