"flagged" always means that users flagged it, not moderator action.
And there are a lot of readers who will flag all submissions about US politics, no matter the polarity of the article.
The thing is that dang has generally not unflagged any posts about topics like these in the past, so there's little reason to think the flagging is only a result of temporary inaction by the moderation team. Rather it is a consistent pattern permitted to exist by said team.
Calling discussing something on HN "hypothesizing into the void" is a strange choice of words, either meant to be patronizing toward me specifically or toward all HN users.
You're in luck, because there are thousands of public answers and you can search them easily: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang&type=comment&dateRange... (by dang), https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (by tomhow). The answers we give by email are no different from the ones we give in public.
Whether they are helpful or forthcoming you'll have to decide. They are repetitive (and are even more tedious to write than they are to read) but here are some places to start:
stories with political overlap - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
not a current affairs site - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
consistency in moderation is impossible - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
flags and turning off flags - https://hn.algolia.com/?query=flags%20off%20turn%20by%3Adang...
repetitiveness makes a story and a discussion less interesting in HN's sense - >>42787306 - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
If you take a look at some of those answers and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. But it would be good to familiarize yourself with the standard explanations, because they're nearly always adequate to explain what you're seeing, although they will probably leave you frustrated if you feel strongly about the politics of a story.
FWIW, here's a short version: users flag things for various reasons; we turn off flags on a few such stories, but not more; that's because HN isn't a political or current affairs site; which stories get flags turned off is never going to satisfy anyone's political priorities, because the community is in deep disagreement with itself and because moderation consistency is impossible.
People dislike it when a story whose politics they agree with doesn't get to stay on the frontpage, but since it's impossible for all such stories to be on HN's frontpage, this frustration is unavoidable.
I think you have misunderstood the request. The request was not to clarify the general moderation policy, but rather clarify the reasoning why this specific story was not considered as one of the few stories where such action was taken.
I have already clarified my specific concerns regarding flagging and this specific story in another post in this discussion: >>46745562
People are curious to hear the reasoning for keeping the flag on this specific post, since thought has obviously been put to it and a decision to keep it was made after thoughtful consideration. I.e. which of the several different policies you highlighted had the most weight in this decision, and which mitigating circumstances were considered as reasons for bypassing this policy and removing the flag (even if they were discarded in the end).
It is precisely because consistent moderation is not possible that this is needed (otherwise it would be easy to just refer to the consistent guidelines). The quality of the moderation depends on the judgement and reasoning of the moderators, and the only way for the users to form their own picture (good or bad) of this judgement is to ask to hear how it is applied to specific scenarios where it is ambiguous.
I am very sympathetic to the fact that it must be tedious and sometimes repetitive, but if the decision is controversial I think it is an important part of moderation and important for the community as a whole.
* If you look at some of the old links I dug up here: >>46747388 , you'll find that this point has also been around a long time. Specifically these:
>>23380817 (June 2020)
>>20453883 (July 2019)
>>16968668 (May 2018)
>>15948011 (Dec 2017)
Clearly there must be a line somewhere. It was not here and today, but when and where is it? Trying desperately to cling onto normality at every cost when the actual reality is far from normal becomes a destructive endeavour in the end.
I have been a regular visitor on this site for 14 years, and have have never spoken up about this before. In fact I have always stood by the moderation policy and appreciated it. But I have a line where avoiding "inflammatory discussions" simply becomes obstinate and clueless, and harmful in the way that it gives convenient cover for the actors committing the real inflammatory acts, counting on people not caring enough to give them grief for it. And for me, that line has been crossed.
I'm curious: Have you not noticed any increase in people saying "this time it's different", or that different kinds of people are saying it now? Is it really just the same old people repeating the same old phrase to you?
> a repetitive topic
Small note: It has never been a repetitive topic, since all discussions about ICE performing extrajudicial killings have been quickly flagged of the front page and never (as a topic) discussed by the wider community.
Yes, when you bring up extreme scenarios such as nuclear war (or civil war, as slg did - >>46746817 ), that's a way of saying that we're fiddling-while-rome-burns, burying-head-in-sand, etc. The problem is that you're assuming your conclusion by invoking those scenarios. That doesn't make the argument stronger.
I agree that the probability of such scenarios is not zero, and no I would not like to end up in the same bucket as the schmucks in Dr Strangelove or (more tragically) the last person in the "first they came for" meme. But none of us knows the future, and there's another scenario with nonzero probability as well. That is the scenario in which HN goes through swings and fluctuations (conditioned by macro trends), sticks to its mandate, and emerges intact.
As far as probability goes, that second scenario has the advantage of having happened many times already. Each time it's happened, I've ended up feeling that we made the right call. Does that prove it's the right call this time? Nope—we don't know the future, like I said. But at least there are close historical precedents supporting it, as well as the core principles of HN supporting it.
There's another argument too, although I quake a bit at bringing it up. Suppose the truly extreme, end-of-world scenario really is coming to pass. What contribution do we make by jettisoning HN's mandate, going to war and turning the site into a battlefield, sooner rather than later? How do more posts of angry denunciations and screaming at each other move the needle on the end of the world? That is the step in the argument, like the ??? of the underpants gnomes or the "then a miracle occurs" in that physics cartoon, which no one ever spells out.
I don't think anyone who has been inhaling the profoundly pointless triviality of the internet message board genre for as long as we have really believes that there's some unrealized potential to help society via shriller and more sarcastic flamewars. I assume also that anyone who genuinely believes that we're already in an extreme scenario has more important things to do than post angry comments on the internet. It seems clear that this is not about effecting change or effective opposition—it's about expressing feelings. I'm all in favor of feelings, but that's not the conversation that people say they're having when they have these conversations. (I'm not talking about you here! just so that's clear.)
> Have you not noticed any increase in people saying "this time it's different", or that different kinds for people are saying it now? Is it really just the same old people repeating the same old phrase
I don't think it's all the same people (though some!) but to me it's the same dynamic. But I hear you, and yes I might be wrong and live to regret it. I'm not speaking from a place of certainty.
> Small note: It has never been a repetitive topic, since all discussions about ICE performing extrajudicial killings have been quickly flagged of the front page and never (as a topic) discussed by the wider community.
Well, I was thinking of this thread: Minneapolis driver shot and killed by ICE - >>46531702 - Jan 2026 (351 comments), although you're right that that one wasn't on the front page (I thought it had been, because we turned off the flags on it, but apparently not.) But there have been major threads on this topic (or topic cluster): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu..., some have been on the frontpage, and that's of course only a slice of the political stories that appear here.
I actually also agree fully with your analysis of the fundamentals here, just not your wider perspective.
Yes, I fully agree there is a risk of changing HN to the worse for no reason. But doing the right thing in uncertain times always carries a risk. As seen in this very story we are discussing: Alex Pretti risked his life filming the violent ICE agents, for very uncertain gain, and ultimately paid the price. I still think he did the right thing. Compared to the price Alex paid, "a worse HN" seems like a risk worth taking.
And no, I don't think allowing more controversial topics on HN will make a major difference in the context of world politics (or prevent the apocalypse). But when it comes to things like these everyone will always feel too "small" to matter, and the end result if we listen to that feeling will be that no one does anything instead of everyone doing something to improve the situation.
I'm not spending my time arguing here because I think it will change the course of history, that my posts will actually change the moderation policies of HN, or because I think that by doing so I would save the world. I'm doing it because it's a minor line in the sand I could draw in a community I am active in, and it's better to try to do what we can (however minor) than just giving up. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something, etc etc.
I don't think we will reach any agreement regarding the wider perspective today, but I do feel like I have gotten the nuanced answer I requested regarding the moderation policy of HN in the context of the current mayhem going on (beyond just avoiding flamewars). So, again, thank you for that.