zlacker

So that's why my submission plummeted so quickly. One person made a reasoned argument for it not belonging, lots of people piled on and flagged it, hey presto, gone.

Giving flags more weight is not necessarily the answer. Punishing people for making bad comments is, I think, more important. Equally important is punishing people for upvoting bad comments.

But now it's late here, and starting tomorrow I'm really not going to be here for a while. Good luck PG, I hope you can find a way to reduce the mean-spiritedness fluff, and make HN more pleasant again.

>>RiderO+(OP)
> I hope you can find a way to reduce the mean-spiritedness fluff, and make HN more pleasant again.

I think this last sentence is very telling. Low quality is only part of the problem. What really makes people want to disengage is having their feelings hurt.

>>RiderO+(OP)
You could make flags scale concavely.

>>crassh+8e
Come to think of it, maybe upvotes should scale concavely as well.