Probably looking through the flagged comments is the least favorite, as well as most repetitive and time consuming manual activity, for all the mods who do it.
And if this ML labeling is successful then do all the unflagging, or whatever is the most easily automated , most frequent action, to reduce the queue for manual processing.
I don't flag comments often, but I'll be even more careful now when I do if that's the case.
Suggestion: when flagging a comment, allow the flagger to state which guideline they think the comment violates (I believe both reddit and FB do this).
Flagging a comment takes extra work because you have to click through to the comment. I’ve never done that by accident and tried to only do it for comments that violate guidelines. Sometimes I subjectively feel a comment is trolling and will flag it. That’s not strictly against the guidelines and is a judgement call.
(The worst is when I accidentally hide a story. That’s way too easy to do and too hard to undo.)
Reddit uses this order:
N comments | share | save | hide | give award | report | crosspost
I guess my preference would be for HN to use a similar order: N comments | N points by <user> <time> | hide | flag
Of course, if you make this change, half the readers will hate it and insist you change it back. :-)I'm not sure that "flag" and "hide" need to be on the main page at all. You could show those only after clicking through to the submission?
(I should probably just switch to one of the many HN reader apps.)