zlacker

We don't let users abuse flagging. We have software that identifies users who flag excessive numbers of stories, and we take away their ability to flag.

>>pg+(OP)
I sometimes downvote or flag stuff to take account of correctional inflation.

>>pg+(OP)
Curious if the software would also weigh a person who never flags higher or just what you are describing.

>>pg+(OP)
Is the option visibly removed, or are the 'flags' silently ignored? When I post something I try go through a few pages of 'newest' and flag spam, but this makes me worry I'm wasting my time.

>>nkurz+k6
My flagging option one day just vanished.

Not really a big loss for me. One less distraction.

>>pearju+i2
I believe, though, that flagging something that ends up popular can count against you.

>>pg+(OP)
Just an FYI, but accidental flagging happens to me all the time on my iphone, would be nice to have a flag-confirm on mobile (I'd bet mobile flagging correlates much worse with controversy if others are having that problem too)

>>drinkz+mf
I'd recommend using a thick client. I'm not sure how you use HN plain on a mobile

>>drinkz+mf
Downvoting, too. Have to zoom in so the up triangle is unmissable.

>>pg+(OP)
And, FWIW, you don't seem to automatically get it back (at least not within six or eight months - I had this one angry, ill-considered day once…)

>>bigiai+sn
I've been flag free for over two (three?) years now. No big loss.

>>skelet+Mg
How not? It's mostly just plain text. Easier than most other sites.

>>Phasma+Op
Because of the reasons mentioned above me, the UX/UI isn't designed for mobile, hence mistakenly clicking the wrong buttons.

>>skelet+cq
I read hn a lot on my phone; I super-zoom when hitting any arrows to give me a huge triangle, then zoom back out.

>>seiji+Eo
Yeah, I figure I'd probably get it back pretty easily if I asked Paul and apologised - but I really don't miss the "opportunity to be negative". So long as he's happy that there are sufficient people down-flagging the stuff that requires down-flagging, the site will happily exist without _my_ opinions of what's worthwhile and what isn't.

>>alxndr+5j
What about instead having the ability to change your vote?

>>jamesb+37
That sounds like an impressive way to create an echo chamber of opinions. "Looks like what you said isn't what other people believe so you shall be punished!"

>>ars_te+WH
Yes, it seems so. If you get caught on the wrong side of some upvote mob you lose. Whatever; this is what the oweners want and it's a silly thing in the grand scheme of things.

>>pg+(OP)
What if an excessive number of stories are off-topic, highly political, spam or otherwise inappropriate? Not all high frequency flaggers are abusive.

>>xiaoma+LR
I mentioned that I flag pretty much all of the climate change stories, and got my flag powers revoked. C'est la vie, I guess. I still don't think those stories add anything to this site besides some of the same old tired flame wars, so I'd probably continue flagging those and politics if I got the flag link back.

>>davidw+NS
I thought I was doing good by scanning /new and flagging garbage, but alas my link also vanished soon after.

>>pg+(OP)
Apparently I was caught by that, yet I don't believe I flagged an excessive number of stories. I seldom used the flag at all unless it was for egregiously political or lightweight stories on the front page, or for spam comments a few years ago.

I doubt I used more than double-digit flags in the 6+ years I've been here.

>>davidw+NS
I'm sorry if this is blunt but in my opinion it is good that your flagging rights were removed. For every person who personally doesn't like climate change stories, there is a person who doesn't like Ruby on Rails stories, a person who doesn't like patent stories, a person who doesn't like NSA stories, and another person who doesn't like Node.js stories. Because flagging has such a strong effect on ranking, it should be reserved for highly inappropriate posts. With great power comes great responsibility.

>>jules+A01
There are stories that I don't like, and stories that should not be on this site per the guidelines:

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hardly any of the climate change stories are "interesting", but basically just "LOOK SEE I AM RIGHT IN MY BELIEFS AND THIS PROVES IT" sorts of articles. Those are poisonous to a site like this - they just beget a lot of useless discussion without much substance in it.

In other words, they are, IMO, highly inappropriate posts, not just stuff I happen to find uninteresting or don't like.

>>davidw+s11
Climate change articles may not be interesting to you, but they are interesting to plenty of people. Might it just be your already formed belief that they are uninteresting that makes you find most of the climate change articles uninteresting? The comment you wrote here could equally well have been written by a person who is flagging any of the other categories I mentioned. The rules say:

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Climate change definitely fits that description. Lets search for climate change: https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=climat... None of those articles look any more inappropriate for HN to me, compared to what you'd find for any of the other categories I mentioned.

If you think a comment in a discussion is inappropriate, you shouldn't flag the story, you should flag the comment.

>>jules+N31
Do you really think most of those climate change articles are being posted by people who find them "intellectually gratifying"? I think most of them are pointing to stuff they think supports their own point of view, and they wish to share as widely as possible with the world.

How many articles are there about uncontroversial, but interesting aspects of climate science? Do any of them ever get upvoted, ever?

>>davidw+e51
For instance, in the search that I provided, there are several articles that I find intellectually gratifying, for example "Decoding Climate Change with Perl, gnuplot and Google Earth" and "Climate Change Authority Admits Mistake" from the MIT technology review and "Nasa.gov: Evidence of Climate Change". Do you think these articles are less intellectually gratifying as articles about the NSA or articles discussing the merit or insanity of Node.js? If so, then you are applying a much higher standard to climate change articles than those other articles.

But whether or not YOU should find these articles intellectually gratifying is beside the point. We already have a feature for those kind of articles: don't upvote them. Flagging is not for those kind of stories. Again, if you find a discussion inappropriate, flag the comments in the discussion. Anyway, I don't think this discussion is going to be productive any more, so this will be my last comment.

>>pg+(OP)
Company driven sabotage does not require excessive flagging, it requires a number of real-world accounts usually used in a correct way that are one-spot abused to avoid that the weakness of their product stays in the home page for too much time.

>>jules+H91
Political stories are off-topic and should not be posted here. Most of the climate change articles seem to me to be pretty much about people's political beliefs, rather than an inherent interest in climate science or meteorology or something. That's why I flagged them. What other sorts of climate science do you find interesting? I find it odd that so many people are so very "intellectually gratified" by stuff that revolves around the very political "climate change" stuff, but don't seem to care too much for other kinds of more mundane science.

I probably would not have flagged the perl/gnuplot one, I'll grant you that one.

Node.js articles are on topic, even if one or the other happens to be boring. So I would not flag them, even the most uninteresting ones.

>>lostlo+RC
Yeah, being able to change it within a minute of the initial vote would solve my use case.

>>pg+(OP)
It's better to let everyone flag stories (or better yet - downvote).

But the weight of every flag should depend on how well user's downvoting correlate with your own downvoting.

If there is no correlation between user and you - then downvoting should not affect ranking.

That way you would get types of stories you don't like on HN to be quickly downvoted.