[HN Gopher] Is flagging an abuse of the moderation process?
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       Is flagging an abuse of the moderation process?
        
       I've noticed that some controversial postings or comments are
       immediately flagged. What's up with this? Is it just someone
       weaponizing moderation, to make sure no one can discuss something
       you disagree with?
        
       Author : UIUC_06
       Score  : 7 points
       Date   : 2022-02-17 22:20 UTC (41 minutes ago)
        
       | dragonwriter wrote:
       | > I've noticed that some controversial postings or comments are
       | immediately flagged. What's up with this? Is it just someone
       | weaponizing moderation, to make sure no one can discuss something
       | you disagree with?
       | 
       | For the most part, the things that get flagged like this are both
       | explicitly off-topic (they are almost always areas of major
       | controversy covered heavily in mainstream media and articles not
       | offering any new insights) and _simultaneously_ things which have
       | been shown not to produce useful discussion on HN, but instead be
       | dominated by repetitive flamewar.
        
       | greenyoda wrote:
       | Many controversial posts are about politics or crime, and these
       | get flagged because they mostly violate HN Guidelines:
       | 
       | | _" Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports,
       | unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. ...
       | If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."_[1]
       | 
       | Controversial discussions can lead to comments that are not
       | civil, and these are also violations of HN Guidelines.
       | 
       | If you could provide examples of posts or comments that you think
       | were flagged unfairly, it might lead to a more fruitful
       | discussion.
       | 
       | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
         | UIUC_06 wrote:
         | Certainly -- the one about censorship today. Censorship is
         | obviously a tech topic.
         | 
         | It's also an evergreen, but that applies to lots of topics that
         | are routinely allowed, e.g. copyrights, diversity, antitrust,
         | or other legal topics that intersect with tech.
         | 
         | Just yesterday there was the lengthy discussion of the atomic
         | bomb & WW II, which is arguably _less_ relevant than
         | censorship.
        
           | greenyoda wrote:
           | > the one about censorship today
           | 
           | Could you provide the URL, please?
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > Censorship is obviously a tech topic.
           | 
           | Censorship is not a tech topic, it's a political topic that
           | sometime intersects with tech. And many stories about
           | censorship fit exactly the description of off-topic stories.
           | 
           | > Just yesterday there was the lengthy discussion of the
           | atomic bomb & WW II, which is arguably less relevant than
           | censorship.
           | 
           | We could debate the merits of the specific articles but (1)
           | that, not the merits of the broad subject matter
           | ("censorship" and "the use of the atomic bomb in WWII") is
           | what is relevant, and (2) even if the particular article
           | excluded today were agreed to be "less relevant" than one not
           | excluded yesterday, that wouldn't make the flags on the other
           | one necessarily _abusive_.
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-17 23:02 UTC)