I'm seeing more and more instances of high quality, relevant submissions that are getting tons of upvotes, and generating very interesting conversations
in their comment sections without even a hint of controversy, and then <i>BOOM</i> -- flagged off the front page -- most likely because of a small but very vocal minority who
take special exception to a particular story for one reason or another. I'm pretty sure flags aren't intended to serve as downvotes, but that seems to be how
they're being used of late, rather than just on spammy, off-topic, inappropriate, inaccurate, abusive, libelous, or frivolous submissions. Is my understanding correct???<p>This was a pretty interesting bit of investigative journalism that I submitted the other day:<p><i>"Dozens of CIA Agents at Benghazi Attack, Being Kept Quiet w/ Monthly Polygraphs (thelead.blogs.cnn.com)"</i><p><i>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6152006</i><p>and it was definitely relevant to HN given all of the concern of late about abuses by the intelligence community and the "War on Leakers". However, it was
flagged to death because the word "Benghazi" has become so politicized that apparently some HNers just read the headline, incorrectly assumed
that it was some sort of right-wing talk radio screed, and flagged it without even bothering to click through to the article.<p>This was an interesting piece of journalism, giving a detailed description of the pressure the intelligence community exerts to silence "potential leakers".
The reporter (Jake Tapper) is probably one of the best in the business right now - with a reputation for being very balanced, and on a network with a
similar repuation.<p>This was no Fox News or MSNBC political hit piece.<p>This problem seems to be getting worse and worse.<p>UPDATE: And... This was flagged in 10 minutes. Great, <i>The Circle is Complete.</i>
I ran into the character limit, but I just wanted to add some of the patterns I've noticed of stories that tend to get unfairly flagged, although there are plenty of instances where I don't really see any possible explanation for the flagging:<p><i>- Stories that could be considered as positive towards Microsoft</i> - Personally, I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, and if there was a Reddit-like downvote for stories, I
might consider using it for some of these submissions. But uniformly flagging anything that could be construed as positive towards Microsoft seems quite out
of line and petty.<p><i>- Political stories or opinions with a Libertarian bent</i> - based on user comments, HN seems to be about 1/3 Liberal, 1/3 Libertarian (with a few conservatives
thrown in), and 1/3 moderate/apolitical, but comparable political stories and opinion pieces by Paul Krugman, Matt Taibbi, Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, and other
Liberal writers don't seem to run into the same flagging issues that Libertarian ones do.<p><i>- Stories that are negative towards Apple</i> - this doesn't seem to happen as much anymore, but was probably one of the best examples of abusive flagging a couple of years ago.<p><i>- Political stories in general</i> - I'm sympathetic to HNers who get frustrated when NSA or Aaron Swartz stories <i>completely</i> take over HN, and I'll admit that
HN has been a little too politics heavy of late. However, I find it really troubling when HNers openly make comments about how they are "flagging every
political story they see". I've witnessed some really interesting submissions and comment discussions get unfairly snuffed out because of this attitude.<p>I would be curious to hear about any other abusive flagging patterns HNers have noticed, or any opinions on what can be done about it.<p>I know that there is a thread buried away somewhere for feature requests and that this probably isn't the place for it, but I wish flagging could be more
transparent somehow. Maybe with an icon to make users aware that flagging is taking place, and where they could have the opportunity to counter it - or unflag -
a submission when they feel that the flagging is abusive?
Your submission was flagged because it's a textbook case of what the guidelines tell you <i>not</i> to submit.<p>From <a href="http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a><p>"What to Submit<p>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.<p>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."<p>You even admit in this discussion that the phenomenon isn't new ('all of the concern of late about abuses by the intelligence community and the "War on Leakers"') and that it would be covered on TV news ('this piece has been picked up and heavily covered by major news outlets everywhere').<p>If you want to discuss this story, that's great, but HN isn't the place for it.
If I wanted to read about Benghazi, and who would at this point except a die hard political junkie, I'd go to a site for die hard political junkies.
An important note is that users don't gain down vote ability until they have ~500 karma, but have the ability to flag stories before that (maybe even at account creation, but I'm not sure).