This morning I saw a news story that seemed pretty important for tech workers to be aware of [1]. I went to submit, and I was taken to a page where the post was already marked as "flagged" despite having 400+ upvotes in the 4 hours since original submission. However, the post had been flagged, so I was unable to see it on the front page. Who makes the decisions about what is getting flagged, and why does it seem that none of the really important DOGE news is allowed to surface?<p>[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43691142#43692607
I don't think "DOGE stories never make it to the frontpage" or "none of the really important DOGE news is allowed to surface" are accurate statements. DOGE has been heavily discussed here, and stories have received a lot of attention, e.g:<p><pre><code> The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
1683 points | 2990 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910
Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
1624 points | 1801 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42981756
Anyone can push updates to the doge.gov website
1125 points | 1124 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43045835
DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
1092 points | 1462 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43138238
DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
884 points | 1670 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43112084
</code></pre>
Flags are just from users. Controversial/polarized topics tend to be more prone to getting flagged, from what I've seen.
<i>Who makes the decisions about what is getting flagged</i><p>Users flag things.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43227619">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43227619</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43624035">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43624035</a><p><i>a news story that seemed pretty important for tech workers to be aware of</i><p>That's not really a driving principle of HN - it doesn't actually work like that. It doesn't entirely not-work like that but it mostly doesn't work like that.
In your HN profile, you can turn on "showdead". As others mentioned, flagging is community driven. But you can still see the stories for a little longer, even if dead.
I come here to read interesting technology news, and most of the Doge stories are not interesting technology news. It would suck if HN were full of boring stuff that I can read elsewhere.<p>I do care a lot about the current situation, and I keep up to date by reading all the other sources that cover politics and the economy. I flag most politics articles because they lower the quality of HN.<p>If something is either very novel or very interesting it should definitely make it to the front page. But most stuff that gets flagged is getting the right treatment.<p>However, the one you posted does look kind of interesting. It probably got flagged by people who are even more sick of politics polluting HN and are flagging reflexively.
As someone who's got a quick finger on the "flag" button I am inclined to flag anything that involves Elon Musk whether is someone who thinks he is a hero or thinks he is a villian.<p>There are topics that go viral because of emotionally negative content and I feel like I have to be very careful who I follow on Mastodon and Bluesky so that my feed is not dominated by outrage. I appreciate that HN isn't like that and I want to keep it that way. There are enough places you can participate in breathless discussions about the outrage of the day.<p>Also there are fellow HNers whose comments I really enjoy, who seem thoughtful and intelligent and who I have a great time interacting with who seem to turn into werewolves [1] when certain topics come up and keeping those topics away helps me experience their best.<p>[1] circa Spring 2025 I'm starting to wonder if is fair to werewolves to talk like this though