Ask HN: Why can't post authors see the reason a post was flagged?
I posted a few links for the sake of discussing their content with the HN community, but they got flagged and I don't know the reason. Why does HN not allow posters to see the reason a post was flagged, or allow any discussion of whether the flag was appropriate or not?
3 comments
In general, posts are flagged because someone clicked the "flag" link so HN doesn't know any more specific reason.
Telling spammers why they were blocked just makes it easier for them to change their behavior just enough to not be blocked in the future. Telling crackpots why they were blocked just causes them to post multiple responses complaining about groupthink, free speech, and conspiracies. This has led basically all user generated content sites to have a policy of never explaining their moderation decisions. Of course this occasionally goes wrong.
Telling spammers why they were blocked just makes it easier for them to change their behavior just enough to not be blocked in the future. Telling crackpots why they were blocked just causes them to post multiple responses complaining about groupthink, free speech, and conspiracies. This has led basically all user generated content sites to have a policy of never explaining their moderation decisions. Of course this occasionally goes wrong.
Which links? I looked at your submission story and I found:
(10 days ago) [flagged] [dead] NY Times Opinion Piece: “Trump? How Could We?” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12609336 : No explanation in the thread. My guess is that the article is too political.
(15 days ago) [dupe] SpaceX has released the initial results of its investigation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12570930 : Explained in the thread, it's a (not exact) dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12567446
(31 days ago) [dupe] [dead] Voteplz: Literally the easiest way to vote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12456664 : Explained in the thread, it's a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12454714
(32 days ago) [dupe] No, really, the headphone jack is more useful than you think https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12448453 : Not explained in the thread, probably (not exact) a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453311
(10 days ago) [flagged] [dead] NY Times Opinion Piece: “Trump? How Could We?” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12609336 : No explanation in the thread. My guess is that the article is too political.
(15 days ago) [dupe] SpaceX has released the initial results of its investigation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12570930 : Explained in the thread, it's a (not exact) dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12567446
(31 days ago) [dupe] [dead] Voteplz: Literally the easiest way to vote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12456664 : Explained in the thread, it's a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12454714
(32 days ago) [dupe] No, really, the headphone jack is more useful than you think https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12448453 : Not explained in the thread, probably (not exact) a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453311
For example, I would love to know about details about the following:
(84 days ago) [flagged] Turkey's president says all he wants is same powers as Hitler (telegraph.co.uk)
(48 days ago) [flagged] Tesla stock up 2% on news of upcoming announcement, down 1% after announcement (google.com)
I find it irritating (and it seems you've noticed this too) that "too-political" articles get flagged. Posting articles does not imply agreement with them. Are they not worth discussing?
(84 days ago) [flagged] Turkey's president says all he wants is same powers as Hitler (telegraph.co.uk)
(48 days ago) [flagged] Tesla stock up 2% on news of upcoming announcement, down 1% after announcement (google.com)
I find it irritating (and it seems you've noticed this too) that "too-political" articles get flagged. Posting articles does not imply agreement with them. Are they not worth discussing?
From the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> What to Submit
> 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.
> 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.
The fist one "Turkey's president ..." I think it falls in the too political category. It doesn't matter if you or me agree or disagree with that article. An article that you or me agree with can be also too political. But that article is not [dead], it's only [flagged], so was less visible but not killed.
The second one "Tesla stock ..." is also [dead]. I can't see the URL. Looking only at the title it doesn't seams to obviously bad, but the URL is strange, because it's in google.com . Was it a google redirect? Was it a link to the google stock graph? Was there another article in the front page with a similar content? I'm not sure what happened with it.
Anyway, to get an authoritative response you can write to the mods: [email protected] That's also useful if you find a false positive and the vouch button doesn't unkill the story.
> What to Submit
> 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.
> 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.
The fist one "Turkey's president ..." I think it falls in the too political category. It doesn't matter if you or me agree or disagree with that article. An article that you or me agree with can be also too political. But that article is not [dead], it's only [flagged], so was less visible but not killed.
The second one "Tesla stock ..." is also [dead]. I can't see the URL. Looking only at the title it doesn't seams to obviously bad, but the URL is strange, because it's in google.com . Was it a google redirect? Was it a link to the google stock graph? Was there another article in the front page with a similar content? I'm not sure what happened with it.
Anyway, to get an authoritative response you can write to the mods: [email protected] That's also useful if you find a false positive and the vouch button doesn't unkill the story.
Politics is covered in the guidelines so it's intentional, not a trend that people have noticed: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This is especially relevant given last week's removal of Dash from the App Store