When I re-read my comment, I realize it's not completely clear: its definitely not my impression that moderation, or HN platform administration, are flagging these articles.
My impression is that a portion of the user community is.
In my interactions with moderation, I've always received even handed and personal replies. This, I feel, is one of the greatest aspects of HN.
While the majority of posts are technical, many many of the links on HN are non-technical. This seems to me to be an important feature. Tech doesn't exist in a bubble, it's part of broader society, and major breaking news impacts tech workers, tech products, and the viability of startups and the products they'll offer.
The tech communities ability to exchange comments on these broader issues is one of the most striking features of HN, and a great deal of users participate.
Moderators are certainly the most knowledgeable about the flow of threads and user affinity, I only have my outside impression. But it seems that threads describing certain events are flagged out of use much more frequently.
To me, it doesn't seem like a broad response of removing non-technical links, but more specific-topic motivated.
I don't know the exact details of when a flagged article becomes unavailable for comments, but it often seems that when one demographic is flagging the comments, others are eager to exchange discussion.
If there is a user <flag> link, that can make comments unavailable, wouldn't it be helpful to also include an <unflag> link?
I read quite a few news sites everyday. but I find links to non-technical news on HN that I didn't discover anywhere else. The community at HN is not only technical, but broadly knowledgeable about many many topics. This is a great feature of the site.
I'd just like to be able to comment on some articles that others don't seem interested in. I don't think I'm alone in that regard.
Moderation removing articles that are blatantly spam, ad hominem, or otherwise offensive is obviously needed, but letting the community converse on non-technical topics, even if a portion of the community is not interested, doesn't seem like a divergence from the core mission.
My comment is already too long, but I want to say again: Thank You for the efforts of the mods! and Thank You for all of your responses, which have always been thoughtful, and individually crafted.
When I re-read my comment, I realize it's not completely clear: its definitely not my impression that moderation, or HN platform administration, are flagging these articles.
My impression is that a portion of the user community is.
In my interactions with moderation, I've always received even handed and personal replies. This, I feel, is one of the greatest aspects of HN.
While the majority of posts are technical, many many of the links on HN are non-technical. This seems to me to be an important feature. Tech doesn't exist in a bubble, it's part of broader society, and major breaking news impacts tech workers, tech products, and the viability of startups and the products they'll offer.
The tech communities ability to exchange comments on these broader issues is one of the most striking features of HN, and a great deal of users participate.
Moderators are certainly the most knowledgeable about the flow of threads and user affinity, I only have my outside impression. But it seems that threads describing certain events are flagged out of use much more frequently.
To me, it doesn't seem like a broad response of removing non-technical links, but more specific-topic motivated.
I don't know the exact details of when a flagged article becomes unavailable for comments, but it often seems that when one demographic is flagging the comments, others are eager to exchange discussion.
If there is a user <flag> link, that can make comments unavailable, wouldn't it be helpful to also include an <unflag> link?
I read quite a few news sites everyday. but I find links to non-technical news on HN that I didn't discover anywhere else. The community at HN is not only technical, but broadly knowledgeable about many many topics. This is a great feature of the site.
I'd just like to be able to comment on some articles that others don't seem interested in. I don't think I'm alone in that regard.
Moderation removing articles that are blatantly spam, ad hominem, or otherwise offensive is obviously needed, but letting the community converse on non-technical topics, even if a portion of the community is not interested, doesn't seem like a divergence from the core mission.
My comment is already too long, but I want to say again: Thank You for the efforts of the mods! and Thank You for all of your responses, which have always been thoughtful, and individually crafted.