If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.
..the guidelines clearly specify flagging is for spam or off-topic posts. i generally define 'abuse' as utilizing a feature for something that its not intended for, such as burying a story one does not agree with.
saying its 'off topic' is total bs. issues involving standards, ip, public access, etc.. (also, involving two of the largest tech companies, the mobile space, a popular web-based product, etc...), seem to be very relevant around here and frequently come-up.
so.. this wasn't spam or off-topic, yet shows heavy flag activity. that indicates abuse to me. would 'misuse' be better? - its petty of you to dismiss my point as being 'dramatic'. i attempted to frame the issue as i saw it, using the evidence i was able to scrape-together, and tried to avoid making generalizations or turning it into a 'hn hates microsoft' or whatever as i'm sure this happens often, but this case highlighted it most clearly, and most recently..
its petty of you to dismiss my point as being 'dramatic'.
No, sorry, that's not true. I wasn't the one who judged your original post - the one that was killed (by flagging) within minutes. Those people judged your post as hyperbole/dramatic/whatever you want to call it as well. I'm judging this specific post, however, and it is dramatic both in it's content and certainly in it's language. The title is just silly - "Can we have an honest discussion about abusive flagging on HN?" (italics mine). What other discussion would we have other than an honest one?
"Abusive" is just a word chosen for effect; misuse, while definitely being less dramatic, still implies that the community is doing something wrong. I don't think most of us feel that way. I think most of us old timers flag for different reasons than the newbies. My suspicion is that a lot of the older members (who also have high karma) flagged your original post for the reasons I've mentioned. If I'd seen it, I would've flagged it (as I've flagged this one).
its still odd behaviour.. look at any similar post (in terms of age/activity) and you can clearly see that one stands-out as odd. here's one that looks to follow a more typical progression - http://hnrankings.info/5719667/
also from making it near the top [rank 3 / 22:30-22:45] it rapidly fell close to the bottom of the front page [rank 22 / 23:10].. that's a pretty quick decline.
This is behavior I've seen before. A rapid rise, staying high in the rankings for a but, then getting a few flags to take it to the bottom of the front page, or the top of the second page. A few more upvotes to get it back on the front page, normal declining with age and/or upvotes intermingled with the occasional flag, then getting hammered.
It's usually on long, unpleasant and angry exchanges that I see this behavior on, and I'm not at all surprised.
i don't want to turn this into a battle of fanboys, but i have a hard time believing a post titled "Microsoft to Google: Remove something as it violates something.." would have been so heavily flagged or sparked such negative discussions..
what became apparent to me, from both reading the comments and seeing how the post was handled, was it did collapse into mindless bickering, but mainly because people rushed to 'defend' the company they feel more loyal to..
all i'm saying is flagging shouldn't be used as a weapon in such bickering.
thanks for the actual rankings numbers - that would have saved me some time..
and i agree that thread got pretty unpleasant and i think it highlights another side of the same problem as it shows how people who may not like the particular issue furiously attack those who do (and likewise in reverse).
i really believe if one made-up a similar post and reversed the roles between the two companies the reaction would have been substantially different - both in terms of the thread commentary and flagging. its one thing to disagree with something and argue against it, its another thing to try to burry something which only serves to depress any good exchange of thoughts that came come-out of it.
> good exchange of thoughts that came come-out of it.
I don't flag threads if there's good discussion in them. I do flag threads that collapse into unpleasant nastiness. I downvote some of the worst examples of unpleasantness too.
It's very easy to say that people flag a thread just because it has positive coverage of companyA or negative coverage of companyB - and maybe that does happen - but the HN mechanisms are opaque and some people[1] flag threads for different reasons.
clearly people flag for different reasons. that just bolsters my point that there should be an examination of flagging behaviour and some clarification around how its meant to be used, if need be, and potentially some adjustments to prevent occurrences such as when "people flag a thread just because it has positive coverage of companyA or negative coverage of companyB"
I'd almost guarantee that, if you posted the same thing (title + content), it was flagged like crazy (and that's why it was gone so quickly). I remember reading that the flag system weights flags heavier that are received within x minutes of the article being posted. In other words, if an article gets two flags in 20 minutes that may be fine. But if another article gets two flags in the first minute, it will be killed (or something to that effect).
This title and this post - it's just full of overly dramatic language choices. Make your case like a normal person and see how the community reacts to that.
within a minute or two after posting it disappeared off the 'new' page. not sure what would have been the cause but i don't believe flagging would have caused that.
you can essentially do just that, and the process is exactly the same:
(1) mouse-over to the bottom left of the taskbar (same place as before) and in place of a fixed icon (start ‘orb’) a small image of your start screen will pop-up which you can click to open the start screen
(2) from there just start typing (as before) and it will automatically change the layout showing you results for apps. by default the first app in results is selected so you can just press enter to launch it or navigate to others via keyboard/mouse (same as before). that’s it.
you can, of course, still just hit the windows keyboard button and start typing as well which i find faster. there are also now additional keyboard shortcuts that let you quickly search for specific items (win + q/f/w allow you to narrow search between apps/files/settings respectively)
pro tip: if you right-click in the same space (bottom left of taskbar) a menu comes-up with more power-user specific commands (run, command prompt, admin tools, etc...)
If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link.