i believe this apparent abuse of the spam ‘flagging’ feature on HN is seriously detrimental to the community.
Like DanBC said, flagging is just for spam. And really - "abuse" is just hyperbole, isn't it? And while we're talking about hyperbole, your whole title is just flag-worthy for the dramatics alone.
If, for example, a post gets 447 upvotes, how many flags constitute "flagging abuse" in your mind? For something to get 447 upvotes means that (a) a large portion of the community saw the headline, and (b) a large portion of the community read the article (or at least part). What makes you think that it is "abuse" if a portion of said Group B decided to flag it as "off topic" or "bad journalism" (or whatever - I didn't flag it but, like others have said, I can see how and why some people would)?
You're acting as though flagging should have no weight on ranking. Why not make your case and put up a poll in a new thread? I'd suggest leaving out a fair bit of the dramatics you've created this post with though...
Like DanBC said, flagging is just for spam. And really - "abuse" is just hyperbole, isn't it? And while we're talking about hyperbole, your whole title is just flag-worthy for the dramatics alone.
If, for example, a post gets 447 upvotes, how many flags constitute "flagging abuse" in your mind? For something to get 447 upvotes means that (a) a large portion of the community saw the headline, and (b) a large portion of the community read the article (or at least part). What makes you think that it is "abuse" if a portion of said Group B decided to flag it as "off topic" or "bad journalism" (or whatever - I didn't flag it but, like others have said, I can see how and why some people would)?
You're acting as though flagging should have no weight on ranking. Why not make your case and put up a poll in a new thread? I'd suggest leaving out a fair bit of the dramatics you've created this post with though...