Also, is the author aware of how many palates he has offended?
No, not as it is now.
reply
I don't see it being used purely as a spam/troll control system and it will also be used as an ostracism tool. I don't have an opinion either way whether that's bad. I'm sure there are plenty users that would like to see some types of opinion obscured from view. I do like this idea of crowdfunded moderation and lowering the bar to participants who don't have any sats to start out.
reply
it will also be used as an ostracism tool
This is also my worry, that it could potentially be used to silence people from all users' feeds (unless you actively enable wild west mode), rather than only filter out messages (not individuals) that are unconstructive. I understand if you mute someone who you don't like, but muting people globally (by downvoting all their posts regardless of content) from all users' feeds is worse. But I don't know if this feature would be used in this way.
reply
Haha, I was wondering why I haven't been seeing quest77's comments lately.
@koob Here's an example of someone being a racist dickhole, but not necessarily spamming or being a bot. Is antisemitism against policy, or is it better to just let the community stifle comments like this?
Posts and comments with calls for violence seem like they should explicitly be banned from a liability point of view, but maybe not?
reply
We need to add flagging rules to the FAQ but off the top of my head, these are the valid reasons to flag:
  • spam
  • scam
  • racism/bigotry
  • threats of violence
  • excessive and unnecessary meanness
  • unwelcome nudity
  • encouraging self-harm
A lot of these are subjective, which is why it's optional to see the consequence of flagging.
There is no "policy." Just suggestions, votes, payments, and algorithms.
reply
It might be abused, but how much your 'flag' counts depends on your, as you say, reputation. We don't want it to be used when people merely disagree so we'll keep an eye on it and adjust accordingly.
reply
People do easily become temporarily irrational when their assumptions are challenged. It might be wise to allow people to 'reverse' their flag by upvoting.
reply
Good point
reply
I think much like in HN, downvoting requires a certain karma threshold, here downvoting should be expensive, but powerful.
reply
We can make it more expensive. If you have low "reputation" or no reputation, flagging posts has no impact. The impact it has is proportional to your reputation.
Another avenue like the one you describe: we can perhaps allow users to pay more to make the impact more severe.
reply
Imagine stacker.news becoming influential. Powerful interests pay a lot to take down content they don't like. I am not sure the power of downvoting should be proportional to payment amount, but the cost of a distinct downvote should be sufficient to make a downvoter pause and think.