HN Flagging System

Cluster focuses on Hacker News' flagging mechanism, including how users flag bad comments and submissions, moderator interventions for unfair flags, flagging abuse patterns, and explanations of its effects on visibility and ranking.

➡️ Stable 1.0x Other
4,995
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#8402
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
6
2008
64
2009
201
2010
170
2011
214
2012
162
2013
267
2014
230
2015
187
2016
291
2017
300
2018
209
2019
219
2020
290
2021
386
2022
344
2023
395
2024
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2025
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2026
74

Keywords

HN ycombinator.com OK hFFueFf.png imgur.com github.com newsfaq.html i.e SO FAQ flagging flag flagged karma users flags submissions guidelines posts hn

Sample Comments

tomhow Jan 24, 2026 View on HN

We encourage users to flag comments and submissions that are bad for HN – i.e., that break the guidelines.When we see that a comment or submission has been unfairly flagged, we'll turn off the flags and restore its visibility and rank.When we see users exhibiting a pattern of flagging things due to political disagreement or other reasons that are unaligned with the guidelines, we disable their flagging privileges.

tomhow Jan 24, 2026 View on HN

We encourage users to flag comments and submissions that are bad for HN – i.e., that break the guidelines.When we see that a comment or submission has been unfairly flagged, we'll turn off the flags and restore its visibility and rank.When we see users exhibiting a pattern of flagging things due to political disagreement or other reasons that are unaligned with the guidelines, we disable their flagging privileges.

tomhow Jan 24, 2026 View on HN

We encourage users to flag comments and submissions that are bad for HN – i.e., that break the guidelines.When we see that a comment or submission has been unfairly flagged, we'll turn off the flags and restore its visibility and rank.When we see users exhibiting a pattern of flagging things due to political disagreement or other reasons that are unaligned with the guidelines, we disable their flagging privileges.

tomhow Jan 24, 2026 View on HN

We encourage users to flag comments and submissions that are bad for HN – i.e., that break the guidelines.When we see that a comment or submission has been unfairly flagged, we'll turn off the flags and restore its visibility and rank.When we see users exhibiting a pattern of flagging things due to political disagreement or other reasons that are unaligned with the guidelines, we disable their flagging privileges.

detaro Jul 16, 2016 View on HN

this discussion might provide answers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12099254 (flagging is done by users)

dang Sep 28, 2021 View on HN

Users flagged it. I didn't even see it!You might want to review the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#flag.

dang Oct 25, 2020 View on HN

Users flagged it. That's usually what happened.We sometimes turn off flags when an article is able to support a substantive discussion. I don't know if this one can or not but it seems worth a try.

gk1 May 1, 2022 View on HN

Users can flag posts, which is kind of like a super-downvote. HN also penalizes posts that generate too many comments too fast, which it interprets as controversial.

_stephan May 21, 2013 View on HN

Do users who abuse the flagging feature get penalized?

r721 Mar 1, 2023 View on HN

Some people flag these posts, and flagging affects HN ranking.