I tried to vouch as well and it didn’t work. Does a second flag lock the comment dead?

Vouching never seems to work for me. I used to use it when I thought a comment had been unfairly flagged even when I disagreed with it (as in this case), and I suspect I've had my vouching ability shadow-disabled for diverging from the mean.

Regular downvoting is bad enough, but flagging is effectively an unassailable super-downvote.

I've been using HN for a decade, I thought it was free of the disease of downvoting.

I wish that were so but it fairly obviously isn't. Just jump on a thread about politics or vaccination or any other cultural issue.

Yes, vouching gets shadow disabled if you go against the abusive hive mind that is condoned here.

FWIW, I don’t suspect my vouching is disabled. The comment has been un-flagged now. The churn in this thread is fairly interesting though. I can honestly see why it might be enough of a debate trigger that it’s best from a moderation point of view if the thread was harder to find and comment on.

The post's author made a factual statement relevant to many people who might consider using the software in an office environment. It should not have been downvoted, or flagged. It would have been useful to include information on how to suppress the splash screen though.