Avoiding repetition is a core principle here. Of course it applies to any topic.

I've written extensively in the last few days explaining the moderation approach to cases like this. Let me dig up some links for you...

Edit: here's one post that covers the basics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011. If you (or anyone) want further explanation, here are links that cover the principles we're applying here:

major ongoing topic - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

significant new information - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

political overlap - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

downweighting follow-ups - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

curiosity vs. repetition - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

turning off flags - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

All we're doing is just applying those principles the way we usually do. That doesn't mean we get every individual call correct—we definitely don't (I wrote about that recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306). But the principles are at least stable, and I think they're the right ones for HN.

>> it's not enough to demand that we unflag more stories about a specific $Topic that some users feel strongly about. That argument doesn't work because there is always such a $Topic going on.

Your line of reasoning doesn't make any sense.

Flagging the story hides valuable information, and if the topic is always going on then there is clearly interest in the community.

If that point didn't make any sense, it may be because I compressed it too much. Here's some background information followed by a decompressed version of the point.

The optimal HN front page is not one consisting of stories that the strongest-feeling subsets of users feel strongest about. That would optimize for indignation and sensationalism—definitely incompatible with HN's mandate.

The tug-of-war between upvotes and flags is core to HN's functioning. Indignant and/or sensational stories are often propelled onto the frontpage by 'hot' upvotes and then demoted by 'cold' flags. For the most part, that's the system working as intended. Not having flags at all, which is (I think?) what you're arguing for, would definitely not be in the interests of the site.

There's unfortunately* still a need for moderation, though, because some stories still stay on the front page even though they're not so good (I mean 'good' in the specific sense of 'in keeping with the site mandate), and some stories get flagged off the front page even though they are legit submissions that could produce good-for-HN threads.

Now here's a decompressed version of the point you quoted:

If it were a rare thing for a topic to get flagged even though some users care strongly about it, we could just turn off the flags whenever that happened. However, there are always topics going on that some users care strongly about, which other users want to flag. To unflag all of those would (almost) amount to not having flags at all, and that's not an option. Therefore, the argument in favor of unflagging cannot be "please turn off the flags because I really care about this story"—that would be treating one subset of users more favorably than others. Similarly, it can't be "let's turn off the flags because we (the mods) personally care about the story". There needs to be an argument from principle about why a given story is a good candidate for turning off flags (or not turning off flags). If people want to argue that about a particular story, then, they need to either show how (1) this is desirable given HN's principles as I've explained them; or (2) there could be different principles that are better at realizing the site mandate. Does that make more sense now?

* I say unfortunately because it would be so much less work if this weren't true! not to mention less stressful

Thanks, that makes more sense.

While I appreciate all the submissions about running Doom on HDMI dongles, it doesn't affect the health of millions of people. The submissions that are flagged inhibit intelligent discussion about items that affect every person on this forum.

You're absolutely right. But this is the perennial question of what sort of site HN is supposed to be. If the criterion for frontpage threads were importance, then HN would be a current affairs site—a completely different mandate from the one we do have (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Optimizing for curiosity [1], which includes whimsical things like "Doom on a dongle" or "how much do all of the ants in the world weigh", and so on, means less space for a lot of more important things. Far more important!

[editing - bear with me...]

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

There are endless things that affect every person on this forum that are not a particularly great fit for the forum so that in itself isn't much of a practical criterion.