FWIW, when potentially live saving content gets flagged on HN, effectively censoring it, I can't help but think there's a concerted effort by some actors (terrorist organizations, 3-letter agencies, foreign countries) to suppress information.
It's a big reason I avoid HN. I can imagine censoring free-speech being HN's downfall.
I don't think it's hard to answer your question, though: medical advice in internet comments is something people are supersensitive to, and you're mostly going to get responses from the one-standard-deviation-from-the-mean portion of the bell curve which, being the fattest portion, has the dominant effect.
You can argue that the forum should have more space for deviant views, and I agree, but given that there's no way for an internet forum to differentiate deviant-views-that-are-on-to-something from deviant-views-that-are-insane, it's not clear what to do.
For example: there was a guy posting for years on HN that the secret to health is to imbibe mercury, because mercury cures most ailments. He is quite sincere. I'm sure he felt the same way about his comments getting flagged.
Personally I'm in favor of a wide spectrum of discussion on most things, but we have to be realistic about the capacities of an internet message board.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44246859
FWIW, when potentially live saving content gets flagged on HN, effectively censoring it, I can't help but think there's a concerted effort by some actors (terrorist organizations, 3-letter agencies, foreign countries) to suppress information.
It's a big reason I avoid HN. I can imagine censoring free-speech being HN's downfall.