The comment flags is a great idea - there's a good chance that it would cut down on "why am I being downvoted" types of posts, which would in turn reduce noise.
Are you thinking of adding more flags to stories too?
Are you thinking of adding more flags to stories too?
dupe terrible-title spam-site not-even-arguably-hacker-related
There are a handful of users that seem to only submit from 1 or 2 sites that (I presume) they are affiliated with. This is just more noise that makes skimming the /new page and promoting good stories less efficient than it could be.
Regarding titles... What about a title/subtitle option? Keep whatever title the actual article has, and a slightly smaller subtitle where the submitter can editorialize.
I'd go so far as including a "meta" checkbox next to the reply button, defaulting to the parent's value, which it would be considered polite to set truthfully, but maybe that's just me.
Flags are a good idea too. The HN feature set is still minimal and polished compared to other similar sites. So the community is really sensitive to any changes. From seeing previous feature experiments I think the only way to really see if it works is to implement it and get feedback. I remember some previous features that seemed like they would be great(!) when they were written up and first implemented. Then after a few hours or days were frustrating. Like the orange vs greys karma change.