I already flagged the parent comment, as the typical Hacker News complaining is inappropriate for an obituary thread.

I agree, there's often a time and a place for it.

Flagging actually also works as a massive downgrade of votes. Get a couple of people to flag an article and it will go down 10 places on the front page. So don't use flagging just to "bring it to someone's attention". It's far more powerful, and should be used judiciously...