7 ms·

It's not impossible to say "this is a technology site, here we discuss technology" which would make it much less arbitrary which things are politics and not. Yo

It's not impossible to say "this is a technology site, here we discuss technology" which would make it much less arbitrary which things are politics and not. You might not want to do that, but it's certainly not impossible as an alternative. "Technology only week" is probably even an easier sell for an experiment.

dang 10y ago
HN is not a technology site. It's a site for "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gravypod 10y ago
  > HN is not a technology site. It's a site for "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" Does political discussion not gratify intellectual curiosity? I'd say that I'm definetly curious to see others political opinions. This is a ban on a discussion topic as arbitrary as banning discussion of IC vs Passives. Not letting people hear opposing view points is more detrimental then seeing a view point you disagree with.
  - grzm 10y ago
    Does political discussion not gratify intellectual curiosity? Yes, political discussion can gratify intellectual curiosity. Empirically it hasn't worked out very well on HN. To me, your comment completely ignores the paragraphs written by dang in the submission, both the content, and the fact that it's temporary. What do you think of the intent? Do you disagree? Have you seen or participated in any of the recent (past two or three months) of political threads on HN? Do you have showdead on so you can see what's being posted and flagged? Do you think it's okay? If you don't agree with the intent or think there is an issue, that would put your comment in one context. If you agree it's an issue and disagree with the political detox week, then that's another. Would you elaborate on your comment?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Yes, political discussion can gratify intellectual curiosity. Empirically it hasn't worked out very well on HN. I disagree. It's worked out smashingly well on HN (judgingnit context of 25 or so years of engagement in online fora of various types); the appearance that it has not is due to unrealistic standards, and radical reconfigurations to deal with the supposed failures are likely to lead to more harm to HNs goal of providing a forum for gratifying intellectual curiosity than benefit.
      - dang 10y ago
        I always appreciate your comments, and the ones I've seen in this thread have been an interesting take on the question. Just one point though: there's no radical reconfiguration here. Undoubtedly it would be if we were going to make it permanent, but when we said "for one week" we really meant for one week. IMO HN's community system has orders of magnitude more hysteresis than would be radically affected by a one-week change, though I guess I could be wrong about that.
        yarou 10y ago
        Speaking of reconfiguration, why not buff the controversy penalty instead of outright banning political discussion? Couldn't you also enable an enhanced slow mode on threads that seem political in nature? Maybe something like the "hate tax" system proposed here[1]. I feel as though political topics tend to generate a knee-jerk response in people, especially when they are in an...shall we say, altered state of mind. The more controversial a topic is, the slower the pace of discussion should be IMHO. Exponentially so. [1] https://zedshaw.com/archive/ragel-state-charts/ https://zedshaw.com/archive/ragel-state-charts/
        gravypod 10y ago
        > Undoubtedly it would be if we were going to make it permanent, but when we said "for one week" we really meant for one week. If you had no intent to push this for longer, why even try it in the first place? What if I, and everyone else in this thread, is wrong and this turns out to be a magnificent idea and makes the site a better for everyone. Now since this is so amazing, why not make it perminent? The cynical in me is also asking, who gets to judge if this is a success or a failure? The community? The vocal portion of the community? The YC staff? You? I trust none of those groups with as important of a disition as this nor do I want a precident set on any social media platform I use that a specific topic can be completely banned from discussion.
- zorpner 10y ago
  I'll say it once and quickly -- you've allowed yourself to be tricked by the same trick the modern alt-right (bigots, racists all) have used on the rest of the internet, where they make discourse on specific topics so toxic that the topic itself becomes banned, allowing the status quo to persist. You're literally now on their side, and their side is the status quo of white supremacy. Think about what side you want to be on.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    Except the topic need not be so toxic - Why does Ben Shapiro have such a hard time speaking on campus?

dang 10y ago

HN is not a technology site. It's a site for "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gravypod 10y ago
> HN is not a technology site. It's a site for "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" Does political discussion not gratify intellectual curiosity? I'd say that I'm definetly curious to see others political opinions. This is a ban on a discussion topic as arbitrary as banning discussion of IC vs Passives. Not letting people hear opposing view points is more detrimental then seeing a view point you disagree with.
- grzm 10y ago
  Does political discussion not gratify intellectual curiosity? Yes, political discussion can gratify intellectual curiosity. Empirically it hasn't worked out very well on HN. To me, your comment completely ignores the paragraphs written by dang in the submission, both the content, and the fact that it's temporary. What do you think of the intent? Do you disagree? Have you seen or participated in any of the recent (past two or three months) of political threads on HN? Do you have showdead on so you can see what's being posted and flagged? Do you think it's okay? If you don't agree with the intent or think there is an issue, that would put your comment in one context. If you agree it's an issue and disagree with the political detox week, then that's another. Would you elaborate on your comment?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Yes, political discussion can gratify intellectual curiosity. Empirically it hasn't worked out very well on HN. I disagree. It's worked out smashingly well on HN (judgingnit context of 25 or so years of engagement in online fora of various types); the appearance that it has not is due to unrealistic standards, and radical reconfigurations to deal with the supposed failures are likely to lead to more harm to HNs goal of providing a forum for gratifying intellectual curiosity than benefit.
    - dang 10y ago
      I always appreciate your comments, and the ones I've seen in this thread have been an interesting take on the question. Just one point though: there's no radical reconfiguration here. Undoubtedly it would be if we were going to make it permanent, but when we said "for one week" we really meant for one week. IMO HN's community system has orders of magnitude more hysteresis than would be radically affected by a one-week change, though I guess I could be wrong about that.
      - yarou 10y ago
        Speaking of reconfiguration, why not buff the controversy penalty instead of outright banning political discussion? Couldn't you also enable an enhanced slow mode on threads that seem political in nature? Maybe something like the "hate tax" system proposed here[1]. I feel as though political topics tend to generate a knee-jerk response in people, especially when they are in an...shall we say, altered state of mind. The more controversial a topic is, the slower the pace of discussion should be IMHO. Exponentially so. [1] https://zedshaw.com/archive/ragel-state-charts/ https://zedshaw.com/archive/ragel-state-charts/
      - gravypod 10y ago
        > Undoubtedly it would be if we were going to make it permanent, but when we said "for one week" we really meant for one week. If you had no intent to push this for longer, why even try it in the first place? What if I, and everyone else in this thread, is wrong and this turns out to be a magnificent idea and makes the site a better for everyone. Now since this is so amazing, why not make it perminent? The cynical in me is also asking, who gets to judge if this is a success or a failure? The community? The vocal portion of the community? The YC staff? You? I trust none of those groups with as important of a disition as this nor do I want a precident set on any social media platform I use that a specific topic can be completely banned from discussion.
zorpner 10y ago
I'll say it once and quickly -- you've allowed yourself to be tricked by the same trick the modern alt-right (bigots, racists all) have used on the rest of the internet, where they make discourse on specific topics so toxic that the topic itself becomes banned, allowing the status quo to persist. You're literally now on their side, and their side is the status quo of white supremacy. Think about what side you want to be on.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Except the topic need not be so toxic - Why does Ben Shapiro have such a hard time speaking on campus?