9 ms·

Also, given how many political stories aren't getting flagged and are getting a lot of discussion, how oblivious a lot of people here seem to be to the politica

Also, given how many political stories aren't getting flagged and are getting a lot of discussion, how oblivious a lot of people here seem to be to the political dimensions of their work and hobbies?

dang 10y ago
I think that's a fair point, but there's inevitably a ton of randomness in how large groups react, and also inevitably differences in how people see individual cases. So that probably would be true no matter what. It's mostly a moot point, though, because for most users there's bound to be at least one story that is (a) clearly on-topic and (b) clearly not apolitical.
- adrienne 10y ago
  Except i don't think it is a moot point, because my thesis is that the HN community perceives certain things as "political" and other things as "not political" and that it creates a bias. Obviously individual users are going to have different opinions in some cases; HN isn't a hive-mind. But that doesn't mean one can't predict trends in what's going to be flagged as "politics" and what isn't, regardless of the actual political content.
tptacek 10y ago
I don't have to be oblivious to the intersection between my work and politics to believe that HN is a poor venue for politics. Politics is inseparable from technology in a very similar sense as it's inseparable from woodworking, but we don't imagine a woodworking forum would have a hard time enforcing a ban on purely political posts that were crowding out hand-cut dovetail tutorials. This dichotomy that keeps being presented on HN --- that one either supports politics on HN or is oblivious to politics --- is obviously false, and a little offensive. People who feel a proprietary ownership over political awareness are often missing something. I don't know what your politics are, but I'm going to hazard a guess that they're comparable to my own. Respectfully, I'm going to keep playing this card until my deck runs dry of them, which could be awhile: I think there's might not be anybody else on the site who has put more effort into political persuasion about racial and gender equity than I have (not because I'm a great person, but because I'm a quintessential message board nerd that happens to have strongly held beliefs about structural injustice in our field). I've learned a couple of things in that work: * It takes way more effort to compose a careful, persuasive comment about political issues on HN than it does to compose a shrill, superficial, partisan appeal to one issue's pole or the other. The bad comments have a structural advantage. * Political threads on HN are invariably nastier than technical threads, in part because they attract a lower grade of commenter that thrives on accumulating karma from shrill partisan appeals. * The rest of the tech community does not appreciate thoughtful political commentary on HN, and in fact has created an ongoing schtick whose premise is that HN should be written off --- politically engaged tech people are less likely to have an active HN account than a Wicker Park hipster is to own a TV. * Despite the almost total lack of support I feel from the rest of the tech community (or at least that portion of the community that shares our beliefs about structural injustice) --- really, the almost total lack of awareness of HN they have, apart from the circulation of egregiously awful comments in the few moments they exist here before people like me flag them off the site --- these people all have curiously strong opinions about how the site should be moderated. * The net result of all these bullets is that political threads on HN are a shitshow --- they're almost guaranteed to be a shitshow, because all these people who feel so strongly that repressing politics on HN represents further repression of the underrepresented are unwilling to put the effort in to doing the required amount of writing to ensure that political threads are productive, rather than just an awful joke to share with each other on Twitter. It's all a little galling.
- adrienne 10y ago
  I am quite sure (from both here and on Twitter, where i follow you) that our politics are roughly comparable, although i'm rather to your left. I have no problem with you - in fact i respect the hell out of you - and you are indeed someone I see Doing the Work over here on a regular basis. I have zero issues with your position here, which I think is well-thought-out and held with integrity. I don't even disagree that HN is a poor venue for many kinds of discussions - that's why i almost never come here, because of the repulsive bullshit. My problem is with the laughable inconsistency of a community that thinks "diversity in tech" is a "political" topic but "cryptocurrency" and "East Asian investment in the US" are not. That is a fucking ridiculous, dishonest, and supremely entitled position to hold. "No political topics", in practice, just means "anything we don't want to think about" or perhaps "anything people might have strong reactions to". HN's mods and members are making a political statement here and they refuse to acknowledge it. Anything even vaguely related to race, gender, or class, or in general anything that challenges HN members' certainty that they are übermenschen, is going to go poorly here. And probably always will, because it is a self-reinforcing issue. Good moderation is hard, especially when a community and its moderators tend toward free-speech absolutist positions. HN won't get better on these topics until the moderators stop putting up with horrible bullshit, and i have zero confidence that they're ever going to do that. Hacker News can do what it likes, frankly, because i am positive that i will never feel welcome here. I do, however, think that it's a perfectly cromulent and civil gesture of protest for people like ubernostrum to point out topics that are, in fact, "political" - even if the vast majority of Hacker News wants to pretend that they're not. They're upholding a toxic fucking status quo, and they are allowed to do that! But i see zero problems with making them own it.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    I'd distinguish personality-politics from policy discussions. One kind are always a cesspool. The other kind are most often not. Its helpful to untangle this issue if we can separate them.
  - susan_hall 10y ago
    "when a community and its moderators tend toward free-speech absolutist positions." But oddly, this doesn't describe HN, because another aspect of the moderation is in favor of blandness, for the sake of avoiding flamewars. In college I was taught that good writing entailed taking strong positions, but the moderation here sometimes sees strong positions as being the same as flaming.

Also, given how many political stories aren't getting flagged and are getting a lot of discussion, how oblivious a lot of people here seem to be to the political dimensions of their work and hobbies?

dang 10y ago

I think that's a fair point, but there's inevitably a ton of randomness in how large groups react, and also inevitably differences in how people see individual cases. So that probably would be true no matter what. It's mostly a moot point, though, because for most users there's bound to be at least one story that is (a) clearly on-topic and (b) clearly not apolitical.

adrienne 10y ago
Except i don't think it is a moot point, because my thesis is that the HN community perceives certain things as "political" and other things as "not political" and that it creates a bias. Obviously individual users are going to have different opinions in some cases; HN isn't a hive-mind. But that doesn't mean one can't predict trends in what's going to be flagged as "politics" and what isn't, regardless of the actual political content.

tptacek 10y ago

I don't have to be oblivious to the intersection between my work and politics to believe that HN is a poor venue for politics. Politics is inseparable from technology in a very similar sense as it's inseparable from woodworking, but we don't imagine a woodworking forum would have a hard time enforcing a ban on purely political posts that were crowding out hand-cut dovetail tutorials. This dichotomy that keeps being presented on HN --- that one either supports politics on HN or is oblivious to politics --- is obviously false, and a little offensive. People who feel a proprietary ownership over political awareness are often missing something. I don't know what your politics are, but I'm going to hazard a guess that they're comparable to my own. Respectfully, I'm going to keep playing this card until my deck runs dry of them, which could be awhile: I think there's might not be anybody else on the site who has put more effort into political persuasion about racial and gender equity than I have (not because I'm a great person, but because I'm a quintessential message board nerd that happens to have strongly held beliefs about structural injustice in our field). I've learned a couple of things in that work: * It takes way more effort to compose a careful, persuasive comment about political issues on HN than it does to compose a shrill, superficial, partisan appeal to one issue's pole or the other. The bad comments have a structural advantage. * Political threads on HN are invariably nastier than technical threads, in part because they attract a lower grade of commenter that thrives on accumulating karma from shrill partisan appeals. * The rest of the tech community does not appreciate thoughtful political commentary on HN, and in fact has created an ongoing schtick whose premise is that HN should be written off --- politically engaged tech people are less likely to have an active HN account than a Wicker Park hipster is to own a TV. * Despite the almost total lack of support I feel from the rest of the tech community (or at least that portion of the community that shares our beliefs about structural injustice) --- really, the almost total lack of awareness of HN they have, apart from the circulation of egregiously awful comments in the few moments they exist here before people like me flag them off the site --- these people all have curiously strong opinions about how the site should be moderated. * The net result of all these bullets is that political threads on HN are a shitshow --- they're almost guaranteed to be a shitshow, because all these people who feel so strongly that repressing politics on HN represents further repression of the underrepresented are unwilling to put the effort in to doing the required amount of writing to ensure that political threads are productive, rather than just an awful joke to share with each other on Twitter. It's all a little galling.

adrienne 10y ago
I am quite sure (from both here and on Twitter, where i follow you) that our politics are roughly comparable, although i'm rather to your left. I have no problem with you - in fact i respect the hell out of you - and you are indeed someone I see Doing the Work over here on a regular basis. I have zero issues with your position here, which I think is well-thought-out and held with integrity. I don't even disagree that HN is a poor venue for many kinds of discussions - that's why i almost never come here, because of the repulsive bullshit. My problem is with the laughable inconsistency of a community that thinks "diversity in tech" is a "political" topic but "cryptocurrency" and "East Asian investment in the US" are not. That is a fucking ridiculous, dishonest, and supremely entitled position to hold. "No political topics", in practice, just means "anything we don't want to think about" or perhaps "anything people might have strong reactions to". HN's mods and members are making a political statement here and they refuse to acknowledge it. Anything even vaguely related to race, gender, or class, or in general anything that challenges HN members' certainty that they are übermenschen, is going to go poorly here. And probably always will, because it is a self-reinforcing issue. Good moderation is hard, especially when a community and its moderators tend toward free-speech absolutist positions. HN won't get better on these topics until the moderators stop putting up with horrible bullshit, and i have zero confidence that they're ever going to do that. Hacker News can do what it likes, frankly, because i am positive that i will never feel welcome here. I do, however, think that it's a perfectly cromulent and civil gesture of protest for people like ubernostrum to point out topics that are, in fact, "political" - even if the vast majority of Hacker News wants to pretend that they're not. They're upholding a toxic fucking status quo, and they are allowed to do that! But i see zero problems with making them own it.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  I'd distinguish personality-politics from policy discussions. One kind are always a cesspool. The other kind are most often not. Its helpful to untangle this issue if we can separate them.
- susan_hall 10y ago
  "when a community and its moderators tend toward free-speech absolutist positions." But oddly, this doesn't describe HN, because another aspect of the moderation is in favor of blandness, for the sake of avoiding flamewars. In college I was taught that good writing entailed taking strong positions, but the moderation here sometimes sees strong positions as being the same as flaming.