edit: Ironically, I think this post got flagged off the homepage. Maybe that tells you all you need to know about the HN community's stance on political discuss

edit: Ironically, I think this post got flagged off the homepage. Maybe that tells you all you need to know about the HN community's stance on political discussion. While definitely controversial [1], many HN commenters dislike the vitrolic flame wars that the political threads create. I think it's the regulars doing the actual flagging, but if you read the comments themselves on some of these threads, the alt-right people definitely appear in the threads and make the quality of discourse significantly worse. I do believe politics has a role on HN, I submitted the second HN post that the OP linked. I also enjoyed reading this thread [2] on election night as it provided hope. However, I think these threads will always continue to be flagged, because while HN moderation does a good job, with these political posts it will never be good enough as it causes some of the worst commenters on the site to come out of the woodwork. Perhaps HN should give these posts more weight (and they do sometimes override user flags), but alas, it's probably one of the toughest editorial decisions this site faces. [1]: https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/silicon-valleys-most-popular-forum-bans-stories-about-politi https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/silicon-valleys-most-po... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12909752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12909752