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Respectfully, can we maintain the political detox on Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 I

by jbyers 10y ago

Respectfully, can we maintain the political detox on Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 I'm personally as engaged in reading and debating politics as I ever have been, but elsewhere. As dang put it: "Political conflicts cause harm here."

zzleeper 10y ago
From news.istambulcombinator.com.tr , circa 2012 : >Respectfully, can we maintain the ban on political articles on Istambul Hacker News? Sure, we can close our ears, and also we can argue that here we only discuss tech all the time. But as long as the world we live in influences tech, and all of us, there should be a political discussion here. HN comments are one of the sharpest for online forums, and it is a shame that we are not allowed to a medium to read what the tech community feels about the current issues
- jbyers 10y ago
  I'm happy to debate the intersection of technology and politics here. But not pure politics. This community has an identity and norms and topics that are and aren't in scope. An alternative would be to use the same software, same group of passionate people to start the discussion, and the backing of Y Combinator in a different forum with a different identity, norms, etc. I'm also happy to be wrong / downvoted. It's for the community to decide, but it has to be a choice.
  - zzleeper 10y ago
    I agree that ultimately the forum reflects the joint will of both YC the company and its users. For instance, a bird-watching forum might have a a strict ban on anything not related to birds, while the YC ban on politics is softer. What I don't like at all is people abusing flagging. You can flag any new article with ~4 votes, so less than a handful of active users can shape what we end up discussing.
- sremani 10y ago
  This is one of many feeds of information for me, and I assume for most of us. Currently, all my other feeds are overly politicized. Yes, I have a political opinion and understand the need for discourse, but we are currently in a hyper-partisan political cycle and in which there is no winner. The gap is so wide, it is hard for one group to engage the other. So now all we get in these "political discussions" is hyper virtue signaling. I am talking about all sides. This is not the time for discussion, because in our minds the battle lines are drawn. I wish HN enforces a month of political moratorium. I will live and die on HN and will not make a single low info comment!
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    > This is not the time for discussion, because in our minds the battle lines are drawn. Yes, and discussion can make those battle lines disappear by finding common ground if possible and if not possible it will at least help assess how far the damage from all this bs can spread. Sticking your head in the ground is not going to make the problem go away, in fact might make it fractionally worse. On another note, in the US the choice has been made, but there are other places in the world where it is not too late and discussing this might throw up an argument or two that could be used to deflect disaster elsewhere. > I wish HN enforces a month of political moratorium. Because it's too much trouble to not click on links about subjects you wish were not discussed?
    - sremani 10y ago
      As a Green Card holder in US, who has put the papers for naturalization a month ago, I guarantee you, I have more skin in the game than most people here. >Because it's too much trouble to not click on links about subjects you wish were not discussed? The weakness is thoroughly mine.
- rc_bhg 10y ago
  > Sure, we can close our ears Eh? I read new in plenty of other places. This is supposed to be news kept to tech topics.
mikekchar 10y ago
I agree. It appears as though shocking political news stories are going to be the norm in the short to mid term. As interesting as they are and as useful as it is to discuss things with a sensible crowd like HN, I fear that the focus will inevitably be pulled away from the main topic at hand. There are lots of other venues to discuss these issue if one so wishes.
- couchand 10y ago
  I'll respectfully disagree with both of you. My understanding of current events would be significantly worsened if I didn't regularly get the thoughtful perspective of dragonwriter, tptacek, bluejekyll, throwaway8383495, and so many others.
- Retra 10y ago
  Which venues would you suggest?
  - mikekchar 10y ago
    It occurs to me that reddit is built specifically to deal with this kind of topic. It also attracts a politically oriented clientele. I can appreciate that one of the attractions of using HN for this kind of topic is because the normal clientele are not overly political. A more reasoned discussion is possible. I'm old enough to remember a time when this was also true of Slashdot. I couldn't even imagine seeing the kind of discussion going on there today. Beware.
    - Dorono 10y ago
      > It occurs to me that reddit is built specifically to deal with this kind of topic. It also attracts a politically oriented clientele. Are you serious? Have you been to /r/worldnews? I get more insight here than any reddit sub.
      - mikekchar 10y ago
        That is precisely my point. Because it is not an encouraged topic, the people who come to destroy the conversation do not descend.
pfooti 10y ago
Consider for a moment an unmoderated forum. HN isn't, but it is lightly moderated, so it is reasonable to consider. An HN where most users agreed with you would be an HN where political posts rapidly fell off the front page, and simply get ignored by most. Like or not, it is quite difficult to disentangle politics from everything else. A desire to remain apolitical is pretty political in itself.
grzm 10y ago
Flag submissions you consider inappropriate for HN. If you recall Political Detox Week, it was very chaotic and noisy. It's very difficult to find widespread agreement as to what's politics and what's not, and what's an exception because it's really really important. 'dang summarized the results of the detox week and has made some recent comments on it as well. I'll dig around for them and update this comment with links to them in a bit to provide more context. Edit: Here are some, with some identifiable snippets only so it's not a list of links. I encourage you to read the comments themselves. They don't all directly address this, but I think they all shed some light on the topic. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 There's no satisfying anybody about this: not the readers who want more politics, not the readers who want less, and certainly not the partisans on an issue. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433 There's a lot more politics on HN right now than there usually is, which is appropriate since it reflects what's going on right now. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 When there's a deluge of political stories, as in the last couple days, users heavily flag most of them. But there have still been plenty of major threads spending plenty of time on the front page. That's the status quo for HN: most politics are off topic, but not all. It's a delicate balance and an important one. Letting politics overrun this site would kill it. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480 On downsides of the Political Detox Week experiment: there are two comments in the thread.
- jbyers 10y ago
  I agree, and this has been my practice: flag what doesn't pass my internal bar and see if the algorithm / moderators / community agree. For all this community has generated inspired commentary on the technology world, I maintain that we don't have the framework to manage net-positive political debate. My point is we should choose to address that deficiency or choose to avoid political debate. We'll see where flagging and voting take us - maybe it's enough. So far I would summarize the karmic reaction to my first comment as: "meh."
mr_spothawk 10y ago
While I agree that I don't want Hacker Political News to be "a thing", this is one of the very few places that I feel I can get reasoned discussion about immediately important (to me) news. I'm incredibly interested in the views of the rest of the community. That said, I'm trying to keep the politics out of my own posts and comments...
- devmunchies 10y ago
  > one of the very few places that I feel I can get reasoned discussion you must run in some small circles. There are lots of communities out there.
  - mr_spothawk 10y ago
    I've got short legs; small circles is what I do best.
diogenescynic 10y ago
I disagree. This is a historic moment and immigration definitely affects technology.
diogenescynic 10y ago
I disagree. This is a historic moment and immigration policy definitely affects technology.
sangnoir 10y ago
> Respectfully, can we maintain the political detox on Hacker News Perhaps you can maintain a personal detox by avoiding political topics. Preventing everyone from discussing 'politics' on HN would be shortsighted because technology and startups are, and continue to be impacted by politics. Startups and immigrants have a long history.

by jbyers 10y ago

zzleeper 10y ago

From news.istambulcombinator.com.tr , circa 2012 : >Respectfully, can we maintain the ban on political articles on Istambul Hacker News? Sure, we can close our ears, and also we can argue that here we only discuss tech all the time. But as long as the world we live in influences tech, and all of us, there should be a political discussion here. HN comments are one of the sharpest for online forums, and it is a shame that we are not allowed to a medium to read what the tech community feels about the current issues

jbyers 10y ago
I'm happy to debate the intersection of technology and politics here. But not pure politics. This community has an identity and norms and topics that are and aren't in scope. An alternative would be to use the same software, same group of passionate people to start the discussion, and the backing of Y Combinator in a different forum with a different identity, norms, etc. I'm also happy to be wrong / downvoted. It's for the community to decide, but it has to be a choice.
- zzleeper 10y ago
  I agree that ultimately the forum reflects the joint will of both YC the company and its users. For instance, a bird-watching forum might have a a strict ban on anything not related to birds, while the YC ban on politics is softer. What I don't like at all is people abusing flagging. You can flag any new article with ~4 votes, so less than a handful of active users can shape what we end up discussing.
sremani 10y ago
This is one of many feeds of information for me, and I assume for most of us. Currently, all my other feeds are overly politicized. Yes, I have a political opinion and understand the need for discourse, but we are currently in a hyper-partisan political cycle and in which there is no winner. The gap is so wide, it is hard for one group to engage the other. So now all we get in these "political discussions" is hyper virtue signaling. I am talking about all sides. This is not the time for discussion, because in our minds the battle lines are drawn. I wish HN enforces a month of political moratorium. I will live and die on HN and will not make a single low info comment!
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > This is not the time for discussion, because in our minds the battle lines are drawn. Yes, and discussion can make those battle lines disappear by finding common ground if possible and if not possible it will at least help assess how far the damage from all this bs can spread. Sticking your head in the ground is not going to make the problem go away, in fact might make it fractionally worse. On another note, in the US the choice has been made, but there are other places in the world where it is not too late and discussing this might throw up an argument or two that could be used to deflect disaster elsewhere. > I wish HN enforces a month of political moratorium. Because it's too much trouble to not click on links about subjects you wish were not discussed?
  - sremani 10y ago
    As a Green Card holder in US, who has put the papers for naturalization a month ago, I guarantee you, I have more skin in the game than most people here. >Because it's too much trouble to not click on links about subjects you wish were not discussed? The weakness is thoroughly mine.
rc_bhg 10y ago
> Sure, we can close our ears Eh? I read new in plenty of other places. This is supposed to be news kept to tech topics.

mikekchar 10y ago

I agree. It appears as though shocking political news stories are going to be the norm in the short to mid term. As interesting as they are and as useful as it is to discuss things with a sensible crowd like HN, I fear that the focus will inevitably be pulled away from the main topic at hand. There are lots of other venues to discuss these issue if one so wishes.

couchand 10y ago
I'll respectfully disagree with both of you. My understanding of current events would be significantly worsened if I didn't regularly get the thoughtful perspective of dragonwriter, tptacek, bluejekyll, throwaway8383495, and so many others.
Retra 10y ago
Which venues would you suggest?
- mikekchar 10y ago
  It occurs to me that reddit is built specifically to deal with this kind of topic. It also attracts a politically oriented clientele. I can appreciate that one of the attractions of using HN for this kind of topic is because the normal clientele are not overly political. A more reasoned discussion is possible. I'm old enough to remember a time when this was also true of Slashdot. I couldn't even imagine seeing the kind of discussion going on there today. Beware.
  - Dorono 10y ago
    > It occurs to me that reddit is built specifically to deal with this kind of topic. It also attracts a politically oriented clientele. Are you serious? Have you been to /r/worldnews? I get more insight here than any reddit sub.
    - mikekchar 10y ago
      That is precisely my point. Because it is not an encouraged topic, the people who come to destroy the conversation do not descend.

pfooti 10y ago

Consider for a moment an unmoderated forum. HN isn't, but it is lightly moderated, so it is reasonable to consider. An HN where most users agreed with you would be an HN where political posts rapidly fell off the front page, and simply get ignored by most. Like or not, it is quite difficult to disentangle politics from everything else. A desire to remain apolitical is pretty political in itself.

grzm 10y ago

Flag submissions you consider inappropriate for HN. If you recall Political Detox Week, it was very chaotic and noisy. It's very difficult to find widespread agreement as to what's politics and what's not, and what's an exception because it's really really important. 'dang summarized the results of the detox week and has made some recent comments on it as well. I'll dig around for them and update this comment with links to them in a bit to provide more context. Edit: Here are some, with some identifiable snippets only so it's not a list of links. I encourage you to read the comments themselves. They don't all directly address this, but I think they all shed some light on the topic. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 There's no satisfying anybody about this: not the readers who want more politics, not the readers who want less, and certainly not the partisans on an issue. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433 There's a lot more politics on HN right now than there usually is, which is appropriate since it reflects what's going on right now. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 When there's a deluge of political stories, as in the last couple days, users heavily flag most of them. But there have still been plenty of major threads spending plenty of time on the front page. That's the status quo for HN: most politics are off topic, but not all. It's a delicate balance and an important one. Letting politics overrun this site would kill it. --- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480 On downsides of the Political Detox Week experiment: there are two comments in the thread.

jbyers 10y ago
I agree, and this has been my practice: flag what doesn't pass my internal bar and see if the algorithm / moderators / community agree. For all this community has generated inspired commentary on the technology world, I maintain that we don't have the framework to manage net-positive political debate. My point is we should choose to address that deficiency or choose to avoid political debate. We'll see where flagging and voting take us - maybe it's enough. So far I would summarize the karmic reaction to my first comment as: "meh."

mr_spothawk 10y ago

While I agree that I don't want Hacker Political News to be "a thing", this is one of the very few places that I feel I can get reasoned discussion about immediately important (to me) news. I'm incredibly interested in the views of the rest of the community. That said, I'm trying to keep the politics out of my own posts and comments...

devmunchies 10y ago
> one of the very few places that I feel I can get reasoned discussion you must run in some small circles. There are lots of communities out there.
- mr_spothawk 10y ago
  I've got short legs; small circles is what I do best.

diogenescynic 10y ago

I disagree. This is a historic moment and immigration definitely affects technology.

diogenescynic 10y ago

I disagree. This is a historic moment and immigration policy definitely affects technology.

sangnoir 10y ago

> Respectfully, can we maintain the political detox on Hacker News Perhaps you can maintain a personal detox by avoiding political topics. Preventing everyone from discussing 'politics' on HN would be shortsighted because technology and startups are, and continue to be impacted by politics. Startups and immigrants have a long history.