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I'm going to stick my neck out to voice against the constant flagging of political news as it comes out. To preempt the common "HN is not about politics", perh

I'm going to stick my neck out to voice against the constant flagging of political news as it comes out. To preempt the common "HN is not about politics", perhaps not, but politics of late have become such that they DO impact HN even if they aren't fundamentally technical. A comment on another thread said something along the lines of, "what do I care, HN is international?" I would argue precedents set here have international implications, and given YC's bearing as a US company, indiscretions of our leaders on this level seem like something we should certainly keep an ear to the ground to. If our community is silent on things that so set the tone for how our country is run and perceived for _everyone_, I question what leg we'll have to stand on when we speak up to things only relevant to us. Being tech-centric does not excuse a lack of participation in trying to make the world a better place.

vthallam 9y ago
I understand your sentiment and yes, the posts like this should be allowed for people to discuss.But more often than not, this whole thread will get polarised with supporters and critics arguing with little material details to support their arguments. HN allowed these posts some time back and guess looking at the comments convinced them to stop doing it.
- dang 9y ago
  No, the principles haven't changed at all. For example I'm not sure a word of https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html has been edited since 2009. What has changed is the intensity of the political climate.
threeseed 9y ago
Sorry but HN really isn't the best place to discuss it. There are plenty of interesting startup and IT news stories that don't make it to the front page because of political posts.
- hendersoon 9y ago
  You need to expect that massive stories like this one make the front page. The community wants to discuss them. Even if you successfully bury this one, another will come shortly. It's inevitable and unavoidable.
  - dang 9y ago
    > The community wants to discuss them Some want to discuss them, but that's not necessarily "the community". There's robust disagreement, of course, about what belongs here, but I think the HN community has a pretty healthy sense of the site's core values: intellectual curiosity and civil, substantive discussion. I think that's why most people come here. If anything makes HN different, that's it, and we'd be fools to squander it. The site can't be dedicated both to that and also to the "intensely but shallowly interesting" news of the moment, to use pg's old phrase. Without checks and balances, the latter would soon burn up the former. The users flagging these stories seem to me to be doing so because they understand that.
- matt4077 9y ago
  That–with all due respect–completely misses the point of the post you're replying to. Which is: there are instances where people aren't 'entrepreneurs' or 'tech people' but 'citizens'.
  - dang 9y ago
    Yes, of course. And that's far more important, and has been every day since HN has existed. The question is whether HN should remain what it was founded to be, a site dedicated to the gratification of intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). If you answer yes, then it's necessary to prevent other things from flooding it, even when—especially when—they're more important.
smb06 9y ago
Breaking News: Asteroid coming to hit the Earth "Sorry, HN really is not the place to discuss this"
dang 9y ago
> but politics of late have become such The problem with that argument is that you can—and people do—make it about every urgent story, of which there are more than enough to crowd out everything else. HN is a certain kind of site and not another. It's organized around clear principles: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html. If we ditch those principles because of the political intensity of the moment (or the year, or years), HN becomes something else entirely. Our job as a community (and ours as moderators) is not to let that happen. The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting: gossip about famous people, [...], partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be quieter.
- skygazer 9y ago
  I really look forward to seeing HN's take, and typical HN-like, in-depth discussions of some of these topics. HN users have an impressive breadth, depth, and diversity, and are insightful and generally courteous and respectful, and as much as you seem to eschew and squelch these topics, HN is really where they seem to get their best treatment. While I generally appreciate your beneficial policing and moderation, I think it's at it's best when it's promoting high caliber discussions, rather than the censoring. I understand moving "off-topic" posts off the first page at an accelerated rate, but maybe you could give them a few hours more daylight before burying them? All this notwithstanding, thanks for all you do.
- existencebox 9y ago
  And this, I think, is where our perceptions differ: I do not categorize the above as "shallowly interesting" I see the current political climate as something we will look back and read textbooks about. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just another "doomsaying kid these days", but it seems unrealistically utopian to suggest that tech can exist in isolation of the politics around it. Your own rules, "unless evidence of some new phenomena", I would CERTAINLY categorize many of the current administrations choices under that bracket, and that's why I often find myself disagreeing with some of these flags. (SOME, not all, for sure, but this article in particular was "something new" from my perceptions over the last 30 odd years) I can only speak for myself on this last bit, but as a member of the community, I'm far more OK with an occasional focus on these outliers than some of the other changes I've seen to HN over the last 5~ years. (to give a concrete example, off topic jokes/flamewars/ad hominems/"hive mind" responses seem much more prevelent, and THAT I think presents far greater risk to "shifting principles" than being aware of politics that truly do affect our tech community. You seem to acknowlege this in a post below, "intensity of politics", my argument would be that this is a symptom, where the cause is that the root politics are shifting as well, and this underlying trend is what I want to focus on. I'd be all for quelling the "intensity" to look at things analytically, if such a thing is possible.)

vthallam 9y ago

I understand your sentiment and yes, the posts like this should be allowed for people to discuss.But more often than not, this whole thread will get polarised with supporters and critics arguing with little material details to support their arguments. HN allowed these posts some time back and guess looking at the comments convinced them to stop doing it.

dang 9y ago
No, the principles haven't changed at all. For example I'm not sure a word of https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html has been edited since 2009. What has changed is the intensity of the political climate.

threeseed 9y ago

Sorry but HN really isn't the best place to discuss it. There are plenty of interesting startup and IT news stories that don't make it to the front page because of political posts.

hendersoon 9y ago
You need to expect that massive stories like this one make the front page. The community wants to discuss them. Even if you successfully bury this one, another will come shortly. It's inevitable and unavoidable.
- dang 9y ago
  > The community wants to discuss them Some want to discuss them, but that's not necessarily "the community". There's robust disagreement, of course, about what belongs here, but I think the HN community has a pretty healthy sense of the site's core values: intellectual curiosity and civil, substantive discussion. I think that's why most people come here. If anything makes HN different, that's it, and we'd be fools to squander it. The site can't be dedicated both to that and also to the "intensely but shallowly interesting" news of the moment, to use pg's old phrase. Without checks and balances, the latter would soon burn up the former. The users flagging these stories seem to me to be doing so because they understand that.
matt4077 9y ago
That–with all due respect–completely misses the point of the post you're replying to. Which is: there are instances where people aren't 'entrepreneurs' or 'tech people' but 'citizens'.
- dang 9y ago
  Yes, of course. And that's far more important, and has been every day since HN has existed. The question is whether HN should remain what it was founded to be, a site dedicated to the gratification of intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). If you answer yes, then it's necessary to prevent other things from flooding it, even when—especially when—they're more important.

smb06 9y ago

Breaking News: Asteroid coming to hit the Earth "Sorry, HN really is not the place to discuss this"

dang 9y ago

> but politics of late have become such The problem with that argument is that you can—and people do—make it about every urgent story, of which there are more than enough to crowd out everything else. HN is a certain kind of site and not another. It's organized around clear principles: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html. If we ditch those principles because of the political intensity of the moment (or the year, or years), HN becomes something else entirely. Our job as a community (and ours as moderators) is not to let that happen. The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting: gossip about famous people, [...], partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be quieter.

skygazer 9y ago
I really look forward to seeing HN's take, and typical HN-like, in-depth discussions of some of these topics. HN users have an impressive breadth, depth, and diversity, and are insightful and generally courteous and respectful, and as much as you seem to eschew and squelch these topics, HN is really where they seem to get their best treatment. While I generally appreciate your beneficial policing and moderation, I think it's at it's best when it's promoting high caliber discussions, rather than the censoring. I understand moving "off-topic" posts off the first page at an accelerated rate, but maybe you could give them a few hours more daylight before burying them? All this notwithstanding, thanks for all you do.
existencebox 9y ago
And this, I think, is where our perceptions differ: I do not categorize the above as "shallowly interesting" I see the current political climate as something we will look back and read textbooks about. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just another "doomsaying kid these days", but it seems unrealistically utopian to suggest that tech can exist in isolation of the politics around it. Your own rules, "unless evidence of some new phenomena", I would CERTAINLY categorize many of the current administrations choices under that bracket, and that's why I often find myself disagreeing with some of these flags. (SOME, not all, for sure, but this article in particular was "something new" from my perceptions over the last 30 odd years) I can only speak for myself on this last bit, but as a member of the community, I'm far more OK with an occasional focus on these outliers than some of the other changes I've seen to HN over the last 5~ years. (to give a concrete example, off topic jokes/flamewars/ad hominems/"hive mind" responses seem much more prevelent, and THAT I think presents far greater risk to "shifting principles" than being aware of politics that truly do affect our tech community. You seem to acknowlege this in a post below, "intensity of politics", my argument would be that this is a symptom, where the cause is that the root politics are shifting as well, and this underlying trend is what I want to focus on. I'd be all for quelling the "intensity" to look at things analytically, if such a thing is possible.)