3 ms·
Hacker News is a high quality forum because it disallows political discussion. Maybe someone could build a forum that enforces civil discussion on political is
by snth 9y ago
Hacker News is a high quality forum because it disallows political discussion.
Maybe someone could build a forum that enforces civil discussion on political issues, either with automated or manual moderation, but Hacker News' moderation isn't nearly strict enough.
- lotsoflumens 9y ago> Hacker News is a high quality forum because it disallows political discussion. It's interesting that you think so, because this very discussion is extremely political, though perhaps meta-political. I think Hacker News may be unique in that political discussion can take place in a technical forum. The main barrier to thoughtful discussion may be the HN points system. I suspect that many insightful posts are not written due to self-censorship (fear of losing points). It's completely irrational of course, the points are meaningless, but when they are lost it can cause some distress. Nobody likes to lose a game.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Hacker News is a high quality forum because it disallows political discussion. Hacker News does not disallow, and but for a brief experiment never has disallowed, political discussion. This non-existent ban does not, therefore, explain HN's quality.
- snth 9y agoBy "disallow", I'm talking about the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics ... and most people's willingness to support these guidelines with downvotes.