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how is the entire topic of this discussion not a standard political talking point?

dang 9y ago
For one thing, many people are talking about their personal experiences, from many angles. Comments like "blood on the hands of $movement", by contrast, are battle fodder. Irrespective of your politics, that's the sort of thing that provokes worse from others and leads to all-out war, which we're trying to avoid on this site. So if you'd please not post like that here, we'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tessierashpool 9y ago
  ok, I'll try again. how is this notion that conservatives are not free to express their opinions not a standard political talking point? there's an entire genre of such articles in the mainstream media. it's a popular argument with white supremacists who are attempting to normalize fascism. you're permitting a standard political talking point to be an entire topic of discussion, and then screening out some individual replies because they invoke additional standard political talking points. you're allowing some standard political talking points and disallowing others. if you're doing that, it would be convenient for your users if you were to specify which standard political talking points are valid topics of discussion, and which other standard political talking points will get your comments banned.
  - dang 9y ago
    I hear you, but it's more complicated than that. To judge by the reaction of HN users, not everyone expressing this point of view is doing so just as a political weapon. Some are struggling to articulate their experience with the intention of connecting with others. So it's both. From a moderation point of view, the goal is to encourage the one kind of discussion—sincerely articulating experience with the intention of connecting with others—while discouraging the other, i.e. repetition of weaponized rhetoric with the intention of defeating enemies.

dang 9y ago

For one thing, many people are talking about their personal experiences, from many angles. Comments like "blood on the hands of $movement", by contrast, are battle fodder. Irrespective of your politics, that's the sort of thing that provokes worse from others and leads to all-out war, which we're trying to avoid on this site. So if you'd please not post like that here, we'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tessierashpool 9y ago
ok, I'll try again. how is this notion that conservatives are not free to express their opinions not a standard political talking point? there's an entire genre of such articles in the mainstream media. it's a popular argument with white supremacists who are attempting to normalize fascism. you're permitting a standard political talking point to be an entire topic of discussion, and then screening out some individual replies because they invoke additional standard political talking points. you're allowing some standard political talking points and disallowing others. if you're doing that, it would be convenient for your users if you were to specify which standard political talking points are valid topics of discussion, and which other standard political talking points will get your comments banned.
- dang 9y ago
  I hear you, but it's more complicated than that. To judge by the reaction of HN users, not everyone expressing this point of view is doing so just as a political weapon. Some are struggling to articulate their experience with the intention of connecting with others. So it's both. From a moderation point of view, the goal is to encourage the one kind of discussion—sincerely articulating experience with the intention of connecting with others—while discouraging the other, i.e. repetition of weaponized rhetoric with the intention of defeating enemies.