My take is that hackers are sometimes gasp interested in discussing political issues. Thus, the best approach is not to have people constantly chastising topic

My take is that hackers are sometimes gasp interested in discussing political issues. Thus, the best approach is not to have people constantly chastising topics/comments as off topic, but to keep the quality of each comment high enough that an intellectually curious person would enjoy reading it, even if it's about something not typically associated with hacking.