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I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. If there's "no

I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. If there's "no point", then I'd expect it not to be upvoted. Obviously HN finds it relevant otherwise it wouldn't have been the top post.

krapp 8y ago
> I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. It's less about protecting the readership from inflammatory information as protecting the community from inflammatory discussion, because it is true that there are a number of people here who are too sensitive about certain topics to be able to discuss them civilly. Hacker News is fine when discussing technical issues (as long as a certain language doesn't come up) but as soon as you see a topic relating to feminism, political correctness, race, gender, American politics, etc... it seems to be a toss up whether that thread will turn out to be worthwhile or yet another flaming garbage fire of polemic nonsense. That said, while I can understand why threads like this get flagged, it's worth pointing out that flagging a thread doesn't block the comments in it from appearing on the comments page afaik, while hiding a thread does. So if people just don't want to see the discussion at all it's preferable to hide it and leave it be when it clearly already has some traction.
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago
  I'm constantly impressed by the quality of discussion here. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say HackerNews is the best calibre open forum anywhere on the web. If it can't be discussed on HackerNews, it can't be discussed anywhere. The problem of polemic nonsense (nicely put) is at the scope of society, not HackerNews. I'm not being flippant. If you can think of another online forum that would do a better job, please name it. Slashdot? Reddit? I don't think so. As far as I can see, the discussion in this thread seems civil and thoughtful. I second _carl_jung. It just isn't necessary. Beyond that, it's not healthy to deem an important topic to be simply out of bounds to discuss. Is that the route to well-considered positions? I realise I'm arguing from a position of relative ignorance here though. Perhaps there was a flood of spam and trolling that's been removed.

krapp 8y ago

> I don't like this view that somehow the HN readership is too sensitive to inflammatory/controversial information and must be protected from it. It's less about protecting the readership from inflammatory information as protecting the community from inflammatory discussion, because it is true that there are a number of people here who are too sensitive about certain topics to be able to discuss them civilly. Hacker News is fine when discussing technical issues (as long as a certain language doesn't come up) but as soon as you see a topic relating to feminism, political correctness, race, gender, American politics, etc... it seems to be a toss up whether that thread will turn out to be worthwhile or yet another flaming garbage fire of polemic nonsense. That said, while I can understand why threads like this get flagged, it's worth pointing out that flagging a thread doesn't block the comments in it from appearing on the comments page afaik, while hiding a thread does. So if people just don't want to see the discussion at all it's preferable to hide it and leave it be when it clearly already has some traction.

MaxBarraclough 8y ago
I'm constantly impressed by the quality of discussion here. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say HackerNews is the best calibre open forum anywhere on the web. If it can't be discussed on HackerNews, it can't be discussed anywhere. The problem of polemic nonsense (nicely put) is at the scope of society, not HackerNews. I'm not being flippant. If you can think of another online forum that would do a better job, please name it. Slashdot? Reddit? I don't think so. As far as I can see, the discussion in this thread seems civil and thoughtful. I second _carl_jung. It just isn't necessary. Beyond that, it's not healthy to deem an important topic to be simply out of bounds to discuss. Is that the route to well-considered positions? I realise I'm arguing from a position of relative ignorance here though. Perhaps there was a flood of spam and trolling that's been removed.