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The site guidelines and moderation policies are intended to steer the comments towards as prissy, non-critical, de-politicized conversations as possible. Anger

The site guidelines and moderation policies are intended to steer the comments towards as prissy, non-critical, de-politicized conversations as possible. Anger is a perfectly reasonable part of political discourse, and political discourse and thought is an important part of being a person in the world w/ agency. I think most would agree that there's a "beating a dead horse" point in comment sections, but the amount of preemptive moderation of anything mildly heated about politics is goofy, and not actually conducive to the goal of making a place for conversation that's "intellectually curious" or whatever. There is no topic that can be discussed in a political vacuum, and there's no conversation that's politically honest if there's not a little bit of struggle, but the mods on this site treat that like its a 5-alarm emergency.

dang 7y ago
You have some good points and I agree with most of this, but you're overestimating the capacity of a large, open internet forum to host intelligent angry discussion. This isn't about being prissy, it's about not dying a death of boredom. Flamewars get stupider and more tedious as they burn, and each one turns the site a bit more into hell. So we take a broken-windows-theory approach. If you think otherwise, I'd like to see an example of an large, open internet forum having intelligent no-holds-barred political debate. In my opinion you're underestimating how dumb that gets, and how quickly. For the sort of conversation you're talking about to be high-quality, you need a community that is closed and vastly smaller. This has been the case with that sort of debate in the past—for example, exchanges in journals or between writers in opposing journals.
jesssse 7y ago
Yep. Hacker News is a product not a community. The headlines are interesting but the comment section is offputting. I am largely unable to communicate using only Hacker News approved tone and words; I don't speak beige.

dang 7y ago

You have some good points and I agree with most of this, but you're overestimating the capacity of a large, open internet forum to host intelligent angry discussion. This isn't about being prissy, it's about not dying a death of boredom. Flamewars get stupider and more tedious as they burn, and each one turns the site a bit more into hell. So we take a broken-windows-theory approach. If you think otherwise, I'd like to see an example of an large, open internet forum having intelligent no-holds-barred political debate. In my opinion you're underestimating how dumb that gets, and how quickly. For the sort of conversation you're talking about to be high-quality, you need a community that is closed and vastly smaller. This has been the case with that sort of debate in the past—for example, exchanges in journals or between writers in opposing journals.

jesssse 7y ago

Yep. Hacker News is a product not a community. The headlines are interesting but the comment section is offputting. I am largely unable to communicate using only Hacker News approved tone and words; I don't speak beige.