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> If every Chinese topic turns into the same "China vs. the rest of the world" discussion—or to put it more generally, if every thread gets sucked into whatever

> If every Chinese topic turns into the same "China vs. the rest of the world" discussion—or to put it more generally, if every thread gets sucked into whatever generic black hole happens to be nearby—then it becomes impossible to discuss anything specific on HN. The trouble is that issue is that earnest discussion of these serious issues has been suppressed for more than a year, and that by now, talking about this "cute" stuff while pretending said suppression is going leaves a certain aftertaste. I guess in your mind, ignoring an elephant on the couch is just the thing a curious intelligent person acting in good faith would do. But that's just you. > The generic discussions are always the same That's just as true for many articles about social media, node, golang, whatever. It can be demonstrated in 5 minutes that what you criticize consistently in one context, isn't even worth a mention in many, many others.

dang 7y ago
It has probably been the most-discussed topic on HN in the last year, so you're not going to get very far calling it "suppressed". The basic problem is that such discussions are repetitive, this is a site for curiosity, and curiosity doesn't go with repetition. For sure the problem of generic discussion is similar across all the hot topics. But some are more prone to flamewar, and those require more moderation.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  I didn't say "least discussed", I'm talking about the countless stories that garner a lot of upvotes and disappear; and that's not all dupes or "outrage" articles, that included things overlapping with tech as well. I mean, stuff actual education camp documents being leaked.. hello? What kind of curiosity is that supposed to be? Nobody interested in helping translate, or anything? How very hacker. At any rate, every story has a button to hide it, and there is no reason to just assume that, say, discussion of, say, medical botching in ICE camps, or the CCP demanding live streams delayed by 3 minutes, or whatever, will spill over into other topics. Actually, allowing it a venue might help it not spilling over, as it did here. Or you know, like you banned me for posting a link and quote from a WP article and from a revisionist claim at a conference in China, on an article that fawned over "awesomely advanced" maps from China that were kinda a copy of European maps. I was at most being slightly snarky, by way of sharing something I did also consider genuinely interesting, and had never heard of on HN. But at least you had "warned" me in reply to a comment of mine earlier... 2 days after I had made it (which I noticed yesterday) I don't mind being banned as such, but I do mind your throwaway, copy-paste reasoning for it. Ban me for being boring and confrontative, verbose and repetitive, fair enough. But "nationalistic and ideological battle"? Nope, that remains with you. If you're too busy to back it up, don't claim it. It's not like you're required to justify a ban, or do in all cases. > this is a site for curiosity, and curiosity doesn't go with repetition. Every day a person discovers a topic for the first time, and asks questions or makes statements others want to share their expertise on. People having been complaining about that since there were forums. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to change HN, but you can also not change what I consider fundamental to intellectual integrity and human curiosity. > If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when? -- Hillel the Elder If I have reason to think that my participation without speaking out about something forces me to betray that, then I simply don't.

dang 7y ago

It has probably been the most-discussed topic on HN in the last year, so you're not going to get very far calling it "suppressed". The basic problem is that such discussions are repetitive, this is a site for curiosity, and curiosity doesn't go with repetition. For sure the problem of generic discussion is similar across all the hot topics. But some are more prone to flamewar, and those require more moderation.

PavlovsCat 7y ago
I didn't say "least discussed", I'm talking about the countless stories that garner a lot of upvotes and disappear; and that's not all dupes or "outrage" articles, that included things overlapping with tech as well. I mean, stuff actual education camp documents being leaked.. hello? What kind of curiosity is that supposed to be? Nobody interested in helping translate, or anything? How very hacker. At any rate, every story has a button to hide it, and there is no reason to just assume that, say, discussion of, say, medical botching in ICE camps, or the CCP demanding live streams delayed by 3 minutes, or whatever, will spill over into other topics. Actually, allowing it a venue might help it not spilling over, as it did here. Or you know, like you banned me for posting a link and quote from a WP article and from a revisionist claim at a conference in China, on an article that fawned over "awesomely advanced" maps from China that were kinda a copy of European maps. I was at most being slightly snarky, by way of sharing something I did also consider genuinely interesting, and had never heard of on HN. But at least you had "warned" me in reply to a comment of mine earlier... 2 days after I had made it (which I noticed yesterday) I don't mind being banned as such, but I do mind your throwaway, copy-paste reasoning for it. Ban me for being boring and confrontative, verbose and repetitive, fair enough. But "nationalistic and ideological battle"? Nope, that remains with you. If you're too busy to back it up, don't claim it. It's not like you're required to justify a ban, or do in all cases. > this is a site for curiosity, and curiosity doesn't go with repetition. Every day a person discovers a topic for the first time, and asks questions or makes statements others want to share their expertise on. People having been complaining about that since there were forums. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to change HN, but you can also not change what I consider fundamental to intellectual integrity and human curiosity. > If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when? -- Hillel the Elder If I have reason to think that my participation without speaking out about something forces me to betray that, then I simply don't.