4 ms·

You're right that according to the site's guidelines (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) political stories a

by jeromec 16y ago

You're right that according to the site's guidelines (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) political stories are usually off-topic. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. However, there is an exception given for "interesting new phenomenon". I would say revolutions of a scale not seen in a region for thousands of years would qualify.

ebiester 16y ago
Turkey? Iran?
- llambda 16y ago
  Seems like Iran gave that a try before but without much success. Depending on how you measure success of course...
- utku_karatas2 16y ago
  What about Turkey? He is going through an era of political and economical stability unseen since his inception 80 years ago.
smackay 16y ago
What is most compelling about this is first it was Tunisia, then Egypt. Who is next? If it continues it will probably be world-changing no matter what the outcome.
- cabalamat 16y ago
  I'd guess either Jordan or Syria. Though I'd expect autocrats around the world will not be pleased.
- Qz 16y ago
  What's interesting is that several of the potential countries have been taking pre-emptive steps to avoid exactly this situation. Yemen's dictator said he won't try to get his term extended to life, Jordan's king sacked his entire government, Algeria's dictator pulled back the country's two decades of emergency law, and Syria cracked down on protesters with police beatings...
tptacek 16y ago
It is completely off-topic.† People will want meat to dig into for a meta-argument about global politics and I'm not going to offer it up, but let it just be said: it's very bad for HN that this stuff is being covered so prominently on the site. It absolutely, positively a slippery slope. The site is clearly tacking away from serving entrepreneurial hackers and towards serving smart people who want a place to talk about everything they care deeply about. I'm not writing my goodbye note or anything, but I'm having more and more of my best conversations in private cliques and off HN because HN is becoming less and less hospitable to those kinds of conversations. † Need evidence? Graham appears to have manually weighted it off the front page; just a little while ago, a Mubarak story was parked there with 237 votes.
- jeromec 16y ago
  I have to disagree that the site is tacking away from serving entrepreneurial hackers. PG just recently posted that the site, even with all of its growth, seems to have kept fairly well the integrity of the homepage and quality of discussion. I can understand a fear that non-hackerish topics can threaten to steer a site more into the mainstream, but I don't think that's a worry with something like this because these kinds of events are not to be expected to occur all the time.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Then Graham is wrong. I appreciate the effort he puts in and that his heart is in the right place, but the metrics I've seen from him aren't compelling (for instance, /classic, compared to just comparing front pages with archive.org and --- particularly --- which threads generate the most heat). And, sorry, but I've been watching conversations like this one for something like 3.5 years now, and this is a real issue.
- mst 16y ago
  Perhaps the problem is that there isn't really anywhere that serves that niche. Not that I'm offering to try and fill it - but perhaps somebody else on here might want to give it a go?
siavosh 16y ago
And also for the fact that social networks have played such a large role.
- zeteo 16y ago
  Evidence? Yes, some of the protesters have been using Facebook and Twitter, but were they a large proportion of the total, and how could this have been significant when the Internet itself was shut down over there? Don't confuse the fact that you found out a lot about the protests on social media, with the social media having a lot of influence upon the Egyptian events.
jimfl 16y ago
It is very much off topic. However, my interest in what this community has to say about it is of abiding interest.

by jeromec 16y ago

ebiester 16y ago

Turkey? Iran?

llambda 16y ago
Seems like Iran gave that a try before but without much success. Depending on how you measure success of course...
utku_karatas2 16y ago
What about Turkey? He is going through an era of political and economical stability unseen since his inception 80 years ago.

smackay 16y ago

What is most compelling about this is first it was Tunisia, then Egypt. Who is next? If it continues it will probably be world-changing no matter what the outcome.

cabalamat 16y ago
I'd guess either Jordan or Syria. Though I'd expect autocrats around the world will not be pleased.
Qz 16y ago
What's interesting is that several of the potential countries have been taking pre-emptive steps to avoid exactly this situation. Yemen's dictator said he won't try to get his term extended to life, Jordan's king sacked his entire government, Algeria's dictator pulled back the country's two decades of emergency law, and Syria cracked down on protesters with police beatings...

tptacek 16y ago

It is completely off-topic.† People will want meat to dig into for a meta-argument about global politics and I'm not going to offer it up, but let it just be said: it's very bad for HN that this stuff is being covered so prominently on the site. It absolutely, positively a slippery slope. The site is clearly tacking away from serving entrepreneurial hackers and towards serving smart people who want a place to talk about everything they care deeply about. I'm not writing my goodbye note or anything, but I'm having more and more of my best conversations in private cliques and off HN because HN is becoming less and less hospitable to those kinds of conversations. † Need evidence? Graham appears to have manually weighted it off the front page; just a little while ago, a Mubarak story was parked there with 237 votes.

jeromec 16y ago
I have to disagree that the site is tacking away from serving entrepreneurial hackers. PG just recently posted that the site, even with all of its growth, seems to have kept fairly well the integrity of the homepage and quality of discussion. I can understand a fear that non-hackerish topics can threaten to steer a site more into the mainstream, but I don't think that's a worry with something like this because these kinds of events are not to be expected to occur all the time.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Then Graham is wrong. I appreciate the effort he puts in and that his heart is in the right place, but the metrics I've seen from him aren't compelling (for instance, /classic, compared to just comparing front pages with archive.org and --- particularly --- which threads generate the most heat). And, sorry, but I've been watching conversations like this one for something like 3.5 years now, and this is a real issue.
mst 16y ago
Perhaps the problem is that there isn't really anywhere that serves that niche. Not that I'm offering to try and fill it - but perhaps somebody else on here might want to give it a go?

siavosh 16y ago

And also for the fact that social networks have played such a large role.

zeteo 16y ago
Evidence? Yes, some of the protesters have been using Facebook and Twitter, but were they a large proportion of the total, and how could this have been significant when the Internet itself was shut down over there? Don't confuse the fact that you found out a lot about the protests on social media, with the social media having a lot of influence upon the Egyptian events.

jimfl 16y ago

It is very much off topic. However, my interest in what this community has to say about it is of abiding interest.