3 ms·

How is this not politics?

hugh3 15y ago
Well, you could say it's statistics. I dunno, I started a thread asking about what happened to the no-politics rule yesterday, but it got [dead]-ed after collecting a few dozen comments. (In fairness, by phrasing my complaint as an "Ask HN" I might have been abusing the Ask HN system.) The other trouble with politics threads, though, is that the barriers to entry are so low. If the subject is thermodynamics or erlang then there's a certain amount of knowledge required to take part in the discussion, or even to find it interesting. But if the subject is "why is crime down" or "hey, what's up with people in the US not getting enough holidays" then anyone can chime in with their own opinion on the matter... or at least to throw their favourite political hobby horse into the mix (It's all about race! No wait, it's all about police corruption! No wait, it's all about white collar crimes going unprosecuted!) A major point of the no-politics rule was to keep the site looking as boring as possible to anyone not really interested in discussing the sort of stuff that the site is really supposed to be about.
natnat 15y ago
I don't see how this is any more political than all of the articles about how the newest anti-piracy bill is the worst thing ever or how patent trolling is horrible. I don't disagree with either class of posts, but they are, strictly speaking, quite political. I think making "no politics ever" a rule can hamper discussions quite a lot. I can understand why it's not productive to talk about, say, the merits of Obama's health care bill, which evokes really partisan gut reactions and makes people more likely to start posting pithy political slogans that sound good and make for horrible discussion. But talking about a reduced crime rate without crediting/blaming any particular politician or party can be pretty interesting to talk about. On the other hand, I don't think any of the anti-DRM or anti-anti-piracy posts are very productive. But everyone here seems to agree on them, so even though the discussions are often quite vapid, they tend to be less nasty than, say, discussions about the merits of single-payer healthcare.

hugh3 15y ago

Well, you could say it's statistics. I dunno, I started a thread asking about what happened to the no-politics rule yesterday, but it got [dead]-ed after collecting a few dozen comments. (In fairness, by phrasing my complaint as an "Ask HN" I might have been abusing the Ask HN system.) The other trouble with politics threads, though, is that the barriers to entry are so low. If the subject is thermodynamics or erlang then there's a certain amount of knowledge required to take part in the discussion, or even to find it interesting. But if the subject is "why is crime down" or "hey, what's up with people in the US not getting enough holidays" then anyone can chime in with their own opinion on the matter... or at least to throw their favourite political hobby horse into the mix (It's all about race! No wait, it's all about police corruption! No wait, it's all about white collar crimes going unprosecuted!) A major point of the no-politics rule was to keep the site looking as boring as possible to anyone not really interested in discussing the sort of stuff that the site is really supposed to be about.

natnat 15y ago

I don't see how this is any more political than all of the articles about how the newest anti-piracy bill is the worst thing ever or how patent trolling is horrible. I don't disagree with either class of posts, but they are, strictly speaking, quite political. I think making "no politics ever" a rule can hamper discussions quite a lot. I can understand why it's not productive to talk about, say, the merits of Obama's health care bill, which evokes really partisan gut reactions and makes people more likely to start posting pithy political slogans that sound good and make for horrible discussion. But talking about a reduced crime rate without crediting/blaming any particular politician or party can be pretty interesting to talk about. On the other hand, I don't think any of the anti-DRM or anti-anti-piracy posts are very productive. But everyone here seems to agree on them, so even though the discussions are often quite vapid, they tend to be less nasty than, say, discussions about the merits of single-payer healthcare.