3 ms·

Probably flagged because it's political content.

fulafel 6y ago
There's currently lots of it on the front page: gay marriage, housing policy, Mark Zuckerberg is using on Signal. Seems the current guideline leads to selective enforcement based on unstated background motives.
- dang 6y ago
  There are no unstated motives nor background motives—we've been stating them in the foreground for years! Unfortunately, communication on the internet is largely stateless, so no matter how many times you explain something, the bulk of the audience will not have heard it and/or will make up some other explanation. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713701 and my other posts in this thread for plenty of explanation.
dang 6y ago
Political stories are not off-topic on HN as such. On-topic stories are ones that gratify intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and plenty of those have political overlap. However, for a story to be on topic for HN, it needs to be intellectually interesting and capable of supporting a substantive thread. Many political stories tend to be sensational rather than intellectually interesting, and also tend to be extremely repetitive. Those are some of the qualities that make a submission off topic for HN (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...) There are many past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which shows how far back political discussion goes on HN, as well as the argument about politics on HN. If anyone still has a question that hasn't been answered there, I'd like to know what it is, and if you know a better way for HN to relate to political topics while fulfilling its mandate of curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), I'd really like to know what it is. Just please familiarize yourself with the past material first, because if it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've answered many times already why it won't work.

There's currently lots of it on the front page: gay marriage, housing policy, Mark Zuckerberg is using on Signal. Seems the current guideline leads to selective enforcement based on unstated background motives.

dang 6y ago
There are no unstated motives nor background motives—we've been stating them in the foreground for years! Unfortunately, communication on the internet is largely stateless, so no matter how many times you explain something, the bulk of the audience will not have heard it and/or will make up some other explanation. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713701 and my other posts in this thread for plenty of explanation.

dang 6y ago

Political stories are not off-topic on HN as such. On-topic stories are ones that gratify intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and plenty of those have political overlap. However, for a story to be on topic for HN, it needs to be intellectually interesting and capable of supporting a substantive thread. Many political stories tend to be sensational rather than intellectually interesting, and also tend to be extremely repetitive. Those are some of the qualities that make a submission off topic for HN (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...) There are many past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which shows how far back political discussion goes on HN, as well as the argument about politics on HN. If anyone still has a question that hasn't been answered there, I'd like to know what it is, and if you know a better way for HN to relate to political topics while fulfilling its mandate of curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), I'd really like to know what it is. Just please familiarize yourself with the past material first, because if it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've answered many times already why it won't work.