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I would say that prior to the pandemic, the site was fairly strict about policing off topic, particularly political posts. Coinciding with the pandemic, I find

I would say that prior to the pandemic, the site was fairly strict about policing off topic, particularly political posts. Coinciding with the pandemic, I find that the technical focus of this site has been diluted. As I recall, there was an external campaign to politicize this site and I guess to some extend it appears as that has been at least partially successful to me.

version_five 5y ago
External campaign? Where did that come from? Is there something you could point to? (sorry for being that guy)
- mtmail 5y ago
  The was a call-to-action on https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/thedonald-win/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/thedonald-win/ (the site no longer works, thus a hopefully neutral description what the website was about) to register HN accounts. My browser history says 2021-01-12 page title "Trump's going to need his keyboard warriors now more than ever" There wasn't an usual uptick or long-term effect from that call I think. January 2021 was already crazy enough on social media including HN.
- uberman 5y ago
  Well, I can assure you it was a thing, but I would rather not necro old posts to support my casual observation. I also particularly don't want to call out specific evidence as it shines a light on the apparent political persuasion of these efforts and the absolute last thing I want to to furthered muddle this site in political content. So if you have not observed a radical uptick in political/health posts in the last two years, I tip my hat to you. Perhaps I see more of it because I tend to look at "new" rather than the "popular" news.
stackbutterflow 5y ago
Maybe there's a need for a second front page, for off topic discussions. I like to read HNers's perspective on non tech matters. But it's valuable because HNers are mostly tech oriented people. If they weren't it'd be just like another reddit. So I'd like for this site to remain heavily tech focused and at the same time I enjoy reading more political discussions. I don't know if the two can coexist.
- version_five 5y ago
  Despite a lot of bad stuff, HN does comparatively good job of allowing free thought without descending into some kind of ideological or troll cesspool like most "free speech" oriented forums. It's definitely not perfect but at least contrarian opinions exist alongside regurgitated mainstream stuff, vs say reddit (with which I have little familiarity, so maybe there are niche subreddits but I see lots of places that basically say you can't post anything that doesn't conform to groupthink) or big tech that just censors things that go against their agenda. HN is much more balanced, if still imperfect.

version_five 5y ago

External campaign? Where did that come from? Is there something you could point to? (sorry for being that guy)

mtmail 5y ago
The was a call-to-action on https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/thedonald-win/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/thedonald-win/ (the site no longer works, thus a hopefully neutral description what the website was about) to register HN accounts. My browser history says 2021-01-12 page title "Trump's going to need his keyboard warriors now more than ever" There wasn't an usual uptick or long-term effect from that call I think. January 2021 was already crazy enough on social media including HN.
uberman 5y ago
Well, I can assure you it was a thing, but I would rather not necro old posts to support my casual observation. I also particularly don't want to call out specific evidence as it shines a light on the apparent political persuasion of these efforts and the absolute last thing I want to to furthered muddle this site in political content. So if you have not observed a radical uptick in political/health posts in the last two years, I tip my hat to you. Perhaps I see more of it because I tend to look at "new" rather than the "popular" news.

stackbutterflow 5y ago

Maybe there's a need for a second front page, for off topic discussions. I like to read HNers's perspective on non tech matters. But it's valuable because HNers are mostly tech oriented people. If they weren't it'd be just like another reddit. So I'd like for this site to remain heavily tech focused and at the same time I enjoy reading more political discussions. I don't know if the two can coexist.

version_five 5y ago
Despite a lot of bad stuff, HN does comparatively good job of allowing free thought without descending into some kind of ideological or troll cesspool like most "free speech" oriented forums. It's definitely not perfect but at least contrarian opinions exist alongside regurgitated mainstream stuff, vs say reddit (with which I have little familiarity, so maybe there are niche subreddits but I see lots of places that basically say you can't post anything that doesn't conform to groupthink) or big tech that just censors things that go against their agenda. HN is much more balanced, if still imperfect.