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I don't think this belongs on Hacker News. It's an issue worth discussion, but it's an a category of general controversial news that gets plenty of discussion e

I don't think this belongs on Hacker News. It's an issue worth discussion, but it's an a category of general controversial news that gets plenty of discussion elsewhere. Also there is no technical, scientific, or engineering context to it.

dang 4y ago
HN threads don't need to be technical, scientific, or engineering. They just need to be intellectually interesting (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Anything as prominent in humanity and history as religion is certainly that. However, flamewars destroy intellectual interest (put bluntly, they're predictable, nasty and dumb), and it's nearly impossible for a large community to discuss religion without religious flamewar (the most predictable, nastiest, and dumbest of all flamewar). That's unfortunately the other issue with stories like this, besides the run-of-the-mill controversy that you correctly point out.
- fancybouncy 4y ago
  i believe that flagging my comment was not an attempt to avoid flamewars, but plain censorship of a honest intellectual question that any society taking a stance, against or in favor of multiculturalism (that is, hosting non-integrated completely different cultures within its borders), must confront sooner of later when things like this lecturer's ordeal start happening. The article was a concrete instance of the abstract dilemma i posed in my comment, so it was on-topic and necessary imho.
  - dang 4y ago
    You can call it censorship if you want—people mostly use that word nowadays to express a feeling—but the moderation point is that you plainly broke HN's rules with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34298516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34298516, and doing that will get you banned here.
    - fancybouncy 4y ago
      i disagree that it was against the guidelines - after all, it did generate some interesting intellectual comments. either way, your home your rules, so whatever. (which, ironically, confirms my original point...)

dang 4y ago

HN threads don't need to be technical, scientific, or engineering. They just need to be intellectually interesting (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Anything as prominent in humanity and history as religion is certainly that. However, flamewars destroy intellectual interest (put bluntly, they're predictable, nasty and dumb), and it's nearly impossible for a large community to discuss religion without religious flamewar (the most predictable, nastiest, and dumbest of all flamewar). That's unfortunately the other issue with stories like this, besides the run-of-the-mill controversy that you correctly point out.

fancybouncy 4y ago
i believe that flagging my comment was not an attempt to avoid flamewars, but plain censorship of a honest intellectual question that any society taking a stance, against or in favor of multiculturalism (that is, hosting non-integrated completely different cultures within its borders), must confront sooner of later when things like this lecturer's ordeal start happening. The article was a concrete instance of the abstract dilemma i posed in my comment, so it was on-topic and necessary imho.
- dang 4y ago
  You can call it censorship if you want—people mostly use that word nowadays to express a feeling—but the moderation point is that you plainly broke HN's rules with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34298516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34298516, and doing that will get you banned here.
  - fancybouncy 4y ago
    i disagree that it was against the guidelines - after all, it did generate some interesting intellectual comments. either way, your home your rules, so whatever. (which, ironically, confirms my original point...)