If you're not seeing intelligent discussion on other sites, that may have more to do with the discussers than the sites. Seeing as how nonhackernews.com has pr

If you're not seeing intelligent discussion on other sites, that may have more to do with the discussers than the sites. Seeing as how nonhackernews.com has pretty much the exact same format and interface as news.yc, what makes you think that having a walled off area on this site for non-hacker news would either 1) provide discussion that is more intelligent than on other sites, or 2) encourage intelligent discussers to contribute to it? In the latter case, it will just make it easier for smart people to better avoid those topics anyway. In both cases, those topics don't get intelligent discussion because the topics are hot-button topics that can't be discussed intelligently anyway, and smart people realize that (ie, we all know that discussion of X here is not going to sway anyone's opinion on it). Additionally, they distract from the REAL topics that are considered more meaningful to discuss.