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I honestly don't think this subject should be on here. I don't think it's possible for a coherent or respectful or even useful conversation to happen here. I ha

I honestly don't think this subject should be on here. I don't think it's possible for a coherent or respectful or even useful conversation to happen here. I haven't seen any conversation about this topic that hadn't gone to hell.

93po 3y ago
As long as it's contained to a single place, people can choose to not click it and read other stuff and i think that's fine
dang 3y ago
Yes, you're of course right—and at the same time, if I ask myself how to follow HN's core principle [1] in relation to this topic, I can't see "don't touch it at all" as right either. It may be an impossible quandary—but it's not in the spirit of this place to take an easy way out; or to put it differently, the easy way out (if one exists) is not in the spirit of this place. What does "curiosity" mean in a context like this? It certainly needs to be more than just a technical dissection of details. I think it has to do with being open to learning. For that we have to be open to each other. And for that, we have to first find some space for the other within ourselves. Comments that have to do with annihilating the other (including in virtual form, such as by defeating them in internet battle) are therefore off-topic in a thread like this, as I posted above. (Edit: there's also a kind of curiosity in walking into the impossible to find out what's doable; and also in taking a different approach with each attempt—which is why my pinned comment in this thread is different from last time.) [1] 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...
- ameminator 3y ago
  You're also absolutely right - I hadn't considered that point of view, and that we also shouldn't be "de facto" censoring subjects. I implore the community here to not ruin the general HN forum with the usual insanity around this subject.
- anovick 3y ago
  I'm sorry, but even if I concede the notion that this piece promotes "intellectual curiosity" in some amount (how much?), this news source is highly biased and has been found to spread fake news especially on the events since October 7th including current war in Gaza. There is real harm in spreading this information. As you may or may not know, mobs and individuals around the world are fed such false narratives that demonize Israelis/Jews. Combine this with either mental illness or religious fundamentalism and you get the kinds of lynching, hateful speech, violence threats, etc. against Israelis/Jews and sympathizers. Is whatever "intellectual curiosity" you think you're promoting with this piece worth the health and lives of innocent people?
  - JoshTko 3y ago
    Are you saying this article is dangerous because it may further engage folks that have been already enraged due to having been misinformation elsewhere to the point it could result in violence? Also how does that compare with the actual harm and health of innocent people mentioned in the article?
    - dang 3y ago
      Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616662 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38618540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38618540. We're trying for a different spirit in this thread.
    - anovick 3y ago
      > Are you saying this article is dangerous because it may further engage folks that have been already enraged due to having been misinformation elsewhere to the point it could result in violence? Yes > Also how does that compare with the actual harm and health of innocent people mentioned in the article? Even if the events as reported in the article are true, they are part of war. Like it or not, Gaza's citizens chose Hamas as their elected government. Said government chose to go start a war with Israel. War is not elegant, and unfortunately innocent citizens on both sides pay the price.
- shashashasha___ 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - kamikazeturtles 3y ago
    "Qatar argues that some its critics misunderstand why it hosts Hamas’s political leaders – which is not so much out of ideological sympathy but because the US has asked it to." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/why-is-qatar-often-a-mediator-and-what-is-its-role-in-israel-hamas-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/why-is-qatar-o...
- drc500free 3y ago
  Al Jazeera is state propaganda run by the Qataris, who also fund Hamas. The one topic that they absolutely cannot provide unbiased commentary on is Israel-Palestine. Picking an AJ article as the jumping off point is akin to picking a Pravda or RT article as the jumping off point to discuss Ukraine-Russia. I think this community is better than most at keeping things analytical, and you're better than any other moderator I've encountered in decades on online communities. But it's not exactly a neutral framing to kick off the discussion. An article about the numerous rapes and tortures committed by Palestinians during October 7th and on the hostages afterwards would likewise not be the most neutral.
  - r00fus 3y ago
    This is conjecture, not facts. Please provide some actual reason why one should see Al Jazeera as a non-serious source. btw, the same was said about the Al Jazeera's reporting on the Iraq occupation, and it was equally false.
    - h3rsko 3y ago
      They still claim the al-Ahli hospital explosion was an Israeli strike where "hundreds were killed." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-source-videos-revealed-about-the-gaza-hospital-explosion https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-sou...
  - megous 3y ago
    Said article is not a commentary. It's pure reporting.
- qwertyfoobar 3y ago
  [flagged]
- pbadams 3y ago
  I think you might be right that encouraging curious discussion of these topics is important to the mission of HN. However, if the moderation approach is going to change, I think it would be better to do so explicitly through changes to the site guidelines rather than in an ad-hoc way. I don't think that this article is covering an 'interesting _new_ phenomenon' (emph. mine) as discussed in the guidelines, and indeed most of the comments are talking about moderation policy or the conflict in general as opposed to the details presented in the article. Perhaps it would be better to have a thread explicitly focused on members of the community engaging with each other as individuals, such as a hypothetical 'Ask HN: How has conflict personally affected you?' or 'Ask HN: How/why have your views on this conflict changed over time?' The stories that the article has to tell are important, but they aren't the thing that people are discussing here. And moderating submissions instead of explicitly discussion-focused posts invites some of the concerns about sourcing and bias that have been raised in other comments.
  - dang 3y ago
    It's not ad hoc, although I realize it looks that way, because the guidelines only cover a few of the principles we go by. The rest are described in the endless (and admittedly rather tedious) stream of moderation comments that I put out, which is why I link to HN Search queries so much. It won't work to add all of them to the guidelines list because that would make the list so long that few would read it, and (worse) it would make it a bureaucratic sort of document that would be most out of sync with the intended spirit. In the long run I (think I) intend to compile those explanations into short (perhaps one paragraph each) glosses on the guidelines, and make it easy to link to. As for most commenters not discussing the details of the OP: you're right. But that may be too much to expect in this case. To be able to discuss this topic at all without combusting is already a lot. That's also, btw, why I left my pinned comment open to replies (something I never do), and why the meta (why is this on HN, etc.) discussion is not downweighted the way it normally would be.
- awesomeMilou 3y ago
  > What does "curiosity" mean in a context like this? It certainly needs to be more than just a technical dissection of details. But then allowing this discussion on here is already misguided. Call me biased, but I don't think you're going to find a ton of experts on international law and the law of nations on a site aimed at technical discussion. Even in qualified circles, this discussion is already heavily biased. I'd argue that in order to discuss topics like these, you ought to have a guided discussion, with experts present to correct polemic statements. (such as the 2nd top comment, that is currently trying to compare international law with laws affecting individuals, which is a gross misinterpretation of the legal situation of this war.) This is how well respected journalists and news outlets do it in my country.
  - dang 3y ago
    I don't think a topic like this can be left to experts, and in any case we don't treat any other topic on HN like that. Of course that means people can be wrong; most of us are mostly wrong about most everything.
dfxm12 3y ago
[flagged]
- dubcanada 3y ago
  There are so few places to talk about it because one side always has a higher footing then the other. There does not exist a place where both sides are taken at 50/50, that doesn't exist for anything politically motivated. So what you get is people who tend to be around the middle, accepting that both sides are at fault. And then you get the extremist views, and those get comments so they jet up to the top. HackerNews is proportionally North American, so you tend to get larger view set from English speaking North Americans. And non-English articles are largely ignored. And neither of these two populations speak English as their first language. So limiting yourself to English limits your view to English speaking view.
- mupuff1234 3y ago
  Statistically that seems quite improbable as Jews are only 0.2% of the worlds population vs the Arab and Muslim world (which majority supports Palestinians) Edit: not to mention the CCP and Russia taking an anti Israel stance as well, both known to conduct massive online campaigns to align with their own agendas.
  - kamikazeturtles 3y ago
    There are a lot of zionist christians and publications are much safer when reporting from a pro-Israel bias. Most muslims don't speak english so if a muslim is commenting about this topic, they're probably one of the few million in one of the english speaking countries.
    - ashirusnw 3y ago
      jews + usa protestant evangelicals (the only Christians that are specifically pro Zionism) are massively outnumbered by Western world Muslims.
      - 3y ago
doom2 3y ago
> I don't think it's possible for a coherent or respectful or even useful conversation to happen here. I've seen some variation of this sentiment both here on HN and elsewhere. It makes me wonder: is the topic so toxic that no conversation can happen at all? If that's the case, what's the appropriate forum for debate? I'd argue that meatspace gathering places tend to not be much better (see: current debate about how this is playing out on college campuses), which has the net effect of chilling any discussion anywhere. That leaves op-ed pages, blog posts, Substacks, places where people can broadcast their opinion to the world...but not have to engage on it whatsoever. That doesn't feel like a great alternative to at least attempting to create space to talk about it.
- ameminator 3y ago
  Believe it or not, you're argument strongly resonated with me. However: >It makes me wonder: is the topic so toxic that no conversation can happen at all? I believe that the topic is so toxic and emotionally charged that it's almost impossible to have meaningful conversation about it. It's the "abortion" of geopolitics, where everyone is emotionally invested in their own way, distrusts/hates the other side or has such absolute positions that there is no point in arguing. Now, it may still be worth the attempt (which I believe is the HN moderators' position on this matter). You have a really strong point that we should put in the effort to make space for this type of conversation. Unfortunately, all the evidence has convinced me that "polite, productive conversation" and "Israel/Palestine conflict" are mutually exclusive. I see Hacker News as a tech-related with some general interest forum. I appreciate the high standards of dialogue and commentary on this website as well as the "intellectual exploration"-esque philosophy behind it. If a topic cannot conform to the above standard, I don't think it should be here - and that's out of necessity, to protect the environment of intellectual openness here. Unfortunately, it may also be true that it's hard to find an alternative space to discuss this in society, that perhaps friends and family or your local community is not open to this discussion. That sites like Reddit are not great places for this discussion. But HN cannot be the "everything" place and it's in this spirit that I think we should strongly consider limiting how much of this topic we welcome here, in the interest of protecting at least one great place for tech-related (with some general interest) intellectual pursuits. I will let you be the judge - do you really find the rest of this thread constructive?
emmelaich 3y ago
Mostly agree but this particular discussion seems ok. Well done @dang.
aluminum96 3y ago
Absolutely agree. Civil online discourse about the I/P conflict is impossible, and at this point we're just beating a dead horse.
_HMCB_ 3y ago
I disagree. Bringing this to light even without discussion has merit. We are all members of the human race and I for one am grateful it was posted.
neonsunset 3y ago
Many of us are with you but mod staff and PG have a different opinion :)

93po 3y ago

As long as it's contained to a single place, people can choose to not click it and read other stuff and i think that's fine

dang 3y ago

Yes, you're of course right—and at the same time, if I ask myself how to follow HN's core principle [1] in relation to this topic, I can't see "don't touch it at all" as right either. It may be an impossible quandary—but it's not in the spirit of this place to take an easy way out; or to put it differently, the easy way out (if one exists) is not in the spirit of this place. What does "curiosity" mean in a context like this? It certainly needs to be more than just a technical dissection of details. I think it has to do with being open to learning. For that we have to be open to each other. And for that, we have to first find some space for the other within ourselves. Comments that have to do with annihilating the other (including in virtual form, such as by defeating them in internet battle) are therefore off-topic in a thread like this, as I posted above. (Edit: there's also a kind of curiosity in walking into the impossible to find out what's doable; and also in taking a different approach with each attempt—which is why my pinned comment in this thread is different from last time.) [1] 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...

ameminator 3y ago
You're also absolutely right - I hadn't considered that point of view, and that we also shouldn't be "de facto" censoring subjects. I implore the community here to not ruin the general HN forum with the usual insanity around this subject.
anovick 3y ago
I'm sorry, but even if I concede the notion that this piece promotes "intellectual curiosity" in some amount (how much?), this news source is highly biased and has been found to spread fake news especially on the events since October 7th including current war in Gaza. There is real harm in spreading this information. As you may or may not know, mobs and individuals around the world are fed such false narratives that demonize Israelis/Jews. Combine this with either mental illness or religious fundamentalism and you get the kinds of lynching, hateful speech, violence threats, etc. against Israelis/Jews and sympathizers. Is whatever "intellectual curiosity" you think you're promoting with this piece worth the health and lives of innocent people?
- JoshTko 3y ago
  Are you saying this article is dangerous because it may further engage folks that have been already enraged due to having been misinformation elsewhere to the point it could result in violence? Also how does that compare with the actual harm and health of innocent people mentioned in the article?
  - dang 3y ago
    Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616662 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38618540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38618540. We're trying for a different spirit in this thread.
  - anovick 3y ago
    > Are you saying this article is dangerous because it may further engage folks that have been already enraged due to having been misinformation elsewhere to the point it could result in violence? Yes > Also how does that compare with the actual harm and health of innocent people mentioned in the article? Even if the events as reported in the article are true, they are part of war. Like it or not, Gaza's citizens chose Hamas as their elected government. Said government chose to go start a war with Israel. War is not elegant, and unfortunately innocent citizens on both sides pay the price.
shashashasha___ 3y ago
[flagged]
- kamikazeturtles 3y ago
  "Qatar argues that some its critics misunderstand why it hosts Hamas’s political leaders – which is not so much out of ideological sympathy but because the US has asked it to." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/why-is-qatar-often-a-mediator-and-what-is-its-role-in-israel-hamas-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/why-is-qatar-o...
drc500free 3y ago
Al Jazeera is state propaganda run by the Qataris, who also fund Hamas. The one topic that they absolutely cannot provide unbiased commentary on is Israel-Palestine. Picking an AJ article as the jumping off point is akin to picking a Pravda or RT article as the jumping off point to discuss Ukraine-Russia. I think this community is better than most at keeping things analytical, and you're better than any other moderator I've encountered in decades on online communities. But it's not exactly a neutral framing to kick off the discussion. An article about the numerous rapes and tortures committed by Palestinians during October 7th and on the hostages afterwards would likewise not be the most neutral.
- r00fus 3y ago
  This is conjecture, not facts. Please provide some actual reason why one should see Al Jazeera as a non-serious source. btw, the same was said about the Al Jazeera's reporting on the Iraq occupation, and it was equally false.
  - h3rsko 3y ago
    They still claim the al-Ahli hospital explosion was an Israeli strike where "hundreds were killed." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-source-videos-revealed-about-the-gaza-hospital-explosion https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-sou...
- megous 3y ago
  Said article is not a commentary. It's pure reporting.
qwertyfoobar 3y ago
[flagged]
pbadams 3y ago
I think you might be right that encouraging curious discussion of these topics is important to the mission of HN. However, if the moderation approach is going to change, I think it would be better to do so explicitly through changes to the site guidelines rather than in an ad-hoc way. I don't think that this article is covering an 'interesting _new_ phenomenon' (emph. mine) as discussed in the guidelines, and indeed most of the comments are talking about moderation policy or the conflict in general as opposed to the details presented in the article. Perhaps it would be better to have a thread explicitly focused on members of the community engaging with each other as individuals, such as a hypothetical 'Ask HN: How has conflict personally affected you?' or 'Ask HN: How/why have your views on this conflict changed over time?' The stories that the article has to tell are important, but they aren't the thing that people are discussing here. And moderating submissions instead of explicitly discussion-focused posts invites some of the concerns about sourcing and bias that have been raised in other comments.
- dang 3y ago
  It's not ad hoc, although I realize it looks that way, because the guidelines only cover a few of the principles we go by. The rest are described in the endless (and admittedly rather tedious) stream of moderation comments that I put out, which is why I link to HN Search queries so much. It won't work to add all of them to the guidelines list because that would make the list so long that few would read it, and (worse) it would make it a bureaucratic sort of document that would be most out of sync with the intended spirit. In the long run I (think I) intend to compile those explanations into short (perhaps one paragraph each) glosses on the guidelines, and make it easy to link to. As for most commenters not discussing the details of the OP: you're right. But that may be too much to expect in this case. To be able to discuss this topic at all without combusting is already a lot. That's also, btw, why I left my pinned comment open to replies (something I never do), and why the meta (why is this on HN, etc.) discussion is not downweighted the way it normally would be.
awesomeMilou 3y ago
> What does "curiosity" mean in a context like this? It certainly needs to be more than just a technical dissection of details. But then allowing this discussion on here is already misguided. Call me biased, but I don't think you're going to find a ton of experts on international law and the law of nations on a site aimed at technical discussion. Even in qualified circles, this discussion is already heavily biased. I'd argue that in order to discuss topics like these, you ought to have a guided discussion, with experts present to correct polemic statements. (such as the 2nd top comment, that is currently trying to compare international law with laws affecting individuals, which is a gross misinterpretation of the legal situation of this war.) This is how well respected journalists and news outlets do it in my country.
- dang 3y ago
  I don't think a topic like this can be left to experts, and in any case we don't treat any other topic on HN like that. Of course that means people can be wrong; most of us are mostly wrong about most everything.

dfxm12 3y ago

[flagged]

dubcanada 3y ago
There are so few places to talk about it because one side always has a higher footing then the other. There does not exist a place where both sides are taken at 50/50, that doesn't exist for anything politically motivated. So what you get is people who tend to be around the middle, accepting that both sides are at fault. And then you get the extremist views, and those get comments so they jet up to the top. HackerNews is proportionally North American, so you tend to get larger view set from English speaking North Americans. And non-English articles are largely ignored. And neither of these two populations speak English as their first language. So limiting yourself to English limits your view to English speaking view.
mupuff1234 3y ago
Statistically that seems quite improbable as Jews are only 0.2% of the worlds population vs the Arab and Muslim world (which majority supports Palestinians) Edit: not to mention the CCP and Russia taking an anti Israel stance as well, both known to conduct massive online campaigns to align with their own agendas.
- kamikazeturtles 3y ago
  There are a lot of zionist christians and publications are much safer when reporting from a pro-Israel bias. Most muslims don't speak english so if a muslim is commenting about this topic, they're probably one of the few million in one of the english speaking countries.
  - ashirusnw 3y ago
    jews + usa protestant evangelicals (the only Christians that are specifically pro Zionism) are massively outnumbered by Western world Muslims.
    - 3y ago

doom2 3y ago

> I don't think it's possible for a coherent or respectful or even useful conversation to happen here. I've seen some variation of this sentiment both here on HN and elsewhere. It makes me wonder: is the topic so toxic that no conversation can happen at all? If that's the case, what's the appropriate forum for debate? I'd argue that meatspace gathering places tend to not be much better (see: current debate about how this is playing out on college campuses), which has the net effect of chilling any discussion anywhere. That leaves op-ed pages, blog posts, Substacks, places where people can broadcast their opinion to the world...but not have to engage on it whatsoever. That doesn't feel like a great alternative to at least attempting to create space to talk about it.

ameminator 3y ago
Believe it or not, you're argument strongly resonated with me. However: >It makes me wonder: is the topic so toxic that no conversation can happen at all? I believe that the topic is so toxic and emotionally charged that it's almost impossible to have meaningful conversation about it. It's the "abortion" of geopolitics, where everyone is emotionally invested in their own way, distrusts/hates the other side or has such absolute positions that there is no point in arguing. Now, it may still be worth the attempt (which I believe is the HN moderators' position on this matter). You have a really strong point that we should put in the effort to make space for this type of conversation. Unfortunately, all the evidence has convinced me that "polite, productive conversation" and "Israel/Palestine conflict" are mutually exclusive. I see Hacker News as a tech-related with some general interest forum. I appreciate the high standards of dialogue and commentary on this website as well as the "intellectual exploration"-esque philosophy behind it. If a topic cannot conform to the above standard, I don't think it should be here - and that's out of necessity, to protect the environment of intellectual openness here. Unfortunately, it may also be true that it's hard to find an alternative space to discuss this in society, that perhaps friends and family or your local community is not open to this discussion. That sites like Reddit are not great places for this discussion. But HN cannot be the "everything" place and it's in this spirit that I think we should strongly consider limiting how much of this topic we welcome here, in the interest of protecting at least one great place for tech-related (with some general interest) intellectual pursuits. I will let you be the judge - do you really find the rest of this thread constructive?

emmelaich 3y ago

Mostly agree but this particular discussion seems ok. Well done @dang.

aluminum96 3y ago

Absolutely agree. Civil online discourse about the I/P conflict is impossible, and at this point we're just beating a dead horse.

_HMCB_ 3y ago

I disagree. Bringing this to light even without discussion has merit. We are all members of the human race and I for one am grateful it was posted.

neonsunset 3y ago

Many of us are with you but mod staff and PG have a different opinion :)