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Flagging this submission should lead to its removal. I'm very disappointed that HN allows political topics now. It's well-known that discussion of one-sided art

Flagging this submission should lead to its removal. I'm very disappointed that HN allows political topics now. It's well-known that discussion of one-sided articles like this one doesn't lead to good discussions. It's clearly political, and, even worse, based on a one-sided submission pointing to Al Jazeera, which is driven by ideology and known for publishing way more radical articles in Arabic than in English. The best thing is to remove the whole submission. In the absence of removing the thread, I feel morally obliged to represent the other side. According to a recent survey in the West Bank around 80% of all Palestinians in the West Bank support the October 7 attacks.[1] This may explain why the IDF is not always friendly towards Gaza prisoners and by default assumes they're Hamas members or sympathizers. [1] https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20Opinion%20Poll%20-%20Gaza%20War%202023%20-%20Tables%20of%20Results.pdf https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20...

magic123_ 3y ago
So the logic here is, because 80% of a population living in an open air prison for several decades support attacks on the people oppressing them, they deserve to be tortured?
- jonathanstrange 3y ago
  What a weird way to misinterpret what I've stated. Of course, I'm against torturing people, even if they support burning whole families alive, kidnapping children and elderly, raping women, shooting parents in front of their children, etc.
  - magic123_ 3y ago
    Ironic that you describe what's been going on in gaza for years.
wahnfrieden 3y ago
Politics threads are common here and allowed. I see several right now on the front page.
- jonathanstrange 3y ago
  To quote HN's guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." That's not the complaint, though, me and many others are complaining that flagging that particular story seems to have been overridden manually, since it's almost certain that the story has been flagged very often. I surely have flagged it because of the above guideline, and many similar stories have been flagged and removed in the past. Luckily. HN is not the right medium for discussions of such topics. It's sad that Dang chose the most flamebait topic possible for an already dubious experiment.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    HN moderators do often protect legitimate threads against flag-brigades. HN is the right medium for those topics circumstantially, as the rule says, and as reported by moderator. Please stop pretending to be an authority on rules out of your personal displeasure. I don't appreciate being called out for rule-breaking when moderation has clarified that it is acceptable per standards.
    - jonathanstrange 3y ago
      It's just the personal opinion of one moderator, contradicting published rules, and I disagree with the decision and your opinions about it. It's ruining everything I like about HN, and I don't want another social medium going down the drain after the /. debacle.
      - dang 3y ago
        I just wanted to say that I hear you, I understand (at least partly) how you feel, and I'm sorry it landed this way. I don't think I agree that the decision "contradicted published rules", but insofar as I have to interpret the rules and in a case like this that is inevitably and intensely personal, you're not wrong to say "personal opinion of one moderator". The experience of this thread was brutal, and of course it would have been so much easier to avoid it, but I don't think avoidance serves HN's purpose in the long run. Anyhow, I appreciate your contributions to HN and I hope the positive will outweigh the negative in the long run.
dang 3y ago
Some political topics have always been allowed on HN. If you want to know how we think about this, there are lots of past explanations at 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.... If you look at some of those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a look. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38617796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38617796 in this thread, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 for the history of "HN is getting too political" perceptions.
gigel82 3y ago
We'd all like fair, subjective reporting from this region but with one side's track record of killing journalists, not only Al Jazeera's[1] but also Associated Press[2], Reuters[3], and many others[4] I guess we'll have to take what we can get. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_al-Jalaa_Building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_al-Jalaa_Buildi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Simone_Camilli_and_Ali_Shehda_Abu_Afash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Simone_Camilli_and_A... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issam_Abdallah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issam_Abdallah [4] https://cpj.org/reports/2023/05/deadly-pattern-20-journalists-died-by-israeli-military-fire-in-22-years-no-one-has-been-held-accountable/ https://cpj.org/reports/2023/05/deadly-pattern-20-journalist... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_during_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_dur... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...
- jonathanstrange 3y ago
  On the contrary, nobody should allow Hamas to make things up or rely on unreliable and extremely biased sources like Al Jazeera, and take that "for what you get" without any critical examination because journalists have been killed in a combat zone. That's not how to obtain reliable information. The real problem with political threads like this on HN is that HN has no way of muting individual persons. This is not good for anyone. Normally, I'd just mute your account and go on, that's how I deal with bad faith arguers on Reddit and it works great. Alas, HN doesn't have this possibility, so they really need to avoid flamebait topics like this one.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    I will continue to post such material as long as I have moderator support to do so. I think there's more to it than "flamewar"
    - 3y ago

magic123_ 3y ago

So the logic here is, because 80% of a population living in an open air prison for several decades support attacks on the people oppressing them, they deserve to be tortured?

jonathanstrange 3y ago
What a weird way to misinterpret what I've stated. Of course, I'm against torturing people, even if they support burning whole families alive, kidnapping children and elderly, raping women, shooting parents in front of their children, etc.
- magic123_ 3y ago
  Ironic that you describe what's been going on in gaza for years.

wahnfrieden 3y ago

Politics threads are common here and allowed. I see several right now on the front page.

jonathanstrange 3y ago
To quote HN's guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." That's not the complaint, though, me and many others are complaining that flagging that particular story seems to have been overridden manually, since it's almost certain that the story has been flagged very often. I surely have flagged it because of the above guideline, and many similar stories have been flagged and removed in the past. Luckily. HN is not the right medium for discussions of such topics. It's sad that Dang chose the most flamebait topic possible for an already dubious experiment.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  HN moderators do often protect legitimate threads against flag-brigades. HN is the right medium for those topics circumstantially, as the rule says, and as reported by moderator. Please stop pretending to be an authority on rules out of your personal displeasure. I don't appreciate being called out for rule-breaking when moderation has clarified that it is acceptable per standards.
  - jonathanstrange 3y ago
    It's just the personal opinion of one moderator, contradicting published rules, and I disagree with the decision and your opinions about it. It's ruining everything I like about HN, and I don't want another social medium going down the drain after the /. debacle.
    - dang 3y ago
      I just wanted to say that I hear you, I understand (at least partly) how you feel, and I'm sorry it landed this way. I don't think I agree that the decision "contradicted published rules", but insofar as I have to interpret the rules and in a case like this that is inevitably and intensely personal, you're not wrong to say "personal opinion of one moderator". The experience of this thread was brutal, and of course it would have been so much easier to avoid it, but I don't think avoidance serves HN's purpose in the long run. Anyhow, I appreciate your contributions to HN and I hope the positive will outweigh the negative in the long run.

dang 3y ago

Some political topics have always been allowed on HN. If you want to know how we think about this, there are lots of past explanations at 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.... If you look at some of those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a look. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38617796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38617796 in this thread, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 for the history of "HN is getting too political" perceptions.

gigel82 3y ago

We'd all like fair, subjective reporting from this region but with one side's track record of killing journalists, not only Al Jazeera's[1] but also Associated Press[2], Reuters[3], and many others[4] I guess we'll have to take what we can get. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_al-Jalaa_Building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_al-Jalaa_Buildi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Simone_Camilli_and_Ali_Shehda_Abu_Afash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Simone_Camilli_and_A... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issam_Abdallah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issam_Abdallah [4] https://cpj.org/reports/2023/05/deadly-pattern-20-journalists-died-by-israeli-military-fire-in-22-years-no-one-has-been-held-accountable/ https://cpj.org/reports/2023/05/deadly-pattern-20-journalist... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_during_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_dur... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...

jonathanstrange 3y ago
On the contrary, nobody should allow Hamas to make things up or rely on unreliable and extremely biased sources like Al Jazeera, and take that "for what you get" without any critical examination because journalists have been killed in a combat zone. That's not how to obtain reliable information. The real problem with political threads like this on HN is that HN has no way of muting individual persons. This is not good for anyone. Normally, I'd just mute your account and go on, that's how I deal with bad faith arguers on Reddit and it works great. Alas, HN doesn't have this possibility, so they really need to avoid flamebait topics like this one.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  I will continue to post such material as long as I have moderator support to do so. I think there's more to it than "flamewar"
  - 3y ago