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I hate this idea that discussion on HN is inherently "better" or "more civilised" than in other forums. Some HN users will say the most outrageous things but wi

I hate this idea that discussion on HN is inherently "better" or "more civilised" than in other forums. Some HN users will say the most outrageous things but with a superficial layer of "civility". Parts of this site were a cesspool during the pandemic. No matter your position on it, discussion was of really low quality. Certain other emotionally charged topics (anything Apple, anything politics related, Elon Musk) also attract really bad discussion. By and large, humans suck and aren't capable of reasonable debate when emotion runs high, and this place is no exception.

matheusmoreira 3y ago
Nothing particularly wrong with saying "outrageous" things if that's what you personally believe. People should be able to just speak their minds in good faith without shame. If others don't like those ideas, oh well. They're not invalidated by being "outrageous". Discussion here is certainly a lot better than many other places on the internet that will just straight up ban you if you post ideas the moderators consider wrongthink. Moderation here has been pretty fair. I don't generally see people getting censored here. Sometimes discussions get out of hand and dang asks people to stop reducing the quality of the site. That's absolutely fine and they're actually quite nice about it.
- Tainnor 3y ago
  > Nothing particularly wrong with saying "outrageous" things if that's what you personally believe. You can have that opinion, but I'll just point out that there's enough people who feel alienated if straight up racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, islamophobia or endorsement of terrorist organisations are tolerated. Maybe you feel that these people just shouldn't participate on this site, but I'd much rather the bigots didn't participate. Either way, it's a choice. > Discussion here is certainly a lot better than many other places on the internet [...] No, I disagree, it's just different. People are biased everywhere, it's just that HN users tend to have different biases than, say, certain subreddits.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Nothing particularly wrong with saying "outrageous" things if that's what you personally believe. People should be able to just speak their minds in good faith without shame. If others don't like those ideas, oh well. They're not invalidated by being "outrageous". Discussion here is certainly a lot better than many other places on the internet that will just straight up ban you if you post ideas the moderators consider wrongthink. Moderation here has been pretty fair. I don't generally see people getting censored here. Sometimes discussions get out of hand and dang asks people to stop reducing the quality of the site. That's absolutely fine and they're actually quite nice about it.

Tainnor 3y ago
> Nothing particularly wrong with saying "outrageous" things if that's what you personally believe. You can have that opinion, but I'll just point out that there's enough people who feel alienated if straight up racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, islamophobia or endorsement of terrorist organisations are tolerated. Maybe you feel that these people just shouldn't participate on this site, but I'd much rather the bigots didn't participate. Either way, it's a choice. > Discussion here is certainly a lot better than many other places on the internet [...] No, I disagree, it's just different. People are biased everywhere, it's just that HN users tend to have different biases than, say, certain subreddits.