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> if anyone else is surprised by the lack of coverage on the front page with regards to the recent wars HN user for 10(?) years. It's not surprising at all to

by mtmail 1y ago

> if anyone else is surprised by the lack of coverage on the front page with regards to the recent wars HN user for 10(?) years. It's not surprising at all to me. It's off-topic here. Plenty of other websites cover the stories, TV covers it. I come here to escape the 24/7 news cycle. Celebrity deaths hardly make the frontpage, if the inventor of an operating system dies you'll top spot and 2000 comments. It's not that users don't care, it's more the expectation that people get their news from multiple sources (websites, aggregator, forums) and not every forum needs to cover all topics.

hdhdhdbrn 1y ago
[flagged]
sillyfluke 1y ago
>It's off-topic here. Per the guidelines, this is not exactly true. The guidelines make exceptions for political stories that are "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." It is up for debate whether stories about a country the entire tech industry and VC apparatus relies on sliding into autocracy is "evidence of some interesting phenomenon". An argument can certainly be made. If the bond markets are wobbling and tech stocks are being manipulated due to said phenomena I think it's silly to claim it's off-topic as a whole. Someone said a few years back that nearly half of the yc batch were non-US. It would be ridiculous to claim that the stories that make them reconsider starting a company in the US is strictly "off-topic". Based on the guidelines, I see no reason why the official moderators would object to stories that show the naked intent of the executive branch to destroy any checks on its power coming from all other branches of government and consistently displaying admiration for autocratic goverments and leaders across the world while doing so, as stories that show evidence of US regime change would be "evidence of some new interesting phenomenon". I think the main reason is not the stories being off-topic by themselves but moreso that the moderators believe they will trigger flamewars and low-value comments, so they act preemptively, as flamebait is also against guidelines. This clearly shows that the moderators do not trust the HN community with these stories. This is not surprising as "previous behavior predicts future behavior" is an oft-repeated YC adage. If those threads were filled with substantive comments from lawyers, fired federal workers, scientists, immigrants personally affected by the policies, I think the moderators would reconsider their status. I can't help wonder though if and when it becomes clear that the longterm and second-order effects of the current admin have detrimentaly dented the US's innovative edge, whether the HN moderators will be satified with their muting of the discussion when they look back on their moderation. As Saul Bellow once said, "if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining."
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  The 17th story about the country sliding into autocracy is not "evidence of some interesting phenomenon". It may have been interesting for the first story. Less so for the second. By now? Not interesting (in the HN sense). And, it's not the moderators, or at least not mostly. It's the users who are flagging stories, because the users have seen them turn into flamefests too often. In fact, the moderators (at least sometimes) rescue such stories from the user flags.

by mtmail 1y ago

hdhdhdbrn 1y ago

[flagged]

sillyfluke 1y ago

>It's off-topic here. Per the guidelines, this is not exactly true. The guidelines make exceptions for political stories that are "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." It is up for debate whether stories about a country the entire tech industry and VC apparatus relies on sliding into autocracy is "evidence of some interesting phenomenon". An argument can certainly be made. If the bond markets are wobbling and tech stocks are being manipulated due to said phenomena I think it's silly to claim it's off-topic as a whole. Someone said a few years back that nearly half of the yc batch were non-US. It would be ridiculous to claim that the stories that make them reconsider starting a company in the US is strictly "off-topic". Based on the guidelines, I see no reason why the official moderators would object to stories that show the naked intent of the executive branch to destroy any checks on its power coming from all other branches of government and consistently displaying admiration for autocratic goverments and leaders across the world while doing so, as stories that show evidence of US regime change would be "evidence of some new interesting phenomenon". I think the main reason is not the stories being off-topic by themselves but moreso that the moderators believe they will trigger flamewars and low-value comments, so they act preemptively, as flamebait is also against guidelines. This clearly shows that the moderators do not trust the HN community with these stories. This is not surprising as "previous behavior predicts future behavior" is an oft-repeated YC adage. If those threads were filled with substantive comments from lawyers, fired federal workers, scientists, immigrants personally affected by the policies, I think the moderators would reconsider their status. I can't help wonder though if and when it becomes clear that the longterm and second-order effects of the current admin have detrimentaly dented the US's innovative edge, whether the HN moderators will be satified with their muting of the discussion when they look back on their moderation. As Saul Bellow once said, "if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining."

AnimalMuppet 1y ago
The 17th story about the country sliding into autocracy is not "evidence of some interesting phenomenon". It may have been interesting for the first story. Less so for the second. By now? Not interesting (in the HN sense). And, it's not the moderators, or at least not mostly. It's the users who are flagging stories, because the users have seen them turn into flamefests too often. In fact, the moderators (at least sometimes) rescue such stories from the user flags.