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I've been wondering, why isn't /active in the top nav bar?
by zahlman 1y ago
I've been wondering, why isn't /active in the top nav bar?
- tekla 1y agoHN is tries (and mostly succeeds) to discourage controversial topics.
- akerl_ 1y agoDoes it? The rules seem to suggest that the intent is to discourage arguments and grandstanding in favor of discussions, and many controversial topics and posts tend to end up as shouting matches in the comments.
- monero-xmr 1y agoI could name 10 widely held societal opinions that would instantly get flagged and likely your account banned if you mention a few times. Very hive mind place here
- akerl_ 1y agoCan you cite any evidence of anybody being banned for the societal opinions they’ve expressed here?
- monero-xmr 1y agoHN wants polite discussion which lends itself well to science and technology topics. Get farther away into history or politics where opinion comes in, then it becomes impossible to debate because arguments that disagree with the hive mind (upper middle class, intelligent, center-left technology professionals) get downvoted and flagged because of popularity. This just isn’t a site for arguing politics, if you do it too much with opinions different from the hive mind you get banned for disruptive behavior
- akerl_ 1y agoDid you mean to post this as a reply elsewhere? You made the claim that people are banned for certain opinions and I asked for more information on that.
- monero-xmr 1y agoI’m not going to cite evidence, the evidence is my lived experience posting controversial opinions here for years. Try it yourself and see!
- akerl_ 1y agoExcept… you aren’t banned?
- monero-xmr 1y agoYou will get banned if you speak too controversially, but the bigger issue is you get downvoted for wrong-think, but that’s the nature of HN and probably why it has survived so long
- akerl_ 1y agoCan you cite any example of anyone being banned ever for voicing a controversial opinion?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 1y agoThese guys are never able to cite examples. Every time the conversation comes up, they fly in with a vague innuendo, "oh, you know those topics--I'm not going to say it!" plus a "trust me bro" and then fly off without actually getting specific.
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- tayo42 1y agoWhat opinions do you want to share that are going to get you banned here?
- monero-xmr 1y agoWhich controversial topic do you want to hear my hot take on?
- akerl_ 1y agoMy bet is that what gets people banned is repeatedly being disrespectful or rude, not the opinions they’re disrespectful or rude about. We have a great example via the flagged reply in this comment tree, where somebody is complaining about being silenced and their example is full of rambling invective yelling at the moderator.
- tayo42 1y agoI'm just curious what opinions you hold that will get you banned for typing them out.
- torben-friis 1y agoReligious wars like emacs vs vim are common, so that kind of controversy shows up, but for example anything related to Elon tends to get insta buried. Basically the topics you might see in mainstream news are usually out.
- akerl_ 1y ago> Basically the topics you might see in mainstream news are usually out. Well yea, that’s officially part of the 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.” https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- torben-friis 1y agoI meant before the DOGE stuff: the technical discussions on his claims about Tesla’s future capabilities, purchase of twitter and latter management, etc. I am generally very happy with HN’s moderation, but I do feel some borderline topics that have been banned or buried missed interesting discussion. I don’t fault those responsible for not wanting to deal with the potential mess though.
- afavour 1y agoIt’s a shame. I distinctly remember a DOGE topic about assertions Musk was making that were easily explained by COBOL oddities. There was a great discussion about it here with knowledgable folks chiming in. And then it got flagged into oblivion. Mainstream news covered it but without any of the knowledge HN users had.
- zahlman 1y agoI tend to flag submissions about these kinds of political topics because it becomes clear in context that they're being submitted primarily to provide space for complaining about a political outgroup. This never leads anywhere productive. Best case, everyone agrees and they just stew about how awful the world supposedly is. Common case, people are forced to confront the fact that other people have different values, cultural assumptions etc. and can reasonably come to wildly different conclusions, even starting from the same evidence, because a lot of this is nowhere near as objective a matter as it appears. Worst case, the disagreeing people in the hated outgroup also feel that their position has been grossly misrepresented in the submission.
- tptacek 1y agoIt's been under /lists practically since the site started, when /lists was just a dump of interesting rollups 'pg could think of. There's probably less thought put into its placement than you think.