5 ms·

With the risk of sounding naive: How come this post is flagged? Reading the guidelines I can't see how this is off-topic or does _not_ "[gratify] one's intelle

With the risk of sounding naive: How come this post is flagged? Reading the guidelines I can't see how this is off-topic or does _not_ "[gratify] one's intellectual curiosity." Edit: spelling

ruicraveiro 4mo ago
My thoughts exactly.
g-b-r 4mo ago
And it's not even possible to vouch fot it
- krapp 4mo ago
  If you could, you would just lose vouching privileges.
- WithinReason 4mo ago
  It's not possible to vouch for articles that are not dead
  - GeoAtreides 4mo ago
    what a lovely loophole
    - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
      Comments, when they say "flagged", are also dead. But articles say "flagged" for some number of flags, but they aren't dead yet. It takes more flags to kill them. "Flagged" is just a notification that an article has received some flags, but it doesn't actually change anything yet.
      - GeoAtreides 4mo ago
        wrong, [flagged] removes it from the front page
maratc 4mo ago
I guess it falls under "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics".
krapp 4mo ago
[flagged]
- karmakurtisaani 4mo ago
  This, and the good old "The Torment Nexus is now complete and operational, check out the cool tech they used to muffle out the screaming!"
  - soco 4mo ago
    Given there's a lot of the audience here being actively involved in building said Torment Nexus, it's not a surprise that discussing it can generate friction. Like Upton Sinclair so nicely put it: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
- ngruhn 4mo ago
  > Welcome to Hacker News. Blood in the streets doesn't spark curious conversation so let's talk about compilers! Probably for the better. Otherwise it quickly becomes politics all day everyday. There are plenty of other places where you can get that already.
  - krapp 4mo ago
    >Otherwise it quickly becomes politics all day everyday. No, it doesn't. This is one of Hacker News' weird phobias but it doesn't reflect reality. I know the mods believe it too so there's no point in debating it but even Reddit isn't politics all day every day. The nature of the community here is a self-correcting mechanism. This thread is not a flamewar, the posted article isn't low quality (certainly not on a forum where posting Twitter posts and Wikipedia articles is allowed,) and it poses literally no threat to the community, but HN still treats it like a cancer.
    - maratc 4mo ago
      > The nature of the community here is a self-correcting mechanism. It looks like the community has deployed its self-correcting mechanism in this case.
Hizonner 4mo ago
[flagged]
tomhow 4mo ago
We’ve turned off the flags. The story was flagged by many users. The problem with articles like this is the discussions are repetitive and predictable. We rarely see anyone approaching them with genuine curiosity. The topic of whether this president and administration are befitting of particular labels and historical analogies has been continually discussed (in broader society and on HN) since about 2015. And in the discussions we generally just see people trying to justify why they believe what they already believed about the topic, sometimes quite belligerently. This is why discussions about politics are generally bad on online forums (and considered to be best avoided at dinner parties); it’s a domain in which people’s belief about the topic is deeply entangled with their identity, and by definition, people get defensive and hostile when their identity is thrown into question. Thus, they work much harder to justify why they were already right about the topic, instead of seeking to learn anything new. The kind of politics discussion that would be good to see much more of on HN would explore the question: if we were to agree that the state of politics globally is terrible (I certainly do), what actions can ordinary people like us working in technology do to make things better?
- mindslight 4mo ago
  The "discussions" are repetitive because the sparks of curious and constructive discussion are shouted down or used up by people who just want to rail against the framing. If you want to support intellectually curious discussion, then letting whole topics get shut down because they are partisan-inflammatory is the wrong thing to do - this merely supports the dynamic of the hecklers' veto. Rather you need to police the partisan disruptors better. There is a reason there is no downvoting on submissions, right? And yet we've now gotten to a place where submission flags have become an effective downvote. I don't know if this particular post would have generated thoughtful discussion, but I do know that only seeing this submission by chance a day later all of the interest has passed it by.
  - tomhow 4mo ago
    Let's consider your own contributions to this thread, most notably this one: > At this point, it's is just basic table stakes discussion context for anybody who loves individual liberty or believes in the Constitution and limited government. If you're still unable to even entertain the idea, then you're part of the problem. Based on your touchstone strawmen of "leftists", "radical", and "activists", it sounds like you've got a heavy case of TDS - the real TDS, not the accusation-in-a-mirror version. I understand you feel strongly about the topic, and from the frenetic tone in most of your comments, deeply feel a sense of urgency and peril. I'm sympathetic to that feeling, I really am. But it still breaks the guidelines, all while you assert that it's our job to make these threads orderly: > you need to police the partisan disruptors better The problem is everyone believes they are reasonable, moderate ones and that their opponents are the "partisan disruptors" who need to be policed. From a moderation point of view, there's no winning in “policing” people on issues that are deeply entangled with their personal identity or their sense of physical safety. (And that's before you even contemplate the perversity of appealing for greater “policing” of a discussion about this, of all topics.) Our role is to uphold the guidelines, no matter the side, and topics that are repetitive and that inevitably attract comments like your very own are very well established as being against the guidelines.

With the risk of sounding naive: How come this post is flagged? Reading the guidelines I can't see how this is off-topic or does _not_ "[gratify] one's intellectual curiosity." Edit: spelling

ruicraveiro 4mo ago

My thoughts exactly.

g-b-r 4mo ago

And it's not even possible to vouch fot it

krapp 4mo ago
If you could, you would just lose vouching privileges.
WithinReason 4mo ago
It's not possible to vouch for articles that are not dead
- GeoAtreides 4mo ago
  what a lovely loophole
  - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
    Comments, when they say "flagged", are also dead. But articles say "flagged" for some number of flags, but they aren't dead yet. It takes more flags to kill them. "Flagged" is just a notification that an article has received some flags, but it doesn't actually change anything yet.
    - GeoAtreides 4mo ago
      wrong, [flagged] removes it from the front page

maratc 4mo ago

I guess it falls under "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics".

krapp 4mo ago

[flagged]

karmakurtisaani 4mo ago
This, and the good old "The Torment Nexus is now complete and operational, check out the cool tech they used to muffle out the screaming!"
- soco 4mo ago
  Given there's a lot of the audience here being actively involved in building said Torment Nexus, it's not a surprise that discussing it can generate friction. Like Upton Sinclair so nicely put it: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
ngruhn 4mo ago
> Welcome to Hacker News. Blood in the streets doesn't spark curious conversation so let's talk about compilers! Probably for the better. Otherwise it quickly becomes politics all day everyday. There are plenty of other places where you can get that already.
- krapp 4mo ago
  >Otherwise it quickly becomes politics all day everyday. No, it doesn't. This is one of Hacker News' weird phobias but it doesn't reflect reality. I know the mods believe it too so there's no point in debating it but even Reddit isn't politics all day every day. The nature of the community here is a self-correcting mechanism. This thread is not a flamewar, the posted article isn't low quality (certainly not on a forum where posting Twitter posts and Wikipedia articles is allowed,) and it poses literally no threat to the community, but HN still treats it like a cancer.
  - maratc 4mo ago
    > The nature of the community here is a self-correcting mechanism. It looks like the community has deployed its self-correcting mechanism in this case.

Hizonner 4mo ago

[flagged]

tomhow 4mo ago

We’ve turned off the flags. The story was flagged by many users. The problem with articles like this is the discussions are repetitive and predictable. We rarely see anyone approaching them with genuine curiosity. The topic of whether this president and administration are befitting of particular labels and historical analogies has been continually discussed (in broader society and on HN) since about 2015. And in the discussions we generally just see people trying to justify why they believe what they already believed about the topic, sometimes quite belligerently. This is why discussions about politics are generally bad on online forums (and considered to be best avoided at dinner parties); it’s a domain in which people’s belief about the topic is deeply entangled with their identity, and by definition, people get defensive and hostile when their identity is thrown into question. Thus, they work much harder to justify why they were already right about the topic, instead of seeking to learn anything new. The kind of politics discussion that would be good to see much more of on HN would explore the question: if we were to agree that the state of politics globally is terrible (I certainly do), what actions can ordinary people like us working in technology do to make things better?

mindslight 4mo ago
The "discussions" are repetitive because the sparks of curious and constructive discussion are shouted down or used up by people who just want to rail against the framing. If you want to support intellectually curious discussion, then letting whole topics get shut down because they are partisan-inflammatory is the wrong thing to do - this merely supports the dynamic of the hecklers' veto. Rather you need to police the partisan disruptors better. There is a reason there is no downvoting on submissions, right? And yet we've now gotten to a place where submission flags have become an effective downvote. I don't know if this particular post would have generated thoughtful discussion, but I do know that only seeing this submission by chance a day later all of the interest has passed it by.
- tomhow 4mo ago
  Let's consider your own contributions to this thread, most notably this one: > At this point, it's is just basic table stakes discussion context for anybody who loves individual liberty or believes in the Constitution and limited government. If you're still unable to even entertain the idea, then you're part of the problem. Based on your touchstone strawmen of "leftists", "radical", and "activists", it sounds like you've got a heavy case of TDS - the real TDS, not the accusation-in-a-mirror version. I understand you feel strongly about the topic, and from the frenetic tone in most of your comments, deeply feel a sense of urgency and peril. I'm sympathetic to that feeling, I really am. But it still breaks the guidelines, all while you assert that it's our job to make these threads orderly: > you need to police the partisan disruptors better The problem is everyone believes they are reasonable, moderate ones and that their opponents are the "partisan disruptors" who need to be policed. From a moderation point of view, there's no winning in “policing” people on issues that are deeply entangled with their personal identity or their sense of physical safety. (And that's before you even contemplate the perversity of appealing for greater “policing” of a discussion about this, of all topics.) Our role is to uphold the guidelines, no matter the side, and topics that are repetitive and that inevitably attract comments like your very own are very well established as being against the guidelines.