4 ms·
Nobody is trying to silence you. You're being uncharitable and people are pointing it out. One of David's points is that he doesn't like political discussions
by jfarmer 13y ago
Nobody is trying to silence you. You're being uncharitable and people are pointing it out. One of David's points is that he doesn't like political discussions on HN because people hear what they want to hear and the discussion becomes, well, uncharitable.
And yes, there's obviously stuff you're missing, but it's hard to believe you're being sincere since what you're missing is exactly what David spelled out, quite clearly, in his original comment. If I were to give a title to his original comment it would be "Why I Don't Think We Should Talk About NSA Surveillance on HN Even Though It's an Incredibly Important Conversation." Some folks would rather not have a conversation at all than have an unproductive conversation. The conversations that happen on HN around this issue are unproductive.
He's not arguing that those conversations shouldn't take place. He's arguing that HN isn't a good place to have them. To be honest, this conversation is likely not productive and I'm beating myself up a little for continuing it.
There's nothing wrong with people like David, Thomas, or anyone else advocating for higher quality discussions. The fact is that the discussions around anything involving politics or the law on HN are (IMO) very low quality and just downright tedious.
Nobody is trying to censor anyone. Saying what I just said above isn't trying to censor anyone. You don't need my permission to talk about these issues.
- igravious 13y agoBy silencing I was referring to the downvotes. I'm sorry for not giving David the benefit of the doubt and jumping to the wrong conclusion.
- jfarmer 13y agoAh, well, that's part of it what David is talking about, too. I don't like it, either, and think upvoting/downvoting is not good for surfacing, implementing, and sustaining community norms. BTW, Reddit has (largely) solved this exact problem with sub-reddits. Once a community reaches a certain size it naturally becomes less cohesive. You preserve that community one of two ways: by limiting who can become members of the community or by allowing the community to form sub-communities with their own norms. Think of, e.g., http://reddit.com/r/politics http://reddit.com/r/politics The tension in this thread is an inevitable consequence of how HN is designed, honestly.
- igravious 13y agoI know this thread is getting reeeally long but I want to say that it bums me out as well. I ain't no karma whore but I do become a sad panda when the clock runs backwards and not forwards. I've self-censored on numerous occasions because I felt that I'd take a hit -- usually wisecracks, I'm a lot more jokey in real life and on other forums. I've never used Reddit. I don't know if I want HN to turn into a kind of Reddit. I thought HN would self-limit because the type and level of discourse. If people feel that the politics stuff has gotten out of hand (I still would maintain that it has not, just that in fairness the Snowden thing is pretty big news) then maybe we could implement a technical solution. Like tagging. Then you could have a list of donotshowtags [politics, religion, kitten(s), ...] If a story contains a tag in your list it is hidden.
- jfarmer 13y agoAlthough Reddit is often seen as the land of trolls, there are many subreddits where the level of conversation is orders of magnitude better than what happens on HN. Reddit is not monolithic in the same way HN is. This means you'll see subreddits with much crazier conversations but also ones with much better conversations. It's not about tagging; it's about having a community robust enough to support different and sometimes-conflicting norms without disintegrating. See http://reddit.com/r/science http://reddit.com/r/science, http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/ http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/, http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians for quality subreddits. See http://www.reddit.com/r/politics http://www.reddit.com/r/politics for politics. See http://www.reddit.com/r/onetruegod http://www.reddit.com/r/onetruegod to pay homage to your One True God.