9 ms·

Yay, somewhere all the NSA/Snowden/Wikileaks/New World Order/bombing stories can go instead of HN. Huge thumbs up to this.

dmix 13y ago
After ~5yrs on here, I've seen at least a hundred attempts at creating a second HN strictly for politics, but none of them have been successful.
- rubyn00bie 13y ago
  Of course none have been! :) ... and none will be. Because 90+% of online politics discourse is dominated by trolls. People who want to have actual discussions, and listen to differing opinions, will be driven away en masse. Leaving the trolls to troll each other. Unfortunately, dog-fooding isn't very popular in the troll world-- so the site dies et voila! Here we are.
  - eksith 13y ago
    "Because 90+% of online politics discourse is dominated by trolls." True, but I hope the mods/admins of this don't get discouraged because we do badly need a place to talk about these things. Spilling over here isn't helping and will only drag things down by souring the mood, since these topics aren't what most people who visit HN are here for. Politics is one of those Neodymium magnets that seem to attract the worst of the worst, however, that's only due to unchecked emotions in a similar vein to religion. It's hard to tackle an idea without touching the human behind the keyboard. But I believe such a forum can exist and thrive, though it would take a super-human effort to moderate.
mcphilip 13y ago
Huge downvote to this. Saying that a hacker community shouldn't be interested in the Snowden revelations is ridiculous, and listing him alongside New World Order conspiracy theories is just insulting.
- dylangs1030 13y ago
  Chill out. He didn't try to insult you, he said it's somewhere else for those things to go. He didn't claim it's actually unimportant, and frankly, Hacker News wasn't intended for this kind of discussion - the guidelines support him. Whether or not that means it shouldn't be here at all is up for debate, but don't act as though he's being insulting when he's just supporting something that's reasonable. He can voice his reasons just as you can voice yours. You're the one being more insulting.
  - mcphilip 13y ago
    From the guidelines: >On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. So basically anything upvoted by this community is considered on topic since enough people deem it gratifying intellectual curiosity. Secondly, the insulting part is about how he snarkly listed Snowden alongside conspiracy theories. Like him or not, the risks he's taken to get this information out deserve him some level of repspect.
- jasonkester 13y ago
  First, downvotes aren't for disagreement here. Comments are. Thus... Second, I disagree, and agree with the grandparent that that other place (or any other place, really) would make a perfect place for discussing all those things you list. Actionable articles about the business of software and technology to help build same. That's what we're here for. If you'd like more stuff to talk about, there's lots more internet out there. You're free to hang out at more than one place.
  - nsmartt 13y ago
    > On-Topic:Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. This absolutely includes NSA/Snowden news and any other news relating the intersection between politics and technology.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
I've recently decided that aversion to political discussion is a very bad thing. Sorry, it's the price you have to pay to live in a country without warrant-less surveillance, prior restraint, secret laws, and wars on drugs, journalism, hackers, free speech, random oil-rich countries of brown people, etc.
TelmoMenezes 13y ago
NSA, Snowden and Wikileaks are real instances of entities that previously exited only in the sci-fi stories that inspired hacker culture from the beginning. Claiming these stories to be off-topic in a hackers forum is absurd.
- coherentpony 13y ago
  True, but people posting them to the front page 3e200 times is also absurd.

dmix 13y ago

After ~5yrs on here, I've seen at least a hundred attempts at creating a second HN strictly for politics, but none of them have been successful.

rubyn00bie 13y ago
Of course none have been! :) ... and none will be. Because 90+% of online politics discourse is dominated by trolls. People who want to have actual discussions, and listen to differing opinions, will be driven away en masse. Leaving the trolls to troll each other. Unfortunately, dog-fooding isn't very popular in the troll world-- so the site dies et voila! Here we are.
- eksith 13y ago
  "Because 90+% of online politics discourse is dominated by trolls." True, but I hope the mods/admins of this don't get discouraged because we do badly need a place to talk about these things. Spilling over here isn't helping and will only drag things down by souring the mood, since these topics aren't what most people who visit HN are here for. Politics is one of those Neodymium magnets that seem to attract the worst of the worst, however, that's only due to unchecked emotions in a similar vein to religion. It's hard to tackle an idea without touching the human behind the keyboard. But I believe such a forum can exist and thrive, though it would take a super-human effort to moderate.

mcphilip 13y ago

Huge downvote to this. Saying that a hacker community shouldn't be interested in the Snowden revelations is ridiculous, and listing him alongside New World Order conspiracy theories is just insulting.

dylangs1030 13y ago
Chill out. He didn't try to insult you, he said it's somewhere else for those things to go. He didn't claim it's actually unimportant, and frankly, Hacker News wasn't intended for this kind of discussion - the guidelines support him. Whether or not that means it shouldn't be here at all is up for debate, but don't act as though he's being insulting when he's just supporting something that's reasonable. He can voice his reasons just as you can voice yours. You're the one being more insulting.
- mcphilip 13y ago
  From the guidelines: >On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. So basically anything upvoted by this community is considered on topic since enough people deem it gratifying intellectual curiosity. Secondly, the insulting part is about how he snarkly listed Snowden alongside conspiracy theories. Like him or not, the risks he's taken to get this information out deserve him some level of repspect.
jasonkester 13y ago
First, downvotes aren't for disagreement here. Comments are. Thus... Second, I disagree, and agree with the grandparent that that other place (or any other place, really) would make a perfect place for discussing all those things you list. Actionable articles about the business of software and technology to help build same. That's what we're here for. If you'd like more stuff to talk about, there's lots more internet out there. You're free to hang out at more than one place.
- nsmartt 13y ago
  > On-Topic:Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. This absolutely includes NSA/Snowden news and any other news relating the intersection between politics and technology.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

I've recently decided that aversion to political discussion is a very bad thing. Sorry, it's the price you have to pay to live in a country without warrant-less surveillance, prior restraint, secret laws, and wars on drugs, journalism, hackers, free speech, random oil-rich countries of brown people, etc.

TelmoMenezes 13y ago

NSA, Snowden and Wikileaks are real instances of entities that previously exited only in the sci-fi stories that inspired hacker culture from the beginning. Claiming these stories to be off-topic in a hackers forum is absurd.

coherentpony 13y ago
True, but people posting them to the front page 3e200 times is also absurd.