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If the subject is not technical, it should be removed/flagged. I'm immensely interested in the specifics of which algorithms the NSA has cracked and how, but I

If the subject is not technical, it should be removed/flagged. I'm immensely interested in the specifics of which algorithms the NSA has cracked and how, but I'm absolutely not interested in what Obama or Snowden has to say on the topic. They're completely irrelevant, and the ensuing discussion is decidedly not a technical one. That's how this should be decided - would/does the ensuing conversation stick to the technical or entrepreneurial aspects of this submission? In particular, does the discussion devolve into an, "Everybody's got a valid opinion" kind of discussion? If so, drop it, and drop it fast. [0] There's this mistaken notion that, just because a person works with computers for a living, or owns a computer related business, that their opinion on ANY political topic related to computers is a valid or even privileged one, when that's absolutely and demonstrably false. This crowd is a technical crowd, not a politically savvy crowd. People talking out of their wheelhouses should not be promoted. Edit: [0] - http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html Wanted to cite where I got this idea. This essay informs heavily on what I believe HN should be about.

deveac 13y ago
>If the subject is not technical, it should be removed/flagged. Incorrect. See the HN FAQ. Political discussions are allowed (saying only that most are discouraged implies that certain ones are. If there ever was one, this is it).
- diminoten 13y ago
  It's not incorrect that I feel that way about this specific story, which is the question being asked.
  - deveac 13y ago
    Of course you can feel any way you wish, but please realize that per the first line of the HN FAQ, this is on topic, and your assertion that valid topics you don't wish to see should be flagged is an abuse of the feature and rules of the site. I hope you can see the distinction.
    - diminoten 13y ago
      I don't think the HN FAQ was written with this situation in mind, and thus don't consider it a useful reference when determining a course of action for this specific problem. Perhaps one submission should contain the sum of political discourse on the topic, and all other submissions should contain the technical discourses.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      > but please realize that per the first line of the HN FAQ, this is on topic Hang on - there's a big difference between saying "not all political stories are off topic" and saying "this political topic is on-topic". Many of the NSA submissions are clearly off topic and have no purpose for HN.
      - deveac 13y ago
        >Hang on - there's a big difference between saying "not all political stories are off topic" and saying "this political topic is on-topic". I'm saying both.
heyitsnick 13y ago
I do not think the opinion of a person who works with computers for a living has a more privileged opinion than anyone else. I do, however, enjoy coming here very day and reading the opinions of that subset of the population. That's why I continue to upvote NSA-related threads and voted "I wanted more."
- diminoten 13y ago
  So you might say you allocate additional "privilege" to this subset of the population's opinions? I don't think it's wise to do that, but I understand why one might think it a good idea.
  - heyitsnick 13y ago
    > So you might say you allocate additional "privilege" to this subset of the population's opinions? Not in the slightest. I checked the definition of "privilege" - a special right, immunity - and I have no idea why you think I communicated that at all. All I said was that I enjoy reading the opinions of the Hacker News population on topics that go beyond startups/technology.
    - diminoten 13y ago
      I think when you say "enjoy" you really mean "value". Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it reads, to me. I think valuing these opinions is a bad idea, because they're not special.
      - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
        I think that is a stretch. One can certainly enjoy reading opinions from people they place no special value on. I enjoy reading the opinions of idiots just for comedic value. ;)
- threeseed 13y ago
  Why stop there ? I definitely want to know HN's opinion on knitting, kite surfing, food preparation, Game of Thrones, car maintenance as well. They are equally relevant to worldwide "hackers" as US-only politics.
windexh8er 13y ago
If the subject is not technical, it should be removed/flagged. There is a ton of content here that is non-technical and relevant. Steve Jobs death covered the entire front page, there is policy and regulation, general startup stories, stories of developers in need, etc. Those all get an equal opportunity - so why is there a technical requirement now and only within the context of stories that are related to, dare I say it, the NSA? The thing is - the very foundational components of everything posted here, technical or not, can/could be impacted by news around this topic. Like I've stated before, it's not that I want more, but I don't want the stories to be buried. I want the good stories with good content and relevancy to have a fair shot. Your comment around people talking out of their wheelhouses is highly subjective and seems to me, personally, to be rather ignorant. If you constantly stated things about iPhone hardware, but were not a hardware engineer for Apple then you shouldn't be able to comment with that line of thinking. People can talk about whatever they want and people who don't have foundational expertise on a topic can, and do, contribute positively to topics outside their wheelhouse. In some cases those people bring new and interesting perspectives. Unfortunately the political perspective has irrevocably been tied to the technical one for now. Take what you can from it instead of touting on a soap box that you know better what other people should be talking about and what content should be on HN than the next guy.
- diminoten 13y ago
  I don't think all political discussion should be banned from HN (I do but it's an unreasonable stance, I get that). This NSA story is a unique case, however. It's purposefully being dragged along for the explicit reason of keeping political discussion active, and it's doing that job very well, and for a good cause. I'm highly glad this is how Snowden and Greenwald decided to release this information. HOWEVER, this is not the only website on the Internet. There's nothing special or novel gained from posting these stories to HN. No one here has any extra or particular insight into these stories. Please read the essay I linked to. In a conversation about iPhone hardware, a person making a comment will be stating facts, with conclusions and verifiable information. That person is either wrong or right, with little grounds for confusion or grey-area. It's not up to how I feel how many hours of battery life the iPhone is going to grant a user. Political discussions and religious discussions do not have the benefit of this rigor. Everyone's opinions end up being treated equally, even when they're absolutely not equal. It's a terrible place to try to conduct an intellectual discussion, and I'd like to see this place maintain its reputation for a high level of discourse. This is currently the first comment on the latest Snowden development (nontechnical), here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6369472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6369472 Compare this to another submission comment (technical), here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6367943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6367943 The nontechnial comment provides me nothing but an individual's viewpoint. I can't take that anywhere, I learned nothing except that one individual thinks something, and I'm in no way a better engineer or entrepreneur for having read it. The technical comment, however? Now I have a better understanding of the submission as I've gotten an alternative (slightly different use-case) implementation. That's what HN is here for. I want things I can walk away from HN with, as I'm here to learn. Nontechnical Snowden stories, as it turns out, aren't stories which provoke any kind of interesting comments on HN, and are therefore interfering with a person's ability to use HN to learn and grow effectively. Therefore, they should go.

deveac 13y ago

>If the subject is not technical, it should be removed/flagged. Incorrect. See the HN FAQ. Political discussions are allowed (saying only that most are discouraged implies that certain ones are. If there ever was one, this is it).

diminoten 13y ago
It's not incorrect that I feel that way about this specific story, which is the question being asked.
- deveac 13y ago
  Of course you can feel any way you wish, but please realize that per the first line of the HN FAQ, this is on topic, and your assertion that valid topics you don't wish to see should be flagged is an abuse of the feature and rules of the site. I hope you can see the distinction.
  - diminoten 13y ago
    I don't think the HN FAQ was written with this situation in mind, and thus don't consider it a useful reference when determining a course of action for this specific problem. Perhaps one submission should contain the sum of political discourse on the topic, and all other submissions should contain the technical discourses.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > but please realize that per the first line of the HN FAQ, this is on topic Hang on - there's a big difference between saying "not all political stories are off topic" and saying "this political topic is on-topic". Many of the NSA submissions are clearly off topic and have no purpose for HN.
    - deveac 13y ago
      >Hang on - there's a big difference between saying "not all political stories are off topic" and saying "this political topic is on-topic". I'm saying both.

heyitsnick 13y ago

I do not think the opinion of a person who works with computers for a living has a more privileged opinion than anyone else. I do, however, enjoy coming here very day and reading the opinions of that subset of the population. That's why I continue to upvote NSA-related threads and voted "I wanted more."

diminoten 13y ago
So you might say you allocate additional "privilege" to this subset of the population's opinions? I don't think it's wise to do that, but I understand why one might think it a good idea.
- heyitsnick 13y ago
  > So you might say you allocate additional "privilege" to this subset of the population's opinions? Not in the slightest. I checked the definition of "privilege" - a special right, immunity - and I have no idea why you think I communicated that at all. All I said was that I enjoy reading the opinions of the Hacker News population on topics that go beyond startups/technology.
  - diminoten 13y ago
    I think when you say "enjoy" you really mean "value". Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it reads, to me. I think valuing these opinions is a bad idea, because they're not special.
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      I think that is a stretch. One can certainly enjoy reading opinions from people they place no special value on. I enjoy reading the opinions of idiots just for comedic value. ;)
threeseed 13y ago
Why stop there ? I definitely want to know HN's opinion on knitting, kite surfing, food preparation, Game of Thrones, car maintenance as well. They are equally relevant to worldwide "hackers" as US-only politics.

windexh8er 13y ago

If the subject is not technical, it should be removed/flagged. There is a ton of content here that is non-technical and relevant. Steve Jobs death covered the entire front page, there is policy and regulation, general startup stories, stories of developers in need, etc. Those all get an equal opportunity - so why is there a technical requirement now and only within the context of stories that are related to, dare I say it, the NSA? The thing is - the very foundational components of everything posted here, technical or not, can/could be impacted by news around this topic. Like I've stated before, it's not that I want more, but I don't want the stories to be buried. I want the good stories with good content and relevancy to have a fair shot. Your comment around people talking out of their wheelhouses is highly subjective and seems to me, personally, to be rather ignorant. If you constantly stated things about iPhone hardware, but were not a hardware engineer for Apple then you shouldn't be able to comment with that line of thinking. People can talk about whatever they want and people who don't have foundational expertise on a topic can, and do, contribute positively to topics outside their wheelhouse. In some cases those people bring new and interesting perspectives. Unfortunately the political perspective has irrevocably been tied to the technical one for now. Take what you can from it instead of touting on a soap box that you know better what other people should be talking about and what content should be on HN than the next guy.

diminoten 13y ago
I don't think all political discussion should be banned from HN (I do but it's an unreasonable stance, I get that). This NSA story is a unique case, however. It's purposefully being dragged along for the explicit reason of keeping political discussion active, and it's doing that job very well, and for a good cause. I'm highly glad this is how Snowden and Greenwald decided to release this information. HOWEVER, this is not the only website on the Internet. There's nothing special or novel gained from posting these stories to HN. No one here has any extra or particular insight into these stories. Please read the essay I linked to. In a conversation about iPhone hardware, a person making a comment will be stating facts, with conclusions and verifiable information. That person is either wrong or right, with little grounds for confusion or grey-area. It's not up to how I feel how many hours of battery life the iPhone is going to grant a user. Political discussions and religious discussions do not have the benefit of this rigor. Everyone's opinions end up being treated equally, even when they're absolutely not equal. It's a terrible place to try to conduct an intellectual discussion, and I'd like to see this place maintain its reputation for a high level of discourse. This is currently the first comment on the latest Snowden development (nontechnical), here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6369472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6369472 Compare this to another submission comment (technical), here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6367943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6367943 The nontechnial comment provides me nothing but an individual's viewpoint. I can't take that anywhere, I learned nothing except that one individual thinks something, and I'm in no way a better engineer or entrepreneur for having read it. The technical comment, however? Now I have a better understanding of the submission as I've gotten an alternative (slightly different use-case) implementation. That's what HN is here for. I want things I can walk away from HN with, as I'm here to learn. Nontechnical Snowden stories, as it turns out, aren't stories which provoke any kind of interesting comments on HN, and are therefore interfering with a person's ability to use HN to learn and grow effectively. Therefore, they should go.