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More specifically, HN tries to avoid inflammatory topics that cause a lot of ultimately fruitless discussion ("flamewars"), typically identified by news items w

More specifically, HN tries to avoid inflammatory topics that cause a lot of ultimately fruitless discussion ("flamewars"), typically identified by news items with more comments than votes. Political topics are frowned upon for causing this. I disagree that HN wants to minimize "awareness" of these topics, but mods have been clear in the past that, while they agree the topic is important, it distracts HN away from the tech/web/startup topics they want HN to focus on

whyever 12y ago
> I disagree that HN wants to minimize "awareness" of these topics Well, the effect is still the same, isn't it? > it distracts HN away from the tech/web/startup topics they want HN to focus on That seems contradictory. If I recall correctly, I've heard the mods explicitly say that they also like non-tech/web/startup topics.
john_b 12y ago
The obvious counterargument to HN's policy is that the developers building the next generation of web services should be able to openly discuss mass surveillance and how our present technology enables it. And that, furthermore, this discussion is in the best interest of HN because developers on the whole are obviously passionate about the issue and will be a part of how it evolves in the future, one way or another. I get HN's policy and the reasoning behind it; I just think it's wrong. Not all important discussions are constructive, and not all constructive discussions are important.
- hueving 12y ago
  >because developers on the whole Careful. You are projecting here. This is the very reason that these topics get penalties. When it comes to politics, people assume that everyone must fall on a side and have strong feelings about a given topic. A relatively small portion of the community ends up flooding everyone with stories related to these topics and it turns a huge chunk of people off that just don't care to read about it. They can't say they don't care because that's seen as being ignorant to people that are passionate so it just alienates them.
  - nickysielicki 12y ago
    >that's seen as being ignorant. Not having a valid counter-argument to being accused of apathy, is ignorance.
    - hueving 12y ago
      You missed the whole point. It doesn't matter whether or not the person actually is ignorant when it comes to the topic. If someone doesn't want to waste the limited time in their life arguing about this stuff, they don't have to. When every other article is related to it, it's pretty exclusionary.
  - throwawayaway 12y ago
    > A relatively small portion of the community ends up flooding everyone > a huge chunk of people off that just don't care to read about it talk about projecting. i'm sure it was super democratic and indeed the voice of the people that got an NSA/snowden filter put in place and how robin hood of you to spring to its defence.
- dang 12y ago
  > I get HN's policy and the reasoning behind it Are you sure? I don't see anything in your first paragraph that either we or HN's policies would disagree with—quite the contrary. And obviously HN hosts a great deal of just such discussion.
dang 12y ago
> mods have been clear in the past that, while they agree the topic is important, it distracts HN away from the tech/web/startup topics they want HN to focus on No, that's incorrect. The first thing the site guidelines say is: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. There's no question of the Snowden stories being off-topic. The issue is purely one of balance. The right principle seems to me to be that articles with significant new information are more HN-appropriate than those without it.

whyever 12y ago

> I disagree that HN wants to minimize "awareness" of these topics Well, the effect is still the same, isn't it? > it distracts HN away from the tech/web/startup topics they want HN to focus on That seems contradictory. If I recall correctly, I've heard the mods explicitly say that they also like non-tech/web/startup topics.

john_b 12y ago

The obvious counterargument to HN's policy is that the developers building the next generation of web services should be able to openly discuss mass surveillance and how our present technology enables it. And that, furthermore, this discussion is in the best interest of HN because developers on the whole are obviously passionate about the issue and will be a part of how it evolves in the future, one way or another. I get HN's policy and the reasoning behind it; I just think it's wrong. Not all important discussions are constructive, and not all constructive discussions are important.

hueving 12y ago
>because developers on the whole Careful. You are projecting here. This is the very reason that these topics get penalties. When it comes to politics, people assume that everyone must fall on a side and have strong feelings about a given topic. A relatively small portion of the community ends up flooding everyone with stories related to these topics and it turns a huge chunk of people off that just don't care to read about it. They can't say they don't care because that's seen as being ignorant to people that are passionate so it just alienates them.
- nickysielicki 12y ago
  >that's seen as being ignorant. Not having a valid counter-argument to being accused of apathy, is ignorance.
  - hueving 12y ago
    You missed the whole point. It doesn't matter whether or not the person actually is ignorant when it comes to the topic. If someone doesn't want to waste the limited time in their life arguing about this stuff, they don't have to. When every other article is related to it, it's pretty exclusionary.
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  > A relatively small portion of the community ends up flooding everyone > a huge chunk of people off that just don't care to read about it talk about projecting. i'm sure it was super democratic and indeed the voice of the people that got an NSA/snowden filter put in place and how robin hood of you to spring to its defence.
dang 12y ago
> I get HN's policy and the reasoning behind it Are you sure? I don't see anything in your first paragraph that either we or HN's policies would disagree with—quite the contrary. And obviously HN hosts a great deal of just such discussion.

dang 12y ago

> mods have been clear in the past that, while they agree the topic is important, it distracts HN away from the tech/web/startup topics they want HN to focus on No, that's incorrect. The first thing the site guidelines say is: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. There's no question of the Snowden stories being off-topic. The issue is purely one of balance. The right principle seems to me to be that articles with significant new information are more HN-appropriate than those without it.