Ask HN: Why does HN continue to allow political content? That is not hacking - 0xff00ffee
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alexmingoia
The why isn’t important. HN would be better without current events. Banning
current events would solve the political threads. Without current events the
site would be a respite from rather than extension of whatever the current
rage is (which is mostly politics).

Current events also encourage repetitive topics. Every day is multiple
coronavirus threads. During an election it’s daily election news. During the
737max thing it’s multiple daily threads on the same thing.

Every current events topic just turns into a flame war. Coronavirus is a good
example. Every thread is an argument about whether lockdown is good or not,
how deadly the virus is, etc.

Ban current events. They dominate every other medium. HN doesn’t need them.

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AnimalMuppet
1\. At least some politics is not out of scope. Some politics _directly_
impacts the tech world - crypto policy, for example. Some other politics
requires tech to work - surveillance, for example.

2\. At least some of us have some interest in some political topics, even if
they don't directly impact tech. (Just like some of us have some interest in
some philosophical topics, or some cooking topics, or some music topics, or
some art topics.) Since HN is a _community_ , not just a web site, then HN
discusses whatever enough people on HN find interesting (subject to moderators
keeping the flames down).

3\. I've never really understood the angst about articles that don't interest
people. There's (I believe) 30 on the front page, and 30 more on the next. If
there are, say, 5 on the front page that are topics you don't care about, then
_skip over them_. It's really not hard to just drop your eyes down a line to
the next one.

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matt_s
There has been a shift in the last few years where more "news" like content
gets on HN that is not really hacker/startup focused. To me, the "Hacker" in
HN is in the sense of engineering culture around making things, not just
"technology".

In my opinion topics that are related to tech don't qualify as hacker news.
Political topics certainly don't have anything really to do with hacker news.

~~~
0xff00ffee
Yeah, I wanna see shell scripts, puppet and vimrc files, C++ tricks, coding
techniques, circuit teardowns, MCU hacks, and docker discussion...!
(Seriously) Not WikiLeaks and censorship and vote suppression!

I've been spending more time on stackexchange, it is probably better suited to
what I'm looking for.

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some_furry
> Repeat after me: all technical problems of sufficient scope or impact are
> actually political problems first.

From
[https://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/464645883100139521](https://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/464645883100139521)

It's difficult (if not impossible) to divorce some political topics from
technology.

Trying to neutralize political discussion is effectively a permanent
ceasefire: It sides with the status quo (whatever that status quo might be)
while maintaining the illusion of being impartial, but is anything but.

That being said! A lot of political discussion on HN isn't interesting and,
from my understanding of the guidelines, doesn't belong here.

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0xff00ffee
> Repeat after me: all technical problems of sufficient scope or impact are
> actually political problems first.

How does a "fat pointer in C" or "devops for ML" become political? I'm joking,
but I think too many deliberately charged issues make it to the top. I popped
over to slashdot for the first time in years and it has become a right-wing
megaphone. It is very sad. I would prefer to not see HN go this way. (Mea
culpa: I'm partially to blame for this because politics makes my blood boil...
but it would be nice to just say 'no' at some point...)

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some_furry
> I popped over to slashdot for the first time in years and it has become a
> right-wing megaphone.

That's the trouble with faux neutrality and negative peace: It will be
exploited by people who want their "side" to win. Given enough time and people
with colluding self-interest, and an inflexible moderation policy, they will.

> It is very sad. I would prefer to not see HN go this way.

I agree, but there's not much we can do about it except flag flame-bait topics
(i.e. anything that's purely political or religious and non-technical).

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tmaly
I understand your question. My observations and experience on trying to
comment on such posts have left a sour taste in my mouth.

Political posts on HN are a honeypot designed to lure in people with different
views. The moment you post something that does not jive with the herd you get
down voted.

It does not matter if you are making a valid point.

~~~
mrfusion
I like the idea of a site like this reaching a group consensus. But I also
don’t like how dissenting views aren’t even considered. I wish I could come up
with a solution.

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yamrzou
HN is for "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".

The discussions around political content, when they are reasonable and civil,
can be quite interesting.

