
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle - apsec112
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
======
x86_64Ubuntu
>Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That
destroys the curiosity this site exists for.

I don't understand how those two sentences are related. I've never heard a
political or ideological battle explained as being "curiosity destroying".

~~~
threatofrain
Plus I don't understand why curiosity is the value of the community. Is it?
There are so many kinds of values, and even a nuance between learning and mere
curiosity. Recently black American experiences have been a conversation here
on HN — if this conflicts with curiosity, then which is more valuable?

Or are we talking about the values prescribed by the proprietors of HN?

~~~
dang
Curiosity is the value of the community because that's how it got started and
that has always been its mandate. It's simply a question of being one kind of
site rather than another. Does such a site have a right to exist? I think it
does; the alternative would be that all sites must be the same, and that can't
be right.

If so, it needs to be operated in a way that preserves it for that mandate.
The default outcome is certainly not that, so we expend a lot of energy trying
to stave that off, as one must when trying to escape entropy.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stave&sort=byDate&type=comment)

The idea of "black American experiences conflicting with curiosity" strikes me
as a bizarre formulation.

~~~
threatofrain
> The idea of "black American experiences conflicting with curiosity" strikes
> me as a bizarre formulation.

BLM and its concerns for justice is considered a very political topic. Black
issues in America aren’t about to become an unpolitical issue.

An oft repeated argument is that political activist speech kills curiosity.
There’s no transparent line to know when political speech is curious enough
not to violate site rules.

Also, where does the mandate of the site come from? The president of YC? My
worry is that the prescriptions of the site don’t seem to have any story for
evolution.

~~~
dang
There have been many threads about those topics (the situation as of a month
ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962))
and related topics. I particularly liked
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23669188](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23669188)
because it got so many comments from black HN users sharing their experience.
Similar examples:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23540162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23540162)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23564048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23564048)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23772359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23772359)

There's plenty of curious conversation there. There's also plenty of flamebait
and flamewar, unfortunately, but that's unavoidable when the society at large
is divided on a topic—or rather societies, since we have the added dimension
of being a highly international community to deal with. The HN guidelines are
written in such a way as to encourage the former and discourage the latter,
but there are limits to what's achievable.

HN's mandate comes from how it was created. It has its particular niche. I
think it's a good niche that is worth preserving, and I'm pretty sure the bulk
of the community agrees, since that's why people come here. In a way, I like
that you're questioning it, though. If the argument becomes "HN should have a
different mandate", this suggests that it's doing an ok job of fulfilling the
existing one.

~~~
threatofrain
Why is my post penalized, and without any note to the effect? When I logout my
submission disappears.

------
jonny_eh
Someone should tell PG, his last two blog posts were about “cancel culture”.

~~~
Guthur
Hackernews is not a personal blog where you could acceptably express your own
personal political opinions

------
mkolodny
I come to HN to discuss ideas. What's the difference between an "ideological
battle" and discussing ideas?

~~~
wtallis
I think ideological battle is a matter of the _manner_ of discussing ideas.
Hallmarks include: posting the same argument in multiple places within a
thread and in multiple threads in a short timespan; dragging a peripherally
related discussion toward well-known contentious issues; repeating popular
catchphrases, slogans and talking points with little regard for how well they
apply to the specific instance of a topic under discussion; using shallow
predictable arguments of the sort found in TV sound bites rather than more
sound and nuanced arguments; little or no participation in non-political
threads on HN; refusing to acknowledge the weaknesses or downsides of your own
positions; making lots of pronouncements and declarations rather than asking
lots of questions.

------
sidcool
I totally agree. I tell this to my friends too. Not every forum and platform
is to argue about politics. There are some people who do not concern
themselves with these issues. Some such people continue working on what they
love. Not everyone needs to be dragged into the pit of political mudslinging.
HN should talk about FOSS, privacy and anything tech activism.

------
Yetanfou
If only things were so easy. Alas, things are not that simple, at all. Just
try to discuss a project which automates the creation of a whitelist for
master/slave connections which you'll be using when you attend the black hat
conference and you'll find out you just violated 4 new rulings-on-speech
without having the slightest clue as to why - unless you've been following
those maligned discussions on politics and ideology that is.

In short, when everything has been politicised it is impossible to discuss
anything without involving politics.

------
loopz
Get your house in order, or enabling fascism will be a pointless exercise.
Discussion here:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/22/portland-c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/22/portland-
constitution-dhs-crackdown-legality/?outputType=comment)

------
poma88
It is good to make it clear ahead of elections. Still, every piece of
information contains a degree of such dimensions, intentionally or not.

------
stareatgoats
Good reminder. Especially in US presidential election season, but else-while
too: there are few places where ideological opponents can come together for a
rational discussion. HN comes closer to such a place than any other I know.
Ironic that is has been flagged.

------
dvh
Are tabs vs spaces ideological battle?

~~~
gorgoiler
_set expandtab_

...though in my experience ironically referencing the subjects of common flame
wars, with the intention of collectively rolling our eyes at how silly flame
wars are, usually results in flame wars. Maybe not here though.

Emacs users, I love you.

~~~
thyrsus
I use both vi and emacs. I find vi quicker under my fingers, but more complex
things are easier for me in emacs: compare-windows, keyboard macros, the shell
in a window (especially since it became smart about passwords a decade or more
ago). There may be vim equivalents I don't know of.

Peace. :-)

------
gchambert
Who still believes in 2020 that technology isn't political? Have you never
heard of the impact of Facebook or Twitter on our societies? Cambridge
Analytica, anyone? It lead to Brexit & Trump...

Any technology changes society, thus has a political impact. Trying to hide it
is ideological. Does HN promote this ideology only? Or does it welcome various
points of view?

------
s9w
I just wish things would be enforced more strictly. If you look at the
comments being punished, a lot of clearly political statements get ignored
while others don't - even if they just correct wrong statements. It's the
tiring and commonplace way of "ban everything, enforce selectively". Same with
r/cpp r/programming unfortunately.

~~~
dang
If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the
likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing
everything that gets posted to HN—there's far too much. You can help by
flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20likeliest&sort=byDate&type=comment)

If you think that one side gets consistently moderated while the other side
doesn't—on whatever divisive topic—then you might be falling prey to the
notice/dislike bias:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment).
Because of that bias, all sides feel like the site, the community, and the
moderators are lined up against them, and they make interchangeable statements
about it (except for the bit about which sides are supposedly favored).

------
austincheney
This guidance was missed 6 weeks ago when people wanted to talk about the
horrors of police brutality.

The way I see it is if a person’s intent is seeking either sympathy or any
social value proposition HN is likely not the ideal venue. It’s like the taboo
of talking about politics in the office for those of us who don’t live in the
valley where that is more generally accepted.

~~~
smt88
> _It’s like the taboo of talking about politics in the office_

How would you define "talking about politics"? Does it include talking about
government? If so, all of the Snowden leaks are off the table.

What about policy? That seemingly covers universal basic income,
entrepreneurship incentives, etc.

News stories about tech companies? Most of those are constantly in the news
for enraging the entire political spectrum.

What about government clients, as it also relates to policy? We'd basically
never talk about Palantir on here again.

I don't see any way to talk about tech companies, entrepeneurship,
(technology) business, philosophy, or most other interesting HN topics without
crossing into something that most people consider too political for office
conversation.

~~~
austincheney
If you are a general officer of a company and discussion of a political
subject is necessary for the sake only of business continuity then it becomes
necessary to discuss politics at work. That is an extremely narrow edge case.

Otherwise if you are perplexed at what construes a political discussion you
are most likely looking for any excuse to knowingly engage in politics. This
sort of deliberate dishonesty is one reason I refuse to move to the Bay Area
where such behavior is commonly accepted.

~~~
smt88
I sincerely asked you what defines a political comment. If you have a neat and
easily-applicable definition, I'd love to know what it is.

I don't have one, and I don't think most people do. That was my point.

I have no idea where the Bay Area part come from or why you think I'm being
dishonest. Perhaps you interpret rhetorical questions as dishonest?

