All: please don't post flamebait, including ranting against monarchy or railing against "the nobility" like it's 1770. Such reflexive comments are not on topic here. We want curious conversation. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
This story is on topic because it's a major historical event and history has always been on topic here. If it doesn't produce an intellectually curious response in you, you're welcome to find something else that does—there are plenty of other things to read—but in that case please refrain from posting.
Positive-empty comments aren't substantive either, but as pg pointed out way back when HN was getting started (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html), those are benign. The comments we need to avoid are the malignant ones.
Edit: by positive-empty I just meant comments like these:
I'm not telling you guys to be royalists! I'm just asking you not to post crap comments, which this thread was filled with when I first saw it. We don't care what you're for or against, we just care about people using HN as intended.
Edit 2: I think the problem is that this comment has outlived its usefulness at the top of the thread because the bottom of the barrel comments have mostly been moderated away, whether by user flags or by us. I'm going to unpin this and mark it offtopic now. Please don't post any more bottom-of-barrel comments!—and if you see some, please flag them.
> please don't post flamebait, including ranting against monarchy or railing against "the nobility" like it's 1770.
I am kind of curious about what this means exactly. Is any criticism of the monarchy off limits? Is the purpose of this thread for people to air their positive thoughts about this lady?
For example, I find non-British people that are genuinely sad about her passing to be pretty bizarre. It’s a fascinating event to look at how we tend to form parasocial relationships with carefully curated depictions of people.
It’s even more bizarre when we make actual rules to enforce orthodoxy and stifle criticism of parasocial relationships with carefully curated depictions of people.
This insistence on an arbitrary standard of decorum and the compulsion to play out a socially-prescribed bit of theater is pretty odd. Queen Elizabeth was paradoxically both not powerful enough to warrant lumping her in with British failings and at the same time so powerful that we are compelled to speak highly of her.
My post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769925) was not for or against monarchy, or about monarchy at all. It was about tedious, low-quality internet comments. I'm against them.
(Edit: that first sentence is really a template instantiation. When I post like this, it's never for or against <T>. It's always just about internet comments. People who are against <T> (or for it) often react like we're for <T> (or against it), but this is an illusion. It could quickly be cured by grokking the template, since at that level all these posts are entirely the same.)
It may not make so much sense now, but this thread was filling with the worst sort of dumb flamebait when it got started. That it isn't so now is because I've spent the last 3 hours refreshing the page and meticulously moderating it. If some of my comments are a little dyspeptic, that's because dealing with tedious comments is tedious, and I sort of pep myself up by letting loose a bit. Not the finest of practices but esprit de corps is also a need.
Your post begins "All: please don't post flamebait, including ranting against monarchy or railing against 'the nobility' like it's 1770." To then state that this post "was not about monarchy at all" feels like gaslighting. Perhaps you didn't intend to write about monarchy, but in fact you did.
I see what you mean! But note the words flamebait, ranting, and railing. That is what I was asking people not to do, same as always. Thoughtful, non-flamebait comments were not excluded.
I should have said it differently because I gave the impression of being on one side when the truth is that I don't care; and qua moderator, I really don't care.
You use words like "odd" and "bizarre" to describe many people's reactions to the QE's passing...
I humbly suggest that it's it is simply that you don't understand a certain perspective here. That's totally fine -- completely fine -- because there's no reason to expect we all could or should share the same perspective on this.
I humbly also suggest that, while there are certainly many criticism that could (and should, probably) be leveled in good reason against monarchies in general, and perhaps this monarchy in particular, today is maybe not the right day to do it.
Today a lady who was very meaningful to many people has passed. Why not let them grieve?
Imagine someone important to you died today. They surely weren't perfect, but is today the day to harp on their negatives? The monarchy has been around for centuries. If your criticisms have any merit, they will still have impact a few days from now.
Anyway, whether you're lucky enough that no one important to you has died (yet) or because you don't have that sensitivity, let me assure you: today isn't the day to pursue your criticisms of those that have passed today. Hang on to it for now andtell everyone about it later. If it's really something worthwhile, it will have legs later, too.
Likely 99% of the people here have zero personal relationship with her. Those that do, are preparing for her funeral, not posting here. It is a worthwhile question to ask why so many people have this feeling for a person they have never met. Now is when most of the eyes are on this issue. Saying it is "too soon" is just trying to delay criticism of the monarchy to when people have lost interest and have moved on to other news.
800 comments like “why is monarchy still a thing in 2022?” would be tedious and redundant. Now we have 700 comments of “didn’t really care that much until right now but I just broke down in tears”, which is merely boring.
Extremely well put. I am from one of the countries that was absolutely slaughtered by the so called great britain, and I have as much desire to share my opinion and views, as the folks who are mourning the loss.
Don't feel discouraged. You are not alone. There are, unfortunately, millions of people across the globe whose opinion about this heinous war criminal are being silenced so that the 'feel-good' propaganda can propagate.
Those of us who make the effort to understand the truth of world affairs will always be targeted by those who wish to mould the world to their view. Such is the nature of imperialism.
Elizabeth and her empire is STILL TODAY responsible for much, much suffering - at immense scale. This is a truly scary fact for those who live inside the propaganda bubble that protects them from knowing anything about the victims of the empire.
And if you have something to contribute then contribute it. But if it is just to say "boo queen" then don't be surprised if it receives a poor reception.
There are plenty of critical comments. The sort we want to avoid is shallow negativity, because it's the opposite of curiosity.
Another way to look at this is that we want reflective comments rather than reflexive ones*. Reflex means predictable and predictable means tedious. Tedium is really what we're trying to avoid on HN—not criticisms of monarchy. I'd have thought that was painfully obvious, but I realize it's neither so obvious nor so painful to people who don't deal with it full time.
Pro status-quo bias. Monarchy isn't as relevant as it used to be but trusting the judgment and leadership of the elite is as relevant as ever and allowing positive-empty comments just reinforces that belief here. I guess that's just the sort of bias HN is ok with.
I just meant that if people post things like "RIP" or "That's sad", it's void of information and therefore unsubstantive, but doesn't contribute to destroying the site. I just meant to repeat the point pg was making 15 years ago about "empty comments", and I'm sure the queen was the last thing he had in mind (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html).
I was not making a case for royalism! just a case against tedious internet battles, and boy is monarchism one of those. (I mean, "Good riddance. The world is rid of a horrible person who has done horrible things" - ? Good grief. At least give us something amusing.) (that was a random example I just ran across)
That's still implicitly making a pro-royalist community, at the cost of making a less flame-baitey community.
Pro-status-quo comments are inherently going to be less divisive because they don't challenge people, and seeing this thread full up of folks commenting on how personally meaningful the queen was to them without ever really being involved in their lives is a testament to that.
That said, I think it may also just go to show that's why royalism discussions shouldn't be the bread and butter of this community.
---
Thanks for the response by the way. I disagree with some things here but I also talk with a number of people from wildly different viewpoints. A true testament to y'alls work.
This thread is full of people who are ignorant of the crimes against humanity committed by this individual, and the war crimes and war criminals she protected during her reign.
The monarchy is still politically relevant in the UK[1]. But it seems dang prefers to have pages of saccharine platitudes than allow any discussion of the desirability of monarchy in the modern world or any critical discussion of the Queen's legacy. Curiosity is only encouraged if it doesn't put wealth and power under it's microscope. Then it becomes tedious.
As I wrote here three years ago[1]:
> Indignation isn't shallow or boring, it's the driving force behind social progress. Indeed, lack of indignation indicates either the inability to imagine a better world or perhaps the natural satisfaction with the status quo of someone who finds themself sitting on the upper rungs of society as currently structured. The latter no doubt describes many of us here.
Indignation isn't the arch-enemy of intellectual curiosity; apathy and bovine conformity are. This status-quo bias is what you would expect of a forum run for the benefit of a Silicon Valley for-profit institution, but it's still disappointing.
This is a very common criticism when one happens to disagree with the target of some positivity. Sometimes it's a reasonable criticism, but usually it's an oversimplification we allow ourselves to indulge in. Positivity can have intrinsic value even in the absence of some accompanying objective substance.
On the other hand, and similarly to my first point, I agree that indignation too is not inherently value-less. However, there are miles between useful indignation and snarky tangents.
I don't see how the GP was arguing that any kind of positivity would be bad. The problem is more having different standards for positive and negative comments on the matter and apparently forbidding any kind of criticism. That doesn't seem very much in the spirit of free speech of this site.
That being said, an important person died I can understand that it's generally not good style to start with the negative comments right away.
Yes, and it is detrimental to the espoused value of intellectual curiosity. Sincere disagreement is fertile soil for productive discourse. It gives each side an opportunity to test and refine their beliefs and learn from one another. If you suppress one side or the other, no one is forced to be rigorous in their thinking or reexamine their priors. Everyone gets trapped in an intellectual local maximum. The result is threads like this, full of comments nearly identical to each other and devoid of anything interesting.
But this isn’t a criticism of “saccharine platitudes,” it is specifically criticizing a policy that considers such platitudes as benign while censoring negative comments of equal intellectual value. You can’t claim a high horse of “intellectual curiosity” when this thread is full of positivity fluff. If that remains, so too should the low-effort indignation.
Obviously dang is free to moderate as he sees fit, but this attempt to rationalize bias as some philosophical ideal of fair high-quality moderation is worth criticizing. This all stems from the insistence that HN remain “politically neutral,” which is a mythical concept for comfortable people who want to be insulated from conversation that threatens their comfortable lives. Politically neutral is always politically defensive of the status quo, and moderation to that effect always ends up with threads like these that end up skewed in favor of the position deemed to be politically “neutral.”
It might be an interesting historical event for people who don’t live in the UK
But some of us have to live with this… a family that have got immensely rich from being head of state, a family that have interfered in laws to their advantage, a family that we have no choice over whether they continue to be the head of state
dang, Paul Graham is British; has it factored into your decision of keeping the comments deferential to the Queen.
My condolences to British people who held the Queen at high esteem. But frankly world is a bigger place than Britain and America. Not everyone from the British former colonies will appreciate the Queen. if they express the feelings about the monarchy in a respectful way; do you see an issue?
There was no "decision of keeping the comments deferential to the Queen". In any case, PG having been born in Britain does not factor into any decisions on HN.
I believe I've answered your other question in a few places:
... as well as in the comment you're replying to (starting at "I'm not telling you guys to be royalists!"). If you read those comments and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
The point I made was not really about monarchy, but about comment quality on HN. Low-information, high-indignation comments—such as repetition of well-worn political points—is the classic low-quality case that we're most hoping to avoid here. Especially because they tend to evoke even worse from others.
if you has said something like "we're not interested in this thread turning into another opportunity to litigate the pro's and cons of the monarchy" I would agree with you.
But specifically saying not to comment negatively while allowing positive comments on what is clearly a hotly contested issue is ridiculous.
Why is it malignant? Monarchy is the foundation of the whole system. It goes from the top all the way from the bottom. That's like saying blood is a malignant influence on the body.
Please don't take HN threads further into predictable, generic flamewar. It's tedious, and therefore off topic. The site guidelines ask commenters in several different ways not to do this.
The monarchy has utterly usurped UK's "democracy" and continues to use its powers to oppress innocent human beings across the world. The crown regularly interferes in the democratic machinations of the UK.
The fact that the UK doesn't have the social capital to prosecute their known, actual war criminals - because they are factually protected by the crown - should be a clue of the malignant effect of the monarchy, in itself.
He says not to "rant against monarcy". Criticism of elizabeth is fair game I think, although still early for that. We ll see a lot of criticism of her and monarchy in general in the next months.
Personally i can see why brits may have feelings for her, but i dont consider her remarkable. Her legacy is basically that she lived in 96 of the most impactful years in human history and oversaw (from a distance) the end of the british empire. None of that was her making, she merely stood there as a prop. Her greatest achievement was that she led a conservative life, married only once, never participated in anything progressive, meshing well with the anachronistic rituals of monarchy.
There is a difference between criticizing monarchy in a civilized manner and flamebating. A civilized discussion is 90% of the value of hn compared to, say, reddit.
> this ever more fascist government from undermining fundamental aspects of our supposed democracy.
this seems like quite a contradictory position to take. royalty is undemocratic, but you lost respect for them when they chose not to use their unearned power to interfere with the actions of democratically elected officials?
are there not better reasons to not respect the monarchy?
They have a veto, they didn't exercise it to protect democracy, and the only person with power to prorogue parliament was the Queen so she became actively involved in the subversion of our democracy. Keeping parliament open would have been more democratic, and was the default line. There are other reasons, but that was what pushed me over the edge personally to accepting they may be a useful aspect of our pseudo-constitutional monarchy to considering that they genuinely only want to maintain their positions, to feed at the trough.
this doesn’t justify the contradiction in terms of disliking them for being undemocratic, but losing all respect for them because they refused to use their undemocratic veto
whether proroguing parliament was right or not - it wasn’t - it would absolutely have been worse if they had interfered. one is a temporary political tactic by an elected official to push through legislation - or lack thereof - the other would have completely and unreservedly undermined our democratic institutions as they have worked for over 200 years
I think you slightly misunderstand the role of the royals in this country. they are not consciously acting figures who take an active role in politics. they’re more like the chair that the speaker sits in, or some of the pretty furnishings in the houses of parliament. they’re an aesthetic and we put up with them for that reason and that reason only. you wouldn’t expect the paper that a law is written on to make sure the law itself is democratic and for the same reason you shouldn’t expect the current regent to do the same. they’re a part of the machinery, not a person working it
HN would be a complete shit show without dang. What you call "heavy handedness" is what I call the most appropriate, fair minded guidance to keep threads from turning into flamewars.
I've been warned by dang before, and when I was, after I took a minute to cool down from what I was responding to, I realized he was exactly correct. I'd encourage y'all to do the same - the parent's comment that there is "a requirement that we do not speak ill of that monarchy" is a gross, and honestly annoyingly incorrect, mischaracterization of what dang said.
There are many places where you can get light moderation and get to say what you want. Reddit comes to mind. HN is different largely because of that moderation; it's a feature not a bug.
Engagement and return visits aren't the primary goals of this community. Indeed, "As a rule, a community site that becomes popular will decline in quality" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)
The site's goal is to encourage deeply interesting content, in terms of both posts and comments.
This story is on topic because it's a major historical event and history has always been on topic here. If it doesn't produce an intellectually curious response in you, you're welcome to find something else that does—there are plenty of other things to read—but in that case please refrain from posting.
Positive-empty comments aren't substantive either, but as pg pointed out way back when HN was getting started (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html), those are benign. The comments we need to avoid are the malignant ones.
Edit: by positive-empty I just meant comments like these:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32770030
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769786
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769037
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769019
I'm not telling you guys to be royalists! I'm just asking you not to post crap comments, which this thread was filled with when I first saw it. We don't care what you're for or against, we just care about people using HN as intended.
Edit 2: I think the problem is that this comment has outlived its usefulness at the top of the thread because the bottom of the barrel comments have mostly been moderated away, whether by user flags or by us. I'm going to unpin this and mark it offtopic now. Please don't post any more bottom-of-barrel comments!—and if you see some, please flag them.