And it turns out your latest comments are on the same topic, which is fine, I'm happy to keep responding.
On this:
- “there used to less bending the knee to the mob”
- “make exceptions because it's what a mob wants”
"Mobs" have nothing to do with it.
The answer is in your root comment: "unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon". When a politics story makes the front page, it's because it contains "significant new information". That's literally the acid test we think about, that we use internally when discussing it and that we often use in comments explaining our reasoning.
When we think about these stories we're not thinking about engagement at all. That's never a consideration. And we're not thinking about appealing to the "lowest common denominator", which is what the term "mob" implies.
All we're thinking about is:
- does this story contain “significant new information”?
- will many of the most positive contributors to HN think that this is an important topic to discuss here?
If it's yes to both then we'll turn off flags and spend the day trying to keep the thread healthy. If not then we'll let it disappear.
And it turns out your latest comments are on the same topic, which is fine, I'm happy to keep responding.
On this:
- “there used to less bending the knee to the mob”
- “make exceptions because it's what a mob wants”
"Mobs" have nothing to do with it.
The answer is in your root comment: "unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon". When a politics story makes the front page, it's because it contains "significant new information". That's literally the acid test we think about, that we use internally when discussing it and that we often use in comments explaining our reasoning.
When we think about these stories we're not thinking about engagement at all. That's never a consideration. And we're not thinking about appealing to the "lowest common denominator", which is what the term "mob" implies.
All we're thinking about is:
- does this story contain “significant new information”?
- will many of the most positive contributors to HN think that this is an important topic to discuss here?
If it's yes to both then we'll turn off flags and spend the day trying to keep the thread healthy. If not then we'll let it disappear.