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Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#531

Post by stcredzero »

chrissnell wrote: post #205
tarikjn wrote: post #62

I find this experiment a bit strange/disturbing, avoiding political subjects is a way of putting the head in the sand. HN is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs and politics affects these subjects one way or another wether we want to avoid it or not, and are an important component of entrepreneurial and technical subjects. It might be fine if HN was a scientific community, but it is not the case, and even then p…

I fully support this detox week. As someone whose political views don't align with the average HN reader, I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion, even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way. It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it…

I fully support this detox week. As someone whose political views don't align with the average HN reader, I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion, even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way. It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it or face the onslaught of downvotes if we express a dissenting opinion.

In recent threads, I've made some factual observations, only to have people imagine a slant or motivation, then argue with that commenter of their imagination. I think HN is succumbing to the "Arguments as Soliders" antipattern:

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Arguments_as_soldiers

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#532

Post by keepper »

Who says you get to ask why? No, really!

If hacker news is getting political, that is a function of it's users ( and the social climate ). A community is built by its members. For better or worse.

Work on addressing the issues that make the discourse toxic. What does covering the sun with the censorship finger actually accomplish?

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#533

Post by Barrin92 »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #385
chrissnell wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully support this detox week. As someone whose political views don't align with the average HN reader, I often feel marginalized by unfair downvoting in political discussion, even though I have made my points in an informed and respectful way. It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it…

> It often feels like there is one prevailing slant on this site and those of the majority are free to push their views while the rest of us must either read it and ignore it or face the onslaught of downvotes if we express a dissenting opinion. Are there any online communities where their political opinions match more with yours? Why don't you hang out there instead? I realize that's reinforcing an echo chamber, but…

>Are there any online communities where their political opinions match more with yours? Why don't you hang out there instead? I realize that's reinforcing an echo chamber, but it sounds like you're looking for more of an echo chamber, right?

Trying to diversify discourse here sounds like the opposite of looking for an echo chamber, and the 'tech community' is in dire need of it, at least as far as politics is concerned

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#534

Post by nkurz »

anonbanker wrote: post #408
dang wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it looks like sour grapes This is one of those unintended consequences that gobsmack me any time we try out some new idea here. I'm sure anyone who deals with large internet communities has the same experience. The funny thing is that it's always obvious that it was bound to come up, in retrospect—just never beforehand. It's like the unveiling of the murderer in an Agatha Christie novel: hidden in plain view every…

I've never modded a community as large as HN, but I know exactly what you mean. A good mod is accused of bias from all sides of a debate. And a lack of foresight, followed by eventual action, will likely engender accusations of moderation bias. Frankly, your answer, even "in progress" is still satisfactory. I was going to send this in an email to you ages ago, but this is as good a place as any, I guess. I'm sure you…

I liken it to game testing, where one is encouraged to play incorrectly in order to identify bugs in a program.

Whereas as another participant, I see your approach as more akin to a 'griefer' than play tester. I think there is a difference between testing a pre-release game, and disrupting others who are trying to find a community in which to communally understand the world. There are some good parts that would be sad to lose, and even without deliberate misrepresentation the situation is fragile. Please be gentle with your research, and don't take for granted the resilience of the community here.

I just don't agree that HN is "equally-biased", and I have the post history to prove it.

Perhaps those of different biases are more or less likely to flag or vote? That is, could there be many here who believe more strongly in the positives of free speech, and thus are reluctant to flag comments they disagree with, such that a small number of flaggers who do not share this view have a disproportionate voice? I don't know what the vote-to-view ratio is for HN, but I'd presume it's very small, with the flag-to-view being miniscule in almost all cases.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#536

Post by schoen »

This item immediately came up with the really great news that the California drought is ending:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108944

So, that immediately prompted follow-up comments about rivalries between northern and southern Californians over water use (edit: including whether the choice of this metric is southern-Californian political propaganda!), about whether Californians can manage to reduce the amount of water that we need, about whether the west has too much human settlement, etc. While those may not align very well with political ideologies that have been the most controversial here, they could be seen as political questions (and they could potentially lead to flamewarring over different aspects of environmentalism).

How does this kind of topic fit in with this plan, dang?

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#537

Post by stcredzero »

In recent threads, I've made some factual observations, only to have people imagine a slant or motivation, then argue with that commenter of their imagination. I think HN is succumbing to the "Arguments as Soliders" antipattern:

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Arguments_as_soldiers

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#538

Post by salmonet »

idlewords wrote: post #380

This is a terrible decision. The tech industry has built powerful tools of social control, and runs vast databases of private data on pretty much everyone in the country. We have a golden period of forty-some days before a new administration comes to power that has shown every intent of using that information to deport people and create a national Muslim registry. We need to be talking about the political implication…

A complete blackout of anything the political community decides is important is strange. I understand the danger of political flame wars, but interesting issues will often become politicized. Climate change and privacy have obviously become political, but that doesn't make those topics less interesting intellectually.

edit: grammer

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#539

Post by kbenson »

idlewords wrote: post #497
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem like most people on HN want to be politically active here. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm here to learn new things. And yet, teaching people new things tends to affect the world more than political discussion ever could. I'm happy that HN exists as a solace from the political storm the rest of the world is wrapped up in. Of course politics will affect each of us. But as tptacek is fond of sayi…

It's weird to talk about the technical aspects of the Zeppelin if you're not allowed to mention the swastika painted on the tail.

At some point it moves from politics to history. Using facts to discuss the past is not the same as projecting what might happen in the future, or why something in the near past happened, when we don't have nearly enough data to make definitive statements on it. This lack of factual data leads to opinion holding sway, and that leads to inflammatory arguments.

Let's not pretend that we can talk about the current political spectrum with anything near the certainty and information we have about Nazi Germany, the economic policies that were involved at the time, the propaganda used, and the world events at the time.

Re: Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week

#540

Post by venomsnake »

dang wrote: post #48
rustyfe wrote: post #32

One question that interests/concerns me is making judgement calls about what is/is not a political story. Some links will be cut and dry, some will not. Some comments will be immediately identified as political, some will just be politics adjacent. For instance, on a story about self driving cars, will it be appropriate to talk about UBI? On a story about cryptography, will it be acceptable to talk about how it appli…

Right, it's not possible to define "politics" precisely, and it would be a mistake to try. But there's nothing new in that; the HN guidelines have always mentioned politics without defining the term, and we get by. We can clarify, though. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet.…

I think a detox with clearer rules would have been better

No Trump/Clinton stories for a week.

These are the ones that are the major trouble makers. And since there is no chance of an article on the culture war not mentioning those people - this will rid of the second tier stories too.

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