Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by japhyr » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:40 PM UTC

I understand the sentiment here, but it sounds a little...wishful.

Our political climate is affecting all of us in many ways, and we need to process what's happening. We need to do that carefully and constructively. I want to know the subtle political aspects of many of the stories I read on HN.

That said, I'll play along for the week. I hope what comes out of this is a push to encourage critical thinking about the political aspects of important stories, not to push political conversation off of HN entirely.

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

#42

Post by anon987 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:40 PM UTC

Why are they allowed, period?

Is the community OK with turning HN into Reddit-lite - because that's clearly what's happening based on the topics that get upvoted.

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

#43

Post by baddox » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:40 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #8

ProAm wrote: post #5

I'm a little skeptical of this.... What's the ulterior motive here? We all know SamA was very anti-trump, is this an alternative method to keep the new US political regime from affecting YC? It's almost a weird form of discussion censorship. Whose idea was this?

It was my idea and has nothing to do with political preferences, though the election season was probably a factor. It has to do with us noticing an uptick in two undesirable things: harsh ideological comments, and accounts that use HN primarily for political battle. You can see one example of how the idea developed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13052458

Do you have real data showing that there has been an uptick in those two things (however you've defined them), or is it possible that the apparent uptick is caused by something else, like confirmation bias or your own weariness of recent political discussion/events?

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

#44

Post by feedjoelpie » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

Are you trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist except for the most hardcore HN users?

Because I haven't lately noticed much of the phenomenon you're talking about. And in the first 3 pages I just skimmed over, I didn't see anything that was so political as to be flamewar fodder.

Are you sure you're not trying to solve a problem that your average user doesn't even have?

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

#45

Post by twalling » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

I think its a sad day that we can't attempt to be intellectually curious just because its politically related. This last election has prompted me to start reading more on both sides and has lead me to some other readings such as the constitution, economic theory, history, etc.

It is possible to talk about these topics from an academic perspective and it feels like banning it for a week is equivalent to putting your head in the sand and ignoring it because its too hard to have a conversation about it. This is exactly the behavior I was motivated to try and change in myself (stick to tech only, ignore other issues).

Yes, its very difficult to talk about some politics in thoughtful ways but I would hope a community like HN has the people needed to try and address some of the issues coming up. Be it technical (detecting fake news, biases, etc) or intellectual commentary.

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

#46

Post by tomwrenn » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

I'm worried about how this will effect civictech, edtech, govtech story coverage which has been great in recent years on HN and are important for helping the community to be informed of how it's contributing and how individuals can contribute to addressing societal issues.

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

#47

Post by binarymax » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

Can you please give specific examples of what "politics" entails, aside from the obvious (so we know where to draw the line)?

For example, as of writing, the #3 post is " Silicon Valley’s Culture, Not Its Companies, Dominates in China (nytimes.com)". I would classify this as political, but others might not.

--EDIT-- I would also classify this front page post as (internally) political: "Dear JavaScript (medium.com)"

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

#48

Post by dang » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

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. We're not so concerned about stories on other things that happen to have political aspects—like, say, software patents. Those stories aren't going to be evicted from HN or anything like that. For this week, though, let's err on the side of flagging because it will make the experiment more interesting.

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

#49

Post by hood_syntax » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

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…

Very fair points you bring up, particularly the examples. I share your optimism however

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

#50

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

Is this some special narrow definition of "political", or is the expectation really that everything touching in any way upon government or public affairs of any country will be deemed off-topic and killed?

Because a very large share of HN stories and comments have political content in the dictionary definition (it's hard to address the societal impact of anything even in a descriptive way, much less to discuss views of the merits of such impacts, without such content.)