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

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

#981

Post by dang »

davidivadavid wrote: post #960
dang wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> heavy slant towards a sort of techno-utopian quasi-libertarianism Sometimes I amuse myself by imagining a service in which HN users who make opposing claims about its "heavy slant" are introduced to each other.

Has there ever been an attempt to run a survey and settle the question? Of course, the risk of the results creating the kind of thread you're trying to avoid with the detox week is pretty high...

Such surveys aren't reliable. If anyone wanted to classify comments manually they might come up with something, but I'd guess it would just lead to more arguments.

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

#982

Post by opsiprogram »

nkurz wrote: post #918
opsiprogram wrote: post #802

While I see the point, and I can agree with the points made that HN shouldn't be a "battlefield" for person opinion, I cannot accept that we will concede politics to be a topic to be too difficult for discussion, difficult conversations are the most important ones to have. In the view you've put forward, you say that politics is the problem, a topic that when discussed causes fights and it can damage the culture of H…

See where we go, go forth and be critical thinkers and talk about the hardest topics facing human civ right now. Lets see what happens. Perhaps that should be next weeks experiment! (Yes, I'm serious.)

yea yea!

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

#983

Post by morgante »

ekiru wrote: post #959
morgante wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely support having a detox. In the longer run, I think it is good to have some politics on the site. Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum and has a huge amount of intersection with politics. In the past, it has been possible to have rational and nuanced conversations about political issues on HN. In the recent election cycle, that's been destroyed. It seems to have emboldened people to derail threads with po…

> That being said, I see a lot of people pointing to "incivility" as a problem in political threads. That is incredibly wrong. The problem in political threads is twofold: (a) people civilly arguing without actually acknowledging each other's points at all, (b) hateful rhetoric which destroys a sense of community. I think you're right that both of those are problems, but they're not the only problem. Incivility is al…

You're right that civility is probably a problem as well, simply not the only one.

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

#984

Post by ubernostrum »

ucarion wrote: post #647
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…

This moratorium will only last a week. I think our discourse will survive. Though political discussion is essential, I think you'd agree it has downsides when there's too much of it or when everyone considers it high-stakes. The way I see it, the mods are asking us all to hold our political tongues and see what the comments feel like. They're very clear that it's an experiment. Maybe when politics resume seven days f…

It will only last a week... a week in which the president-elect is meeting with some top Silicon Valley people. And a week in which any discussion or stories about that will be conveniently automatically off-topic.

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

#985

Post by grzm »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #975
ekiru wrote: post #959

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That being said, I see a lot of people pointing to "incivility" as a problem in political threads. That is incredibly wrong. The problem in political threads is twofold: (a) people civilly arguing without actually acknowledging each other's points at all, (b) hateful rhetoric which destroys a sense of community. I think you're right that both of those are problems, but they're not the only problem. Incivility is al…

>The civility of discourse isn't independent of the content of that discourse. This statement should probably become a part of civility rules in most communities.

I like the "civil and substantive" aspect of moderation here at HN. I'd also like to see something along the lines of Rapoport's Rules[0] and the Principles of Charity[1] embodied in the community.

Rapoport's Rules:

How to compose a successful critical commentary:

- You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.

- You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

- You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

- Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

[0]: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapo...

[1]: http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html

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

#986

Post by Turing_Machine »

reflexive wrote: post #409
nneonneo wrote: post #174

Many of the top-level comments here are against this move. I, on the other hand, would like to express my strong support for this move. Hacker News has never been an anything-goes site. Tight moderation, considerate rules, and low tolerance for bullshit have made this a great site to talk about interesting technical topics and ideas. Remember that we all abide by the rules of the site, and that this isn't a magic fre…

Political discourse is antithetical to rational, intelligent discussion. In fact, what is antithetical to rational, intelligent discussion is: emotionally charged, poorly-considered, and dishonest discussion. The topic doesn't matter: health fads, operating systems, or taxes. I agree, many people have terrible style in their approach to political discussion - but see also, e.g. Hobbes and Rousseau for more thoughtful…

Hobbes once published a book entitled Stigmai ageōmetrias, agroichias, antipoliteas, amatheias, or, Markes of the absurd geometry, rural language, Scottish church-politicks, and barbarismes of John Wallis professor of geometry and doctor of divinity, so he, too, had his intemperate moments.

(Wallis was a political adversary of Hobbes, in case that's not clear)

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

#987

Post by aaron695 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #984
ucarion wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This moratorium will only last a week. I think our discourse will survive. Though political discussion is essential, I think you'd agree it has downsides when there's too much of it or when everyone considers it high-stakes. The way I see it, the mods are asking us all to hold our political tongues and see what the comments feel like. They're very clear that it's an experiment. Maybe when politics resume seven days f…

It will only last a week... a week in which the president-elect is meeting with some top Silicon Valley people. And a week in which any discussion or stories about that will be conveniently automatically off-topic.

Write it up as an article with proof or a convincing argument. Submit it and it'll be front page on HN pretty quick.

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

#988

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

s_q_b wrote: post #732
BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is not whether the issues are important, it's whether they're on-topic right here . Your example is meaningful but that doesn't mean it should be discussed on Reddit under /r/comics or /r/cooking. Since HN doesn't have categories/subreddits, I think there's a diverging sense of what readers want to find when they come here.

The topic of this thread is the policy of banning political comments for one week. I stated that the experiment should not be conducted at this time, due to the forthcoming appointment of a government official, which HN should discuss given yesterday's events. It was certainly relevant on this thread.

I didn't mean it wasn't relevant to this thread (which gets a pass for being meta), I meant "here" as in "would you submit a story about this on HN".

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

#989

Post by dang »

ubernostrum wrote: post #984
ucarion wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This moratorium will only last a week. I think our discourse will survive. Though political discussion is essential, I think you'd agree it has downsides when there's too much of it or when everyone considers it high-stakes. The way I see it, the mods are asking us all to hold our political tongues and see what the comments feel like. They're very clear that it's an experiment. Maybe when politics resume seven days f…

It will only last a week... a week in which the president-elect is meeting with some top Silicon Valley people. And a week in which any discussion or stories about that will be conveniently automatically off-topic.

Obviously that's a pure coincidence. The idea that HN moderators have prior information about presidential meetings is (from where I sit) completely silly, and certainly totally wrong.
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