←back to thread

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

1630 points dang | 6 comments | 05 Dec 16 19:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.225s | source | bottom

Like everyone else, HN has been on a political binge lately. As an experiment, we're going to try something new and have a cleanse. Starting today, it's Political Detox Week on HN.

For one week, political stories are off-topic. Please flag them. Please also flag political threads on non-political stories. For our part, we'll kill such stories and threads when we see them. Then we'll watch together to see what happens.

Why? Political conflicts cause harm here. The values of Hacker News are intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation. Those things are lost when political emotions seize control. Our values are fragile—they're like plants that get forgotten, then trampled and scorched in combat. HN is a garden, politics is war by other means, and war and gardening don't mix.

Worse, these harsher patterns can spread through the rest of the culture, threatening the community as a whole. A detox week seems like a good way to strengthen the immune system and to see how HN functions under altered conditions.

Why don't we have some politics but discuss it in thoughtful ways? Well, that's exactly what the HN guidelines call for, but it's insufficient to stop people from flaming each other when political conflicts activate the primitive brain. Under such conditions, we become tribal creatures, not intellectually curious ones. We can't be both at the same time.

A community like HN deteriorates when new developments dilute or poison what it originally stood for. We don't want that to happen, so let's all get clear on what this site is for. What Hacker News is: a place for stories that gratify intellectual curiosity and civil, substantive comments. What it is not: a political, ideological, national, racial, or religious battlefield.

Have at this in the thread and if you have concerns we'll try to allay them. This really is an experiment; we don't have an opinion yet about longer-term changes. Our hope is that we can learn together by watching what happens when we try something new.

1. bargl ◴[05 Dec 16 20:29 UTC] No.13109156[source]▶
I'm seeing a lot of people say this is a bad idea. I completely disagree. TL;DR; If HN is your only news source, you have bigger issues than this experiment, go subscribe to another source of political news.

Hacker news is a news aggregation medium for "Hacker News." The purpose of this site is to get your fix of tech news that you can't get other places. It isn't burying your head in the sand to ONLY have "Hacker" news on your Hacker News site. It's sticking your head in the sand not to read any other news sources. That is on the individual. It is not the job of Hacker News to educate you on politics. The responsibility of getting good news is on the user not the medium. HN doesn't claim to be a one stop shop for all of your news.

More importantly, this is an experiment, on a site that is very interested in Science and Programming. It completely makes sense to have an experiment like this to see if it affects the quality of the comments. Being against this experiment is like my dad trying to tell me that God Created the earth 5000 years ago from parts of other planets (complete hyperbole). WTH? It doesn't matter it's one week and then it's over.

I'm assuming a good experiment will THEN make assertions and consult with the community to see if this worked, was bad/good/etc. At that point voice your concerns, but not yet, there is no evidence it's all conjecture.

replies(2): >>13109406 #>>13109596 #
2. j1vms ◴[05 Dec 16 20:51 UTC] No.13109406[source]▶
> I'm seeing a lot of people say this is a bad idea. I completely disagree. (...) Hacker news is a news aggregation medium for "Hacker News."

I'm not sure yet whether I think this is a good or bad idea, though this I'll say: HN is not just a news aggregation medium. If in the beginning it were, it is no longer. It is now much more defined by the people on here. Like reddit, the story pages give the majority of screen real estate to comments. It's not a stretch to say people on here drop by, to a greater extent, for the discussions, ideas, and tips - and to a lesser extent, to be exposed to a story or link that they might not have eventually found elsewhere.

replies(2): >>13109748 #>>13111704 #
3. ben0x539 ◴[05 Dec 16 21:08 UTC] No.13109596[source]▶
I'm not worried about this move because I think that I'll somehow miss out on political news, I'm worried because an attempt to detach ourselves from politics (as interpreted here) can only be to the detriment of those on the losing end of politics.
replies(1): >>13109768 #
4. bargl ◴[05 Dec 16 21:21 UTC] No.13109748[source]▶
Maybe it shouldn't be? Yes that's a question because this is an experiment, they aren't saying it shouldn't be.

I'm 100% behind you if they try to ban politics on HN. But for a week it's ok, we'll live and we may even learn something.

5. bargl ◴[05 Dec 16 21:23 UTC] No.13109768[source]▶
It's an experiment. Experiments are good. They allow us to take risks and see if something good or bad happens.

Banning politics on HN is not what they are proposing, they are proposing a cease fire on HN. That is by no means a bad idea.

If they propose banning news on HN permanently I'll get out my pitchfork too (assuming the experiment goes poorly). But lets put them away for a week, then talk.

6. ◴[06 Dec 16 02:10 UTC] No.13111704[source]▶