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

1630 points dang | 5 comments | 05 Dec 16 19:24 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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. polymotivated ◴[06 Dec 16 04:47 UTC] No.13112328[source]▶
Here's an idea. If a story is clearly political, then just turn off comment moderation except for flagging.

Objectively, HN has a huge problem with leftists and socialists downvoting conservative/libertarian comments.

Dang knows this. I haven't read all the comments, but if he denies that simple fact, then HN has bigger problems.

You can't have legitimate conversations if the other side is openly hostile to the very idea of even displaying contrarian to their beliefs opinions.

There was a big bubble that many on HN lived in until election day, when they must've realized that there's another half of the country that doesn't think like them.

Here's a perfect example of living in the bubble. Look at all the car hatred on HN, where people are almost giddy over ideas to ban them, limit them, etc...

The vast majority of the people in the world don't think that way.

HN is just a bubble and why it's a parody.

replies(1): >>13112381 #
2. dragonwriter ◴[06 Dec 16 05:04 UTC] No.13112381[source]▶
> Objectively, HN has a huge problem with leftists and socialists downvoting conservative/libertarian comments

It's funny how partisans on the right often say this, and partisans on the left often say the same thing, with the sides reversed.

The fact is, HN has sizable and active contigents from all parts if the political spectrum, and partisan voting (up and down) comes from all sides.

replies(1): >>13112433 #
3. polymotivated ◴[06 Dec 16 05:19 UTC] No.13112433[source]▶
Maybe those on the right aren't as trigger-happy with the down-votes as the leftists are. Leftists aren't so keen on free speech anyway. Just look at the SJWs and the global warming crowd.
replies(2): >>13112455 #>>13112514 #
4. grzm ◴[06 Dec 16 05:25 UTC] No.13112455{3}[source]▶
These types of generalizations are exactly why political discourse breaks down so quickly, regardless of political stripe. Two comments from an account created just to post them and attack a particular political position: is this the type of honest, nuanced political discussion you hold up as useful? My goodness. Do you want ants? Because that’s how you get ants.
5. dragonwriter ◴[06 Dec 16 05:41 UTC] No.13112514{3}[source]▶
> Maybe those on the right aren't as trigger-happy with the down-votes as the leftists are.

Or maybe they are.

> Leftists aren't so keen on free speech anyway.

And many leftists would say the same thing about rightists, with the same amount of justification.

Both the right and left have large factions with little devotion to free speech beyond what agrees with them. And both have factions that view disagreement and criticism as suppression.