5 ms·

If you have no idea what you're talking about, please don't use incendiary language.

davidw 17y ago
Incendiary language is basically what you're likely to wind up with when you discuss politics on the internet. Yes, even on sites like this one; vaksel isn't just some random guy who joined the site yesterday. Which is why I keep harping about keeping these types of articles off this site.
- ericd 17y ago
  Perhaps there is a case for creating a tag that can be added via flag for non-hacker news news, which is easily filterable as off topic, and is filtered out by default? This could potentially have worse effects on the dynamics of the site than these articles themselves, but I am interested to hear what this community has to say on subjects like these.
  - Klondike 17y ago
    You can't run away from issues like this; they're news, they're important. If HN is gonna survive and thrive, it's gonna have to be tough enough to get through posts like this. Really, the ratio of thoughtful-to-irrational is way higher here than on even Reddit. It's all good.
    - davidw 17y ago
      The problem is that that ratio is not stable over time. Political posts attract people interested in debating politics, which is a much larger group than people interested in hacking and startups. Also, even (especially?) amongst smart people, there is a large range of thoughts; from some guy here whose profile says "venture communist" (whatever the hell that is) to plenty of libertarians, and everything in between. Most of us are likely to be relatively convinced of our views, making debate mostly fruitless and quite potentially incendiary. Also, yes, you can run away from these discussions; the site is moderated. Other sites with a narrow focus (lambda the ultimate) do just fine. It's sites that grow and grow that decay. Also, if it's "news" and "important" then there are plenty of other sites where you can talk about it all you want. There are not many other sites for the discussion of hacking and startups though.

Incendiary language is basically what you're likely to wind up with when you discuss politics on the internet. Yes, even on sites like this one; vaksel isn't just some random guy who joined the site yesterday. Which is why I keep harping about keeping these types of articles off this site.

ericd 17y ago
Perhaps there is a case for creating a tag that can be added via flag for non-hacker news news, which is easily filterable as off topic, and is filtered out by default? This could potentially have worse effects on the dynamics of the site than these articles themselves, but I am interested to hear what this community has to say on subjects like these.
- Klondike 17y ago
  You can't run away from issues like this; they're news, they're important. If HN is gonna survive and thrive, it's gonna have to be tough enough to get through posts like this. Really, the ratio of thoughtful-to-irrational is way higher here than on even Reddit. It's all good.
  - davidw 17y ago
    The problem is that that ratio is not stable over time. Political posts attract people interested in debating politics, which is a much larger group than people interested in hacking and startups. Also, even (especially?) amongst smart people, there is a large range of thoughts; from some guy here whose profile says "venture communist" (whatever the hell that is) to plenty of libertarians, and everything in between. Most of us are likely to be relatively convinced of our views, making debate mostly fruitless and quite potentially incendiary. Also, yes, you can run away from these discussions; the site is moderated. Other sites with a narrow focus (lambda the ultimate) do just fine. It's sites that grow and grow that decay. Also, if it's "news" and "important" then there are plenty of other sites where you can talk about it all you want. There are not many other sites for the discussion of hacking and startups though.