Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Please don't take HN threads on political flamewar tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html



So we can't talk on here about how we have a President now that sees fit to strip away people's citizenship?

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/uscis-starting-denaturaliz...

We can't talk about how he's rolling back promises to soldiers to score political points?

https://apnews.com/amp/38334c4d061e493fb108bd975b5a1a5d

How his DHS is conveniently losing documentation on children they've forcibly separated from their parents?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/us/migrant-children-chaos...

Why do we see ourselves as separate from this conversation? Are we not people living with this? Seeing this happen to our neighbors? The people that serve and make our food?


It isn't that we "can't talk on here", it's that threads are flameprone and vulnerable to initial conditions. If the initial condition is, say, a cheap swipe with 'fascist', the discussion is likely to flare into ideological battle. That gets the blood pumping but otherwise benefits no one. Overheated political rhetoric, such as your comment contains, isn't much better. All it generates is more of the same, from people who either share your feelings or don't. None of that is in keeping with either the spirit of this site or its rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), so it's off topic here.

What initial conditions make for good discussion? Two things: first, a substantive article that contains information rather than just rhetoric. Flamey rhetoric is a sugar high and our minds need something to chew on. Second, initial comments that earnestly engage with the information in the article (as opposed to potshots or pre-existing talking points). When those things are present, politicized topics can be ok for Hacker News. They can still degenerate into flamewars, though, in which case they become off topic again.

Edit: dismayingly, it looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle, which violates the site guidelines, and gotten nasty in the process, such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17323529 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17323169, which I probably would have banned you for had I seen it. We ban accounts that do these things, for the same reason: it degrades the site well below the level needed for not going up in flames. Would you please stop using HN this way?


The initial conditions for this discussion were poor, granted, but these are real, tangible concerns. It's not something ideological or abstract for me when people fail to critique systems that can literally drag my friends away from their promising careers in science and technology.

The links I provided were substantiative evidence regarding the present administration's actions. I'll try to attach my substantiative responses to less flame-prone initial conditions in the future.

The tone I struck in the examples you cited was short, granted. I will do better.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.


All of this stuff is important, it's just not the topic of this forum.


I'm a Canadian, so no to your 5th question.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: