[dang]

Right, it's not possible to define "politics" precisely, and it would be a mistake to try. But there's nothing new in that; the HN guidelines have always mentioned politics without defining the term, and we get by.

We can clarify, though. The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet. We're not so concerned about stories on other things that happen to have political aspects—like, say, software patents. Those stories aren't going to be evicted from HN or anything like that. For this week, though, let's err on the side of flagging because it will make the experiment more interesting.

[ben0x539]

> The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion

I feel like trying to ban discussion of these conflicts will lead to the same outcome that reddit's weird "free speech" policy had, if more subtly. If Hacker News is the place where racist, misogynist, fascist hackers can feel particularly safe, that's going to be the kind of people you attract, at the expense of marginalized hackers.

There is no neutral option around this kind of politics and I'll be sad to see HN throw marginalized people under the bus to ensure the comfort of the privileged.

[Mz]

If Hacker News is the place where racist, misogynist, fascist hackers can feel particularly safe, that's going to be the kind of people you attract, at the expense of marginalized hackers.

I appear to be the top ranked openly female member here and my experience of HN dramatically improved when Dan Gackle (aka dang) took over the role as lead moderator of the site. I have faith in his judgment, plus I have substantial soft skills myself. I do not believe he is going to do anything to shape HN into the sort of thing you are positing here.

[ben0x539]

dang doing moderation has definitely improved the place and I sure don't want to ascribe sinister motivations to him. I hope it'll work out okay! But I'm worried.

[Mz]

The concern of well intentioned individuals is a potential force for good. I wouldn't want you to simply let your guard down and I have certainly argued with dang myself.

Best.

[adrienne]

RIGHT OVER HERE there are HN users spouting the usual disproven gender-essentialist bullshit about women in STEM fields: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13101949

I have no idea why you feel so much more comfortable at this place than MeFi - MeFi isn't good, by any stretch of the imagination, but at least when people get banned for horrific misogyny or anti-Semitism people don't come along later and say "but they had great technical contributions!"

[Mz]

I understand your anger. But I do not understand why you feel some need to take it out on me.

I do not need to justify to you why I think mefi is far worse than hn. Feel free to go hang there and stop adding your toxic comments to hn, like you said you would prior to deciding to come back and dump on me some more.

[adrienne]

a) I wasn't taking it out on you; b) I don't generally comment at MeFi either, and for most of the same reasons?

[Mz]

It sure comes across like you are taking it out on me.

The comments you claim would not happen on mefi would likely get deleted. They don't here. That does not make mefi better. It just makes it easier to pretend it is or to be fooled by appearances.

[adrienne]

I am also openly a woman. And I'm probably one of the lowest-ranked members on here, precisely because this community is already so fucking much a "place where racist, misogynist, fascist hackers can feel perfectly safe". So i only come over here when something is really interesting or really appalling, because it is a toxic awful cesspit of a community and Mr. Gackle doesn't seem to have done any better than any of the other mods in that regard. IDK why you have any more faith in him than in any of the rest of them.

[Mz]

I have recently noticed multiple women with longstanding accounts that were (mostly or entirely) inactive for apparently a very long time but which have recently started being active again. I also have exchanged emails with Dan Gackle on a number of occasions and he has banned accounts for making ugly personal attacks at me that were completely out of line (and gender based) and he has also engaged in more limited, but useful interventions.

There are other things that I am not willing to comment on publicly, but which inform my opinion.

I am sorry your experience has been so negative. I certainly had a pretty difficult time at one time, but I have always had a pretty good opinion of HN and I felt I had reason to work on the problem from my end, since I am good at certain things. I believe it is generally getting better and women are generally being received differently here than what happened at one time.

[adrienne]

I feel certain that after gawking in horror at the trainwreck on this thread i will just go back to quietly pretending HN doesn't exist for another few months, because i cannot even. And i'll continue to warn literally every marginalized, subaltern, or otherwise vulnerable person in tech i know to stay the fuck away from here.

[bradjohnson]

Looking through your last couple comments you seem like you're constantly looking to get into political arguments by writing inflammatory comments mostly regarding gender. I'm not surprised that when you fish for a political argument, you end up attracting the worst that the site has to offer.

[Mz]

It would be super nice if you did not do this. I assure you, women who have been here a long time have good reason to have baggage. Her approach isn't productive at the moment, but your comment will read to quite a lot of women as victim blaming and drive them away.

This undermines the progress that some people here have work incredibly hard for.

[derefr]

The thing is, the people who are being racist, misogynist, fascist, etc. are also being political. And so their posts will get flagged too.

I think the idea is, basically, that rather than "calling out" these things and getting into a big argument about them each and every time they happen, you just (indicate to the mods that you want to) blow them out of the sky.

[ben0x539]

> The thing is, the people who are being racist, misogynist, fascist, etc. are also being political. And so their posts will get flagged too.

No offense to the HN moderation team, but I have very low confidence that this is going to be how it works out. :/

[seldo]

How does one contact the moderators to let them know that a comment is racist/sexist/whatever? I don't see any "flag" UI at the comment level, and I don't know who the mods are by name.

[grzm]

If you click on the timestamp of a comment, you should see a 'flag' link. I don't recall, though it might be karma gated. You can also reach the mods via email to hn [at] ycombinator.com.

[FT_intern]

>I feel like trying to ban discussion of these conflicts will lead to the same outcome that reddit's weird "free speech" policy had, if more subtly. If Hacker News is the place where racist, misogynist, fascist hackers can feel particularly safe, that's going to be the kind of people you attract, at the expense of marginalized hackers.

How are marginalized people "thrown under a bus" here? Not allowing discussions about race and gender is not equivalent to that at all.

I can barely tell the gender or race of anyone here.

[eropple]

I know a lot of people here. I know their genders, I know their races, in some cases I know their sexual orientations. Because they have talked about personal experiences here. But the world is fundamentally and inescapably political and this policy will, full-stop, be used as a bat to silence those people and prevent them from sharing their personal experiences when those experiences threaten the white-empowering, male-empowering status quo. There is no world in which it won't be.

Consider an article about discrimination in the hiring practices of startups. Is that "political" under this policy? My guess it is. And so out come the flags and the status quo is reinforced by the thunderous claim that it's Just Not A Problem--because, whether or not flags mean "this is bad and obviously unimportant" to 'dang, that's what they mean to the audience. And so, incrementally, the culture here gets worse. And worse. And worse.

[FT_intern]

Hacker news does not have the responsibility to improve or stop discrimination that happens outside the website. There is barely any discrimination that occurs on this website. Again, the majority of people cannot tell the race or gender of others unless it is explicitly stated.

And those issues are not just a one sided affair. It is politics after all. HN is impartial in that it silences both sides of that story (the other side being affirmative action or racial discrimination in favor of those who are supposedly oppressed).

[eropple]

With an assumption of good faith, let me try another way to express this to you: silence is, functionally even if not intentionally, support of the status quo. As such, the experiences of white men are implicitly apolitical under this policy and will be allowed. The experiences of women and minorities are implicitly political under this policy and will be flagged as such.

Is the incipient problem, for those not so fortunate as to be born white and male, perhaps a little clearer now? (And, to be clear, I am a white male. I'm just not blind to the concerns of others.)

[FT_intern]

Most of Hacker News contains shared experiences where identity level experiences are irrelevant. That appears to be the point of Hacker News becoming apolitical to me, to avoid bringing in experiences that can differ between people and cause arguments.

I'm not a white male and I never think to bring up issues affecting my group to the discussion. It doesn't brother me that those issues are barely brought up.

[adrienne]

The fact that you think that this set of statements is framed in a neutral or apolitical way is proving the point, you know?

[eropple]

You caught that, didn't you? I've been careful to offer my responses in good faith, but I couldn't help but notice that, yes, his defense is coming from a pretty regressive starting point.

The words people pick tell you a lot about them, don't they? ;) Almost like they mean things...

[genericpseudo]

> the world is fundamentally and inescapably political

Thank you for saying this.

It feels like what we're seeing here from HN leadership is denial - or abdication – of moral responsibility. That's a choice you can make, and it's known to be an argument going on within Facebook right now. It doesn't impress me much, but in all honesty, HN doesn't; this place has real problems with sexism and racism.

Speaking personally, I guess it means I'm unlikely to ever apply to YC, because I weigh these moral – call it social justice, that's fine with me – considerations pretty highly in choosing who I work with. Other people will find different personal calculuses here. Many YC founders are my friends and they speak highly of the people involved; this just happens to be over my personal line.

Nevertheless, I'm still just... disappointed.

[eropple]

Hey, didn't I just run into you over in the other thread...?

But, yeah, you're welcome. I've been here long enough that not saying anything was untenable. Email's in my profile if you'd like to talk further.

[burkaman]

In some contexts, not discussing an issue is equivalent to claiming that there is no issue.

For example, a story about a new data analysis tool or technique used by police would presumably still be on topic. Would a comment discussing how this tool might disproportionately affect minorities be considered off-topic politics? If that story is allowed but the discussion about race is not, the marginalized people might feel like they need to go elsewhere.

[brianmurphy]

The problem with many political topics is that we already know the conversation and the outcome.

1. Present a new data analysis tool used by police

2. Comment about disproportionately affect minorities

3. Response with FBI data explaining it's because certain minorities commit more crime

4. (devolves into flame fest)

... n. Complains marginalized people might not read the site

n+1. That's their personal choice

n+m. (more flame fest)

And hence why suggesting the content here stay technical instead of political is the best of several non-perfect choices.

[burkaman]

I understand that, and I like this experiment because of that, but think about it from the other perspective. If you felt like your life was in danger, and the entire community was like "mmm, this conversation isn't intellectually stimulating enough for me, please don't bring it up here", what would you think? It's one thing to go to some narrowly defined conference and find that politics are avoided, but it's another to go to a sort of general hangout for like-minded people and find that they won't acknowledge people like you.

It's sort of like saying "oh, I don't see race". Well, everyone else does, and not acknowledging racism is just about as bad as actually being racist. Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away.

And another analogy, telling people there are more appropriate places to discuss politics is sort of like people telling Black Lives Matter/Colin Kaepernick/etc. to please protest in a more appropriate manner. There's no point in "appropriate" protests and appropriate forums, they are ignored. You have to bring this stuff up in places where people want to ignore it, otherwise nothing will ever change.

[brianmurphy]

If my life was in danger, I'd have higher priorities than HN. The dictionary has a word for people who "feel" their life is in danger when it's really not: delusional.

HN will get really messy if the comment board becomes a place to protest.

IMO bringing your political grievance de jour to a tech site like HN is a sign of immaturity. Telling these people to grow up or leave isn't a bad thing. Conservatives lived through Obama and liberals will do fine under President Trump.

[dang]

I'm not sure I follow this logic, but I sense that my comment was more confusing than clarifying, since I'm pretty sure it doesn't lead to the consequence you're talking about and that's not what we intend (quite the opposite).

The intention here is simply to treat political stories as off-topic for a week. The question of what counts as a political story vs. not, is pretty much an impossible one to answer in the general case, so I probably shouldn't have tried.

[throwaway098345]

The fear is mixing the x and y axis of opinions. Most people can probably see why something like party, ideology or nation can be damaging. Not talking about those things generally doesn't prevent people from having a certain opinion on another level. But then you mix that with things like race, gender and class where wanting to talk about it generally (but not always) constitute an opinion.

[gambogi]

I don't understand how race, gender, and class in particular can possibly be separated out from tech any more so than software patents. A community that has been so obsessed with disrupting any and all aspects of life can't ethically refuse to discuss the consequences of doing so.

[pessimizer]

I would assume that discussion about software patents would fall under the ban, too. You can conceivably draw a line between discussions about implementation and discussions about the laws affecting different implementation. Wouldn't all discussions of the law fall under politics? Maybe just all discussion of potential changes in laws?

[gambogi]

GP suggested otherwise. Either way the bit about ethics was the point I'd prefer to discuss

[mattnewton]

I respect this decision and the difficulty of moderating in this crazy climate, but I think for most people those issues aren't so clearly divided. Take, for example, privacy, where a lot of the positions are based in class and political ideologies, and the outcome of that discussion very much affects tech. Or on the ethics of technologies that replace workers (like the recently announced amazon go) - clearly we need to have a discussion based on political ideologies to talk about whether universal basic income, job retraining, or something else is a solution to real fallout from these trends. Hacker news is close to my only source of smart and civil discussion about these relevant, but politically charged discussions.

I agree hatefully ranting is not working but I don't think politely steering away from the difficult part of the conversation is prudent either. I'm looking forward to hacker news being a place we can still have these difficult discussions in a civil tone after this moratorium.

[tyingq]

>The main concern here is pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, and religion that get people hot and turn into flamewars on the internet.

Am I to read that as "No Stories or Comments about Trump"? Maybe that wasn't the intention, but the specific hot buttons seem curiously chosen.

[dang]

What hot buttons did I miss? I can think of gender. I'll add that one.

Edit: class, too.

Perhaps I should make explicit what seems obvious (to me) and say no, this doesn't have to do specifically with Trump. This whole year has been a political game-changer—think of Brexit before it. Perhaps our societies are becoming increasingly polarized, I don't know, but lots of things are going on in the outside world and Trump is just one of them, though of course a major one.

I wonder if developments on other online forums might be characterizing how this one seems to some users, but the truth is pretty mundane: I don't know about those other online forums because I don't have time to look at them. What we're talking about here is purely HN-grown.

[throwaway098345]

If I recall correctly you've previously requested feedback on were they line is between moderation and censorship. I think this is the line. At least I define censorship as when certain things cannot be expressed despite being relevant and expressed in a similar way as other argument.

Removing political discussions is in itself tricky since the definition of what is political is subjective. But removing certain kinds of political discussions is even harder to do well, if not impossible. If it's still going to be allowed to post things about housing markets, education, economics, regulation or other areas where social science arguments are relevant. You must also be able to express arguments or submit stories that uses subjects like class or gender. Otherwise you are removing certain perspectives from the discussion in favor of arguments outside those perspectives, which is censorship.

I don't think polarization is the problem, nor even that society is more polarized now than before. In many way it's the opposite. Subcultures and large dividing issues are to some extent a thing of the past. People tend to have less developed views and less experience with other peoples views. Which makes disagreements more personal.

[tyingq]

I'm really just curious about whatever it is that prompted this. It still sounds like "US National Politics" vs politics in general.

[dang]

I can tell you but you might be disappointed! What prompted this is a year (maybe two) of slow, slow reflection over how best to clarify what kind of site HN is, plus dismay over the uptick in harsh comments and primarily-political accounts that we've been observing as moderators this year.

When I say slow, I mean slow. I see part of my job (and it's my temperament anyway) as taking care to understand what this community is and how its system functions, and then to protect that and help it thrive. In practice this means that we take a long time (especially by startup standards, not that HN is a startup) to make changes, and have a strong preference for subtle changes. If we do make a significant change, you can be sure that we waited a long time for the need for it to develop.

But this isn't a significant change, not yet; it's a one-week experiment to see what happens.

[eropple]

Can I get a true or false response to each of the following props:

"A story about systemic gender discrimination in tech should be flagged under this policy."

"A comment regarding a person's startup experience that describes how their experience has been impacted by their race or gender identity should be flagged under this policy."

"A discussion of the sociological impact of Facebook's news curation tools should be flagged under this policy."

[dang]

Those feel like gotcha questions in a cross-examination, but let me try.

I'm not sure what you mean by "this policy". Do you mean this one-week experiment to try something for a week and see what happens? I wouldn't call that a policy. To me that word implies something intended to be permanent, which is precisely what we're not proposing.

Either way, though, the answer can only be "maybe", because any one of your descriptions could cover a huge range along the axis we're talking about (intellectual interest vs. political battle). So it would depend on the specific stories.

Since we've asked people to err on the side of flagging for just this week, obviously the odds of a story being flagged become higher, for just this week. That doesn't make those odds 100% on those topics. And since the way things normally work is erring on the side of not flagging them, it's hard for me to see this week as very significant. That's actually why we're doing it this way: a week should be enough to learn something and not enough to be that big a deal, even in the worst case.

[jerf]

I'd submit that it's right there in the writeup. Politics literally activates different regions in the brain, producing a situation in which rational discussion is difficult or impossible. Being a site that chooses to avoid that would make HN much more valuable, because there are so few that do, even fewer of any size.

I wouldn't support a moratorium forever, because there are topics that are both of perennial HN interest and also overlap politics, like intellectual property law and things specific to the tech industry. But I would support bumping off a lot more of the marginal stuff permanently. In general I would say that I see very little HN-specific contribution to most of those topics. (Not quite none, but hardly worth poking through the dross.)

[zepto]

I think one reason this seems so incongruous is that the change in politics seems to be so clearly interlinked with the technology that we in Silicon Valley have created.

How are things like job displacement and social media not simultaneously political and fundamentally products of hackers?

[dang]

It's a good point and I wouldn't argue otherwise.

[B1FF_PSUVM]

> I wonder if developments

The official press has committed collective suicide, and the whale-sized corpses are rotting in the street. Sometimes they twitch.

Things get pretty insalubrious.

[plandis]

I don't think that's the intention but honestly I wouldn't be too upset if that is what happens. I'm having trouble these days not seeing stories about Trump every single day on most of the sites I visit.

[trowawee]

> But there's nothing new in that; the HN guidelines have always mentioned politics without defining the term, and we get by.

I mean, you clearly don't think that we have "gotten by"; generally a moratorium on a topic isn't required unless something is going wrong.

[dang]

HN isn't immune from macro trends.

[mjg59]

Hi dang,

Quick question for clarification - would http://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-companies-delay-diversity-r... fall into the kind of race and gender issues that you'd block this week?

[tptacek]

I can't answer for 'dang but I would definitely flag that post during a "political detox week".

Also: HN threads on that particular topic (statistical evidence for diversity in the industry and its impact) are invariably a shitshow here. I am guessing your political leanings w/r/t/ industry diversity are identical to mine, and I do not see what HN generally gains from the trolling and nastiness that occurs on "diversity as a phenomenon" threads.

[mjg59]

The solution to "Certain types of story result in unpleasant arguments" doesn't have to be "Prevent that type of story from being visible". Media sites will happily disable comments on certain stories, but haven't extended that to not reporting on those stories in the first place.

[ekiru]

It doesn't have to be, but it may be that it still should be the solution to that problem. It makes sense for, for example, news sites to disable comments on some stories because the comments aren't the most valuable portion of the site: the news is.

But I think that in large part the value of HN is in the comments. If HN isn't able to discuss a story productively, what's the point of that story being on HN?

[mjg59]

Because the subject is interesting and the content informative?

[tptacek]

Why not start the site that engages with the intersection of politics and technology more directly? I'd be happy to participate.

[dang]

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. That's a tough one. On the one hand it's a substantive news story on a subject of core interest to HN. On the other hand it's bound to result in a highly politicized discussion, if not a poster child for the kind of flamewar we're trying to avoid. So I don't have a good answer for you.

Since we asked people to err on the side of flagging for just this week, I don't think we can ask them not to flag that one. It would be fine to post it next week though.

[exstudent2]

That you're actively trying to stir up drama about this on Twitter demonstrates why HN may be best off leaving these discussions to other forums (and I say this as someone fairly active in the discussions in question).

It will be nice to see HN minus the outrage and Twitter/social media drama/witch-hunting.

[wpietri]

> pure politics: the conflicts around party, ideology, nation, race, gender, class, and religion

I'm very sad to see this, dang. Complaining about identity politics is a form of identity politics. Because we white people are the default, banning discussion of non-whiteness reinforces whiteness. Banning discussion of gender similarly favors men, especially in tech.

You and I might experience this experiment as a detox. But it is increasing toxicity for those whose identities and concerns you are trying to erase.

In normal times, I might shrug. But these are not normal times. Tech companies are having to consider whether they'll be making lists of Muslims and turning them over to the authorities. We are having to ask ourselves, "Do we really need to store all this user data if we might have to give it up in secret?" Refusing to discuss politics when these issues are on the table is actively supporting a side.

I object in the strongest terms and will not participate. I won't be back for a week. If it keeps up, I'll be closing my account.

[dang]

That comment was a mistake on my part. The point I was trying to make was a lesser one, and the misunderstanding it gave rise to was much greater, so I should have thought of a completely different angle or just not bothered. Usually I can spot that sort of bug in advance, but a discussion this prolonged and intense fries the brain.

[mbesto]

I have an idea - if it's in reference to a topic of CNN, NYT, WSJ, and WaPo's politics sections then it shouldn't be on HN.

[karambahh]

What if a tech topic (say the current Amazon Go thread) sparks a debate about 'is it socially acceptable or not?'

If the story gets big enough, the articles about Amazon Go's impact on workers will move from the tech section to the politics section of the newspapers. Where do you draw the line on HN in that case? Once they have move in the WaPo, we should stop talking about them?

I agree with others that moderating such a large online community is probably very hard and that dang and others probably experience bad times when comments thread inflame, but I think that a blanket ban on affairs of the cities is not the way to go.

Actually, I find it quite funny that we are having this debate, because in essence that is a political debate. Some US posters will consider it as hampering their right to free speech, some others will consider that making that space void of any political discussions is fine, some (as myself :-) ) think it is impossible and impractical... Debate around the frontiers of that is admitted here is entirely political, in the noble sense of the word.

As long as our debate is civil (and as far as I can see, it is), I think we should be allowed to have it. And what if my comments are not interesting and bring nothing to the debate? They will be downvoted to hell. HN, in contrast with Reddit, has apparently a very good track record with karma. It seems that brigading is not practiced around here.

I think it is probably linked to the fact that under a certain thresold, you cannot down-vote. My karma is indeed too low to downvote for instance and at first I was uneasy with the fact that I couldn't downvote...but I think I am starting to understand why it is actually a good rule for the board ;-)

[TeMPOraL]

It's pretty much what the guidelines have said all along.

[mbesto]

Yet, isn't followed.

[venomsnake]

I think a detox with clearer rules would have been better

No Trump/Clinton stories for a week.

These are the ones that are the major trouble makers. And since there is no chance of an article on the culture war not mentioning those people - this will rid of the second tier stories too.

[denom]

Man, this strikes me as a really lopsided exercise. And to what end? The visceral reactions about politics are a part of US society. Hiding what's going on only makes things worse. As hackers, we should be finding a shared language to work these problems out.

[dang]

Yes we should, but the creative energy you're alluding to is the first thing to leave when the vitriol starts flowing.

What should we do? I don't know, but I don't think a week off is going to hurt anybody.

[nerfhammer]

So, do you mean only national politics?

[dang]

I don't see why we would.

[knowtheory]

Okay. I'll bite. What should be done about posts on 18F? Or tech policy in the government? What about stories about legislation on encryption?

Are those all in the vein of things you think we should take a break from?

[dang]

I think I covered that in my comment upthread? To me they're in the same category as software patents: fine in principle (unless a post is just ranty), but maybe err on the side of flagging the more politicized variants for this week.

[knowtheory]

Yeah. <3 your motivations, but i think this is just doomed to stifle important/legit conversations.

The idea that it's not possible to be thoughtful and political at the same time (and thus we should just cut out all/most the political stuff) is disheartening.

The problem isn't the politics, the problem is the lack of thoughtfulness.

I'm deeply ambivalent with this as an experiment. I hope it achieves what you're interested in without compromising the things I worry it will.

[dang]

It's just for a week, so even your worst-case scenario isn't too bad. I did see someone complain that they might not get to argue about Trump's Secretary of State though (which sort of proves the point).

> The problem isn't the politics, the problem is the lack of thoughtfulness.

Politics is tribal, so we're talking about something that profoundly undercuts thoughtfulness. I don't know if it's impossible to have the two together, but I'm pretty sure it's impossible at scale.

[comex]

[edit: removed speculation about dang's opinion, since he responded]

But personally I think all of the topics you mentioned are likely to lead to flame wars in the comments about Trump, considering that all three are likely to be significantly affected by him once he takes office. Discussing those topics is still valuable, but unless there is some important development in one of them in the next week, taking a break seems pretty harmless to me.

[AnimalMuppet]

I'm not dang, but I'll take a stab at it. If the tech aspects dominate, it belongs on HN, even in this week. If the political aspects dominate, it doesn't belong on HN this week (and maybe never).

In practice, that's going to be grey. But it gives a kind of guideline that may (or may not) be what the moderators are trying to do.