[grzm]

Does political discussion not gratify intellectual curiosity?

Yes, political discussion can gratify intellectual curiosity. Empirically it hasn't worked out very well on HN.

To me, your comment completely ignores the paragraphs written by dang in the submission, both the content, and the fact that it's temporary. What do you think of the intent? Do you disagree? Have you seen or participated in any of the recent (past two or three months) of political threads on HN? Do you have showdead on so you can see what's being posted and flagged? Do you think it's okay? If you don't agree with the intent or think there is an issue, that would put your comment in one context. If you agree it's an issue and disagree with the political detox week, then that's another. Would you elaborate on your comment?

[dragonwriter]

> Yes, political discussion can gratify intellectual curiosity. Empirically it hasn't worked out very well on HN.

I disagree. It's worked out smashingly well on HN (judgingnit context of 25 or so years of engagement in online fora of various types); the appearance that it has not is due to unrealistic standards, and radical reconfigurations to deal with the supposed failures are likely to lead to more harm to HNs goal of providing a forum for gratifying intellectual curiosity than benefit.

[dang]

I always appreciate your comments, and the ones I've seen in this thread have been an interesting take on the question. Just one point though: there's no radical reconfiguration here. Undoubtedly it would be if we were going to make it permanent, but when we said "for one week" we really meant for one week. IMO HN's community system has orders of magnitude more hysteresis than would be radically affected by a one-week change, though I guess I could be wrong about that.

[yarou]

Speaking of reconfiguration, why not buff the controversy penalty instead of outright banning political discussion?

Couldn't you also enable an enhanced slow mode on threads that seem political in nature? Maybe something like the "hate tax" system proposed here[1].

I feel as though political topics tend to generate a knee-jerk response in people, especially when they are in an...shall we say, altered state of mind. The more controversial a topic is, the slower the pace of discussion should be IMHO. Exponentially so.

[1] https://zedshaw.com/archive/ragel-state-charts/

[gravypod]

> Undoubtedly it would be if we were going to make it permanent, but when we said "for one week" we really meant for one week.

If you had no intent to push this for longer, why even try it in the first place? What if I, and everyone else in this thread, is wrong and this turns out to be a magnificent idea and makes the site a better for everyone.

Now since this is so amazing, why not make it perminent?

The cynical in me is also asking, who gets to judge if this is a success or a failure? The community? The vocal portion of the community? The YC staff? You?

I trust none of those groups with as important of a disition as this nor do I want a precident set on any social media platform I use that a specific topic can be completely banned from discussion.

[dang]

> why even try it in the first place?

For the reasons I gave: (1) taking a one-week breather from the kind of stories that erupt into flamewars seemed like a good way to remind us all of the values of this site (intellectual curiosity and civil discussion), and (2) we hoped we'd learn some things. As indeed we have.

[gravypod]

> the kind of stories that erupt into flamewars

Should we also ban discussion on Javascript frameworks? How about we ban all discussion on the founder of Soylent? Those threads tend to lay on the side of ideological bullying.

> seemed like a good way to remind us all of the values of this site (intellectual curiosity and civil discussion)

No sufficiently intelligent group would avoid the biological imperatives that set in motion the basis for political events or discussion.

> we hoped we'd learn some things. As indeed we have

Comeing from a company as YC this is very scary. I'm glad that it has become evident that this, at least currently, won't fly with a large portion of the community. In the future I see the "innocently" minded as being the playthings of you and your friends at YC.

[DanBC]

How do you think this is going to affect you and how you comment on HN?

Searching[0] comments for user:gravypod and stem word fragments like divers, sexi, raci, or discr return 0 hits. Searching for other hot button[1] words like abortion, jew, islam, muslim, gun, SJW, leftist, clinton, hillary, trump, right, women, Israel, iraq, vote etc etc return 0[2] hits.

What political discussions are you having on HN that you won't still be able to have? Can you link to a comment you've made that you think you won't be able to make during this experiment?

[0] It's possible that I'm using the Algolia search wrong, but I can return other comments by gravypod.

[1] I'm not saying these are always bad comments! But if I'm looking for the political comments that dang is talking about these searches should return them.

[2] Some hits, but nothing relevant, for vote and right.

[gravypod]

Speaking against bad ideas isn't something I do only for my own benifit and I surely hope others feel this way.

By the way, I use firearm to avoid negative connotation with gun.

[gravypod]

> Empirically it hasn't worked out very well on HN

I disagree completely with this. This is I'd say the one place online where people will actually try to provide a rebuttle to your statements. This is the perfect platform for debate on political subjects, adhominems are not taken lightly here and everyone seems able to keep a reasoned mind on what's being said.

>To me, your comment completely ignores the paragraphs written by dang in the submission, both the content, and the fact that it's temporary

dang's comments and posts are, as usual to me, completely indefensable and naive. To think that a site filled with well rounded people should the off limits to discussing politics? That's insane.

And on another note: it being temporary is not the issue. The issue is the idea behind the action. If we had "Temporary Slavery Week", or "Temporary Nazi/KKK Week", "Temporary Japanese Internment Week", or even "Temporary Ignore Reality Week" I would ABSOLUTLY not support these. So why should I, or anyone for that matter, support an idea or experiment devoid of any valid rationalization that would explain it's existance.

The only reasons I see to avoid political discussions are 1) You feel your community is too stupid to carry out this discussion, 2) You are afraid your ideas will be attacked and you won't be able to self-examin them, 3) You're too lazy to moderate your site, so to make it easier you're going to stop a hole class of discussion (that in my opinion is the most important form of discussion in a governed society) just to cut a bit of work off your plate.

All of these are positions I cannot agree with and SURELY I hope no one would expect a little bit of a vacancy of thought on topics of limited application. These are the times when thought is most critical. Wether it comes from banning politics for a week to court rulings who's only base to stand on is it's blatent "for the children" mentality.

> What do you think of the intent?

It's either intense laziness, malice, or ignorance (on a meta note, I intend for the "intense" modifier to apply to all these of these). None of these are good in my book.

> Do you disagree?

It seems like most people think that just because it's temporary it means it's ok. That's insanse. I absolutly do not agree.

> Have you seen or participated in any of the recent (past two or three months) of political threads on HN?

I regularly participate in political discussions about property rights, firearms laws, and in general scientific statistics that will provide political sway. I love these discussions as they often have to most complex and well rooted arguments from all sides of the spectrums.

> Do you have showdead on so you can see what's being posted and flagged?

I consider those who don't have this enabled to be burrying their heads in the sand. I've also got a custom CSS sheet on that removes the downvote-fade.

> Do you think it's okay?

What's ok? Do I think being coddled by admins saying "it's ok, I'll make the bad bad wrong-thinkers go away"? Not at all.

Do I think it's ok that people post their own opinions and others judge them? Of course. That's how discussion works.

> If you don't agree with the intent or think there is an issue, that would put your comment in one context. If you agree it's an issue and disagree with the political detox week, then that's another.

I haven't seen a problem but I do feel that there is likely one although this is all conjecture on my part. Find me a sample size of 30 comments that have been demonstrably downvoted because of opinion then I'll agree with you that it is an issue. Otherwise it is just speculation without data which is useless.

I ofcourse also have an issue with a detox week. That can just be called "Horse Blinders Week".

[severine]

> I've also got a custom CSS sheet on that removes the downvote-fade.

Could you share it?

(btw, favorited, thanks!)