[i_cannot_hack]

I have sent an email linking to this discussion, but I think it would be more constructive if the helpful and forthcoming answers happened in public rather than in sent in private email threads to everyone wondering.

Calling discussing something on HN "hypothesizing into the void" is a strange choice of words, either meant to be patronizing toward me specifically or toward all HN users.

[dang]

> I think it would be more constructive if the helpful and forthcoming answers happened in public

You're in luck, because there are thousands of public answers and you can search them easily: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang&type=comment&dateRange... (by dang), https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (by tomhow). The answers we give by email are no different from the ones we give in public.

Whether they are helpful or forthcoming you'll have to decide. They are repetitive (and are even more tedious to write than they are to read) but here are some places to start:

stories with political overlap - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

not a current affairs site - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

consistency in moderation is impossible - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

flags and turning off flags - https://hn.algolia.com/?query=flags%20off%20turn%20by%3Adang...

repetitiveness makes a story and a discussion less interesting in HN's sense - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306 - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

If you take a look at some of those answers and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. But it would be good to familiarize yourself with the standard explanations, because they're nearly always adequate to explain what you're seeing, although they will probably leave you frustrated if you feel strongly about the politics of a story.

FWIW, here's a short version: users flag things for various reasons; we turn off flags on a few such stories, but not more; that's because HN isn't a political or current affairs site; which stories get flags turned off is never going to satisfy anyone's political priorities, because the community is in deep disagreement with itself and because moderation consistency is impossible.

People dislike it when a story whose politics they agree with doesn't get to stay on the frontpage, but since it's impossible for all such stories to be on HN's frontpage, this frustration is unavoidable.

[i_cannot_hack]

> FWIW, here's a short version: users flag things for various reasons; we turn off flags on a few such stories, but not more; that's because HN isn't a political or current affairs site;

I think you have misunderstood the request. The request was not to clarify the general moderation policy, but rather clarify the reasoning why this specific story was not considered as one of the few stories where such action was taken.

I have already clarified my specific concerns regarding flagging and this specific story in another post in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46745562

People are curious to hear the reasoning for keeping the flag on this specific post, since thought has obviously been put to it and a decision to keep it was made after thoughtful consideration. I.e. which of the several different policies you highlighted had the most weight in this decision, and which mitigating circumstances were considered as reasons for bypassing this policy and removing the flag (even if they were discarded in the end).

It is precisely because consistent moderation is not possible that this is needed (otherwise it would be easy to just refer to the consistent guidelines). The quality of the moderation depends on the judgement and reasoning of the moderators, and the only way for the users to form their own picture (good or bad) of this judgement is to ask to hear how it is applied to specific scenarios where it is ambiguous.

I am very sympathetic to the fact that it must be tedious and sometimes repetitive, but if the decision is controversial I think it is an important part of moderation and important for the community as a whole.

[93po]

> but rather clarify the reasoning why this specific story was not considered as one of the few stories where such action was taken.

i think if you read more past discussions around moderation (including one dang directly linked) the reason for this would be obvious. read the search results for flags being turned off.

moderators try, as they said, to let the community moderate itself. they try to impress very little bias into the system. but they do try to promote constructive and interesting conversation, and the more things deviate from that mission, the less likely it is to be actively encouraged to be on HN

the likelihood of the conversation around this news post is very unlikely to be interesting and constructive. people have very entrenched beliefs and no one's mind is going to get changed from emotionally loaded comments on this post

additionally, this is now also the third post of this nature to be on HN in the past weeks, and there's unlikely to be anything new to the conversation added this time that wasn't covered by the previous thousands of comments on previous submissions

they are not actively reducing the visibility of this post. they're just declining to artificially inflate its visibility above the same criteria 99% of submissions also have

[dang]

My post contains all the information you need to answer that question. The current story is obviously a flamewar topic, a political battle topic, and a repetitive topic. I'm not saying it isn't important—of course it's important, far more important than most things on HN's front page*. The issue is that HN's frontpage is not optimized for importance but for something else (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Optimizing for importance would make this a current affairs site, which is not its mandate. Actually we have to expend a lot of energy preventing that outcome, because the default pressures point in that direction, and are quite strong. One can really see that at moments when passions are heated, as they are in this thread.

* If you look at some of the old links I dug up here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46747388, you'll find that this point has also been around a long time. Specifically these:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23380817 (June 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453883 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16968668 (May 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948011 (Dec 2017)

[i_cannot_hack]

I think the unease many people feel here is that this strict bureaucracy taken to its extreme conclusion would become something akin to a tragicomical farce: "No posts about the controversial nukes raining over Europe allowed, such flamewars would destroy our valuable forum for discussing the really interesting and intellectual political topics".

Clearly there must be a line somewhere. It was not here and today, but when and where is it? Trying desperately to cling onto normality at every cost when the actual reality is far from normal becomes a destructive endeavour in the end.

I have been a regular visitor on this site for 14 years, and have have never spoken up about this before. In fact I have always stood by the moderation policy and appreciated it. But I have a line where avoiding "inflammatory discussions" simply becomes obstinate and clueless, and harmful in the way that it gives convenient cover for the actors committing the real inflammatory acts, counting on people not caring enough to give them grief for it. And for me, that line has been crossed.

I'm curious: Have you not noticed any increase in people saying "this time it's different", or that different kinds of people are saying it now? Is it really just the same old people repeating the same old phrase to you?

> a repetitive topic

Small note: It has never been a repetitive topic, since all discussions about ICE performing extrajudicial killings have been quickly flagged of the front page and never (as a topic) discussed by the wider community.

[dang]

Bureaucracy? ouch!

Yes, when you bring up extreme scenarios such as nuclear war (or civil war, as slg did - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746817), that's a way of saying that we're fiddling-while-rome-burns, burying-head-in-sand, etc. The problem is that you're assuming your conclusion by invoking those scenarios. That doesn't make the argument stronger.

I agree that the probability of such scenarios is not zero, and no I would not like to end up in the same bucket as the schmucks in Dr Strangelove or (more tragically) the last person in the "first they came for" meme. But none of us knows the future, and there's another scenario with nonzero probability as well. That is the scenario in which HN goes through swings and fluctuations (conditioned by macro trends), sticks to its mandate, and emerges intact.

As far as probability goes, that second scenario has the advantage of having happened many times already. Each time it's happened, I've ended up feeling that we made the right call. Does that prove it's the right call this time? Nope—we don't know the future, like I said. But at least there are close historical precedents supporting it, as well as the core principles of HN supporting it.

There's another argument too, although I quake a bit at bringing it up. Suppose the truly extreme, end-of-world scenario really is coming to pass. What contribution do we make by jettisoning HN's mandate, going to war and turning the site into a battlefield, sooner rather than later? How do more posts of angry denunciations and screaming at each other move the needle on the end of the world? That is the step in the argument, like the ??? of the underpants gnomes or the "then a miracle occurs" in that physics cartoon, which no one ever spells out.

I don't think anyone who has been inhaling the profoundly pointless triviality of the internet message board genre for as long as we have really believes that there's some unrealized potential to help society via shriller and more sarcastic flamewars. I assume also that anyone who genuinely believes that we're already in an extreme scenario has more important things to do than post angry comments on the internet. It seems clear that this is not about effecting change or effective opposition—it's about expressing feelings. I'm all in favor of feelings, but that's not the conversation that people say they're having when they have these conversations. (I'm not talking about you here! just so that's clear.)

> Have you not noticed any increase in people saying "this time it's different", or that different kinds for people are saying it now? Is it really just the same old people repeating the same old phrase

I don't think it's all the same people (though some!) but to me it's the same dynamic. But I hear you, and yes I might be wrong and live to regret it. I'm not speaking from a place of certainty.

> Small note: It has never been a repetitive topic, since all discussions about ICE performing extrajudicial killings have been quickly flagged of the front page and never (as a topic) discussed by the wider community.

Well, I was thinking of this thread: Minneapolis driver shot and killed by ICE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46531702 - Jan 2026 (351 comments), although you're right that that one wasn't on the front page (I thought it had been, because we turned off the flags on it, but apparently not.) But there have been major threads on this topic (or topic cluster): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu..., some have been on the frontpage, and that's of course only a slice of the political stories that appear here.

[i_cannot_hack]

First of all I want to thank you for the thoughtful and candid reply. It has increased my faith in the moderation some, not because you have convinced me or I agree with you, but because it shows you are thinking in nuanced ways about this and engaging with the actual issues (and not just adhering without question to some written mandate).

I actually also agree fully with your analysis of the fundamentals here, just not your wider perspective.

Yes, I fully agree there is a risk of changing HN to the worse for no reason. But doing the right thing in uncertain times always carries a risk. As seen in this very story we are discussing: Alex Pretti risked his life filming the violent ICE agents, for very uncertain gain, and ultimately paid the price. I still think he did the right thing. Compared to the price Alex paid, "a worse HN" seems like a risk worth taking.

And no, I don't think allowing more controversial topics on HN will make a major difference in the context of world politics (or prevent the apocalypse). But when it comes to things like these everyone will always feel too "small" to matter, and the end result if we listen to that feeling will be that no one does anything instead of everyone doing something to improve the situation.

I'm not spending my time arguing here because I think it will change the course of history, that my posts will actually change the moderation policies of HN, or because I think that by doing so I would save the world. I'm doing it because it's a minor line in the sand I could draw in a community I am active in, and it's better to try to do what we can (however minor) than just giving up. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something, etc etc.

I don't think we will reach any agreement regarding the wider perspective today, but I do feel like I have gotten the nuanced answer I requested regarding the moderation policy of HN in the context of the current mayhem going on (beyond just avoiding flamewars). So, again, thank you for that.

[slg]

>There's another argument too, although I quake a bit at bringing it up. Suppose the truly extreme, end-of-world scenario really is coming to pass. What contribution do we make by jettisoning HN's mandate, going to war and turning the site into a battlefield, sooner rather than later? How do more posts of angry denunciations and screaming at each other move the needle on the end of the world?

This is spoken like a mere observer. The benefit of "jettisoning HN's mandate" is to prevent the worst case scenario that you depict. You and HN have power. Some of the richest and most powerful people in this country and on this planet look at this website. These stories being on the front page and people reading the comments can actually lead to change which could decrease the odds of true disaster.

People need to stop pretending that the internet isn't real. This ordeal in Minnesota is in large part because a Youtuber showed up at preschools demanding to see children because he believed some conspiracy he saw on the internet. The stuff said on the internet does have real world ramifications and I'm frankly shocked how someone in your position that has seen the world change to the degree that is has in your time as the moderator here is still falling back to the "profoundly pointless triviality of the internet message board".

[slg]

With the direction we're headed, there's a non-zero chance that some day soon I'll click on over to https://news.ycombinator.com/active and see "[flagged][dead] US Erupts in Civil War" and I'll click on the comments to see a copied and pasted comment from dang with a link to a dozen other comments explaining why this political story doesn't belong on HN.

"Politics" doesn't care about your apolitical spaces. It's coming for everything and you'll have to draw the line somewhere.

[dang]

People have been making a version of this argument for as long as I've been doing this job. There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different, how-can-you-not urgency. I'm not saying that's wrong, but there's a counterargument. The counterargument is that political flames have a way of consuming everything they touch and that if we had listened to this argument in the past, HN would have ceased to exist years ago.

I believe that the bulk of this community favors the counterargument, and that it would be a big mistake to let political passions dominate how the site is operated, since that would be the end of HN qua HN. We think a website that's not overwhelmed by politics and political battle—that clears space for other things that gratify curiosity—has a right to exist. I believe most HN readers agree with that and are grateful that we haven't pulled the plug at moments of pressure.

I'm not saying anything radical here - this is the standard way that HN has always operated, and I'm repeating what I've always said:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26253103 (Feb 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25785791 (Jan 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23380817 (June 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453883 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16968668 (May 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16581518 (March 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648 (Feb 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948011 (Dec 2017)

[slg]

You seem to be a little sidetracked from my original point so let me reiterate it, "It's coming for everything and you'll have to draw the line somewhere."

I understand you can dismiss that with "There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different", but what happens when it's truly different? Have you set a line for yourself of when it will be different or are you the frog telling everyone else that the water's not that hot? Or are you claiming there is no line and even if there is an all out civil war you won’t want any discussion of it on this site?

[belorn]

Asking people where the final line is with a nuclear option is a classic question with no satisfying answer, and the classical answer is that there is no line for when the button will be pressed.

[slg]

I didn't ask where the line was, I asked if it existed. "The line" is a rhetorical device meant to encourage the reader to consider whether their previously held opinions should be held in perpetuity or whether they need to be reevaluated.

[dang]

I don't see any sidetrack. That's the same argument, and I can only repeat the same counterargument.

I'm not saying that your argument is wrong—I would have to know the future in order to say that, which I don't. All I can do is give the reasons why the counterargument holds more sway from an HN-admin point of view. (Which, btw, is not some sort of disagreement about the politics of this story or other stories.)

[slg]

Well then, thanks for explaining why that the hyperbolic example in my first comment was in fact not hyperbolic.

[nialv7]

but fighting against a tyrannical, oppressive, illegitimate government is exactly what a hacker would do?

if you want an apolitical forum, don't call it hacker news, it's false advertisement.

maybe call it ostrich news or something.

[dang]

Yes, it's what many hackers would do, and have done, and HN has had, and does have, many threads about that kind of thing.

I realize these distinctions get lost when people are feeling heated, but HN has never been an apolitical site and we don't describe it that way. There are more options than just (1) being apolitical and (2) being completely aflame. Not that they're easy squares to occupy.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 (May 2018)

[direwolf20]

Hacker News is from YC, which is a US organization with some power. As a US organization, it must limit discussion to things that are legal in the US. If you want to plan terrorism, you need to go elsewhere.

[card_zero]

But reading all those old threads, I got three interpretations of "on topic":

1. Trivial intellectual trinkets,

2. Important topics that happen to overlap with intellectual interest,

3. Important topics that we somehow manage to have a thoughtful discussion about.

Is "off-topic" really about the standard of discussion and not about the topic?

There's a lot of mysterious influences in the dynamics between topic type, community culture, and standard of discussion. I mean to say that allowing thoughtful discussions of controversial topics is not a pipe dream, but it only happens occasionally and we're not really capable of sustained flight, so to speak. It seems like the interesting (worthy, important) adventures into inflammatory topics are parasitic on the comfortable trivial intellectual fluff, which keeps the forum-wide inflammation level down.

[CamperBob2]

There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different

I don't know, Dan. This does feel different. Innocent people are being killed on the street, under color of law and sanctioned at the very highest levels of government.

When's the last time something like this happened? Kent State? This incident and the Renee Good killing seem worse than Kent State, somehow. Maybe because they were so up-close-and-personal, because they were recorded in real time, and because of the executive branch's overt, sustained gaslighting about what happened. Lies easily debunked by the recordings, yet still accepted as truth by a terrifying, unreachable chunk of our population.

My fear is that the flames being lit now will consume everything they touch. That seems to be Trump's intention, and he almost always gets what he wants somehow, doesn't he?

I think that's what sig was suggesting. There will be no refuge in neutrality. We will all be forced to stand on one side of the line or the other, and use whatever resources are at our disposal to hold that line.

[testing22321]

[flagged]

[dang]

I feel fairly confident that the bulk of this community would not want us to operate HN based on feelings like this, regardless of how right you are, or feel you are, on the issues.

[testing22321]

Thanks for the reply Dan.

That’s not the question I asked.

[dang]

It was obviously not a real question.

[testing22321]

I’m a bit taken back you would say that.

In much of what I’ve read about the fall of rule of law and dictators rising to power in other countries, people very often talk about one of two things - how they wish they had done more to stop it, or how they’re proud of what they did and they feel they made a difference - even if small.

Even the parents of Alex Pretti who was killed yesterday said in a statement they’re very proud that Alex was protecting a women at the time he was killed, helping others like he always did.

Given what you just said above, I can only think you either don’t really understand how much power you have to enable or curtail discussions or you know exactly and last night when you closed your eyes and thought about it you realized you aren’t / won’t be proud if it gets real bad.

I’m sure you’ve read a lot of history Dan. Has there ever been a case where stopping citizens talking about what their government is doing has worked out well for the people? I’m not aware of one.

I know these discussions are “off topic” for HN Dan, but I’m shocked you don’t see that literally nothing else will be important for a decade or more if the dictator takes full control or starts a civil or world war.

The lives of a vast number of people will change drastically for the worse, and you’ll have to live knowing you stopped people talking about it when there was still something to be done.

I hope on the life of my little girl none of this happens, but man you’re going to have a hard time looking in the mirror if it does. I don’t envy you, and I understand you’re between a rock and a hard place.

Doing the right thing is often the hardest path.

Do you genuinely feel you are doing the right thing?