[dang]

That's helpful in that it clarifies a difference in assumptions. I don't believe that HN, or its admins, have anything like the power you're attributing to it/us. We're basically janitors.

That's not a criticism. I understand how a perception like what you're expressing can arise, but it can only arise from afar.

[slg]

Alex Pretti was a nurse. What power did he have? I'm not attributing ultimate power over the fate of the nation to you or HN. You are a tiny cog in a huge machine, but you're still a bigger cog than me. So I'm asking you to consider when you will use the power you do have. Current events should have us all considering that question

[defrost]

It's a mistake to think that deep pocket YC investors will suddenly become aware of current events that otherwise escaped their notice if only current event stories made it to "the front page of HN".

Another mistake would be to think that [flagged] and down weighted submissions do not get many many eyeballs and that C-suits of large SV and other tech companies don't take part.

[slg]

Every reminder that powerful people see that the status quo is unacceptable has value. It's also obvious that a post being flagged reduces the number of people who will see that post, that's the whole purpose of flagging.

[tomhow]

If it's really true that "some of the richest and most powerful people in this country and on this planet look at this website", what do we want them to see here? Do we want them to see enraged people saying the same things that they keep hearing over and over and thus dismiss as background noise? Or do we want them to see intelligent, thoughtful people having sophisticated discussions and making new points that might give them pause and provoke them to think about things in a different way?

[slg]

We were discussing post level moderation and not comment level moderation. I'm suggesting the site allow more politics, I'm not condoning abandoning all the site’s rules. I don't think the level of discourse in the comments is being improved by the current level of post level moderation. The most noticeable impact is simply prompting tangents into the post level moderation itself like it did here which arguably lowers the level of discourse.

[tomhow]

Let's be honest: you're doing much more than "suggesting".

The whole reason we can't have these posts on the front page is that the comments in the threads so frequently break the guidelines and turn the site into a place that repels people who want to have thoughtful discussions. So there is no yet-known way to have our cake and eat it; the presence of these stories on the front page means abandoning the site's rules, because so many commenters are unable discuss them in a way that respects the site's rules. And the outcome of this is that it pushes HN towards being irrelevant, precisely because these discussions offer so little that powerful people would find persuasive.

I would love it if HN could be the very best place for discussing difficult topics and be a place where we really could push politics in the right direction. That can't happen if the discussions about the most important topics rapidly devolve into easily-ignored background noise.