[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.

[foldr]

The discussion on this thread has actually been fine, apart from one account that has been all over the place repeating absolute nonsense (consistent with their overall recent post history on political topics). Most of their posts have already been flagged, and much of the resulting noise could have been avoided by rate limiting them. So I’m not sure that this particular discussion really proves your point (though it is only one example). You could easily find more contentious discussions about Rust or Apple.

Provocative political articles about the UK seem more likely to escape flagging, which has the strange consequence that HN sometimes seems to spend more energy decrying the current state of the UK than that of the US, despite the relative imbalance in user numbers.

[tomhow]

> HN sometimes seems to spend more energy decrying the current state of the UK than that of the US, despite the relative imbalance in user numbers.

I have to assume this perception has mostly to do with the time of day you're normally looking at HN. As someone who is looking at the threads for hours each day, there's certainly far more politics-related discussion about the U.S. than any other country.

[foldr]

There's more overall discussion of US politics for sure, but it tends to occur tangentially (as articles about US politics are pretty reliably flagged). To give a concrete example, the following article was not flagged and got quite a lot of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600194 I do not think an article on an obscure website with a similarly 'provocative' headline relating to current US politics would escape flagging.

[tomhow]

Single instances and hypotheticals don't tell us much. That particular topic spent only four hours on the front page, and it was times that are peak for the U.K. and off-peak for the U.S. Plenty of stories related to U.S. politics spend at least that amount of time on the front page. People often remember the stories that are flagged that they strongly felt should have been given front page time, but forget about the stories that did get plenty of exposure.

[slg]

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

Lol, I don't know what that is supposed to mean. I'll admit to including an undercurrent of shaming with that suggestion to hopefully cause some introspection, but it's still just a suggestion.

Beyond that, I just fundamentally disagree with the point you seem to be making People can't be trusted to talk nicely so they won't get any place to talk at all just doesn't feel like the right principle for the moment.

Regardless, my original point stands. Everyone's unique role in life grants them a certain amount of power. Now is the time to consider what it will take before you use your power to exert whatever positive influence you can.