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0 pointsdang2y ago0 comments

The problem is that people draw the related/unrelated line very differently. The site mandate is intellectual curiosity, not political battle—but that still leaves quite a few stories with political overlap. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html you'll see the phrase "interesting new phenomenon". The current story surely qualifies as that.

I've posted various explanations about this over the years - a bunch are at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which shows how far back political discussion goes on HN, as well as the argument about politics on HN.

If anyone reads those past explanations and has a question about this that I haven't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

0 comments

hajile2y ago

This has NOTHING to do with intellectual curiosity.

Just try stating that Trump is innocent from another account and watch your comment get flagged and downvoted into oblivion.

This kind of thread can be a lynch party, but nothing else. Anyone with any other thoughts will be silenced and punished by the majority.

dangOP2y ago

It's an interesting phenomenon which is perfectly fine for intellectual curiosity, and there are plenty of comments in this thread relating to it that way. And of course there are also plenty of commenters bashing each other with partisan clubs. In that sense you are right. You're exaggerating the bias in the thread, though. For example the top subthread says "looks like a weak case" and was heavily upvoted.

TheHappyOddish2y ago

Thanks dang! Hope your day is going well!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse