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Comment by gonvaled | Hacker News Reader

Frankly, I have the impression that even though HN is supposed to be apolitical and cosmopolitan (since technology and science, central topics to HN are so), in reality HN is extremely anglophile (British + American centric, with some Israeli vestiges)

I can not fathom a terrorist attack killing 100 people in Los Angeles being flagged out of existence in HN; I can imagine that if 20 articles appear about a specific incident, some will be indeed flagged, but surely not all.

Flagging is probably right according to HN guidelines, so that is what should happen for all off-topic articles, but this is not what HN is doing.

I think the guidelines should be updated to reflect this fact: "flag off-topic news unless they are relevant to the Anglo community"

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I think you might want to reconsider. I'd note that the Orlando nightclub shootings were flagged[1]. This of course wasn't as bad as in Nice in terms of fatalities, but is somewhat comparable (insofar as that is possible. What a horrible thing to have to compare). Comments there seemed to try to imply it was some kind of conspiracy, but I think the behaviour there was exactly the same as with this attack. I think we are seeing fatigue over terror attacks - people are just numb to the tragedies and feel like discussing it is useless.

I'm not sure if you are French or lost people in Nice, but if you are you have my sympathy. I was in France only a few months back, and this event made me both sad and angry.

HN is certainly Silicon Valley centric, but that is expected given its origins and audience. However, my impression is that coverage of EU tech issues gets more coverage than most places. There is certainly more coverage of US politics than other places, but the majority of that is related to tech issues.

(I'm not from the US, Canada or UK, nor do I live in any of those places)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11888228

No, I am from EU, but not french.

Maybe you are right, but this morning the first think I saw about the terror attack was on HN via Feedly, and I was very surprised to see that all articles were flagged, including one about Facebook activating a special crisis mode, which stroke me as strange since recently I have seen lots of politics around here.

The majority of politics on HN is about tech or politics impact on tech, or new (and often quite strange!) economic theories and experiments.

Do you know how the flagging system works? Normal users get the right to flag and/or vouch for stories periodically, after they have been on the site a while. The details of what stays on the front page isn't publicly known, but it is a combination of comments and upvotes vs flags vs vouches.

So if there is a lot to say about a topic, it is more likely to stay on the front page.

The Turkish attempted coup made the front page (which of course isn't US or Anglo-centric). I think that is mostly because it is an unfolding situation and people have new things to say about it.

(I have flagging rights at the moment. I didn't flag it, but I rarely flag things.)

Frankly, if you're so unhappy with HN you should simply leave and find a forum better suited to your tastes.

I don't mean it as rude as it probably comes off, but you must realize that you won't be able to start a huge meta-discussion here that will suddenly change everything.

Just let it go.

I see this problem (if my analysis is correct) as a kind of “we are all equal, some more than others“, which is at the root of most problems around the world.

Why wouldn't I raise the issue? The site is otherwise pleasant and interesting.

Because it's unproductive.

First, in itself.

Second, you're pretty combative about it.

Third, your totally out-of-the-field mention of an Israeli spin, together with the story itself, makes me wary that it looks very much like right-extremist "arguments" are being injected here.

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