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Comment by jbmorgado | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry but I can't past the hypocrisy of having a submission like this one, with so many comments being against the measure in the name of "free speech" and then immediately downvoting and flagging every comment that takes the opposite view in relation to social issues in every post that makes it to the front page of HN and even, quite ironically, in this very same post (i.e. the comment about refugees bellow, which I don't agree with, but that has nothing actually wrong with it except the guy presenting an opinion that doesn't fit your need for showing how politically correct you are).

If this community is all so pro "free speech" as basically all these comments here are trying to signal, than you would do well to start exactly here instead of pointing the finger at the German government while doing the opposite.

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Being an advocate of free speech isn't the same as being supportive of every poorly thought out, tangential comment ever written.

Equally, a lot of the commentary here is against the idea that FB is having to make decisions about what is and is not hate speech. If there were the equivalent on HN i.e. dang et al pre-screened all comments and decided what was acceptable, I'm sure there'd be a backlash.

On HN, the community decides what is acceptable having seen the comment. In the FB case, the community has decided what is acceptable in general, via laws, but FB are being forced to police those laws without the community seeing the specifics. A subtle distinction I grant you but, in my opinion, an important one.

Having said all that, I can't disagree that the HN community is generally biased as it's self selecting. I personally don't have a problem with that (if I did there's a fairly straightforward fix) and I do expect to hold governments to a higher standard as it's much harder as an individual to fix the issue.

> "On HN, the community decides what is acceptable having seen the comment."

Not really, that's just a common fallacy perpetuated from the ones that see their political views represented by the heavy handed moderation around HN, or the ones that actually don't pay attention to what is going on in HN.

Moderators in HN heavily editorialize the Front Page by removing the flags from some posts and flagging other highly voted ones by the community.

They do the same to comments that don't follow their personal views even when those comments don't break any of the guidelines but happen to be against the moderators political views.

Bottom line: You might be deceived by the appearances here, or you might be actually enjoying so see anyone that disagrees with you being shut up in HN, but factually, it's not the "community" of HN that is deciding what is acceptable, it's largely the moderators of HN.

HN is first and foremost a promotional and growth tool for Y Combinator, and only secondarily a discussion forum for technology enthusiasts. However, HN's branding has been so successful that the public perception of HN / news.yc is the complete inverse.

Well I can agree with that, but it still doesn't change anything of what was said above, i.e. what you see and what you are allowed to discuss in HN is not what the community decides, but what the moderators decide.

My point is simply that none of that should come as a surprise. There is an element of community here, but this forum first and foremost serves a business function - and is moderated accordingly.

That's not true. I'd be interested in hearing how you think you know it.

The thing that makes HN valuable is being interesting (a.k.a. "gratification of intellectual curiosity" as the site guidelines say), so that's the one thing we try to optimize the site for. That's the way to maximize its value, including its value for YC. If that weren't true, I doubt I'd be doing this job.

> "The only thing we're trying to optimize HN for is being interesting (a.k.a. "gratification of intellectual curiosity" as the site guidelines say)"

Care to explain us how removing flags from posts that aren't about technology (like you admittedly did in the past about perceived discrimination) in order to keep them in the front page against the community wishes is a an attempt of gratification of intellectual curiosity from your part?

Care to also explain us how your constant admonitions and flagging against factual comments that challenge your views of discrimination are, yet again, an attempt of gratification of intellectual curiosity from your part?

Thank you.

I would be happy to have a good-faith discussion with you, but unfortunately you don't sound interested in that.

If you continue to descend into using HN exclusively for ideological battle and fulmination, we're going to have to ban you. That's not because we disagree with $your_politics, it's because ideological battle is not what the site is for (and destroys what it is for). We've asked you before to stop this, so if you want to continue commenting here, we need you to stop it now.

> "it's because ideological battle is not what the site is for"

If this is actually true then why do you keep removing flags from ideological submissions and force them into the front page when me (and others like me) keep flagging and asking to stop with the ideological posts? Quite the conundrum, isn't it?

> "We've asked you before to stop this"

Can you actually point when that happened

> "If you continue to descend into using HN exclusively for ideological battle and fulmination, we're going to have to ban you"

I clearly don't use HN for "ideological battle and fulmination" my comments clearly go into the technical realm whenever you don't keep editorializing the front page and removing flags from the actual ideological submissions. But so what if you ban me? We already understood that our downvotes and flags mean nothing since you keep removing them whenever they go against $your_politics Dang, so it's not like we miss absolutely anything by just making a new account and keep calling out your double standards with it.

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