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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological and political arguments. That's actually an abuse of the site, and we eventually ban accounts that do it. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

HN's core value is intellectual curiosity. That's the first casualty in ideological battle—actually it evaporates before the battle even begins—so we have to be proactive about this. If you'd please read the site guidelines and also https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it.

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Ah, I was afraid of this. I wasn't really intending on starting flame wars or anything. They are just the posts I feel I have something to add. I'll attempt to diversify my comments.

reading through your history there is an obvious bias in who you choose to say this to based on your personal ideology. not to mention your various strictly ideological and political submissions. disappointing as that seems like an abuse of the guidelines and your power.

People's image of HN mods' political bias is entirely predictable from their own ideological affiliation. Strong rightists think we (and HN itself) lean left, strong leftists think we (and HN) lean right. Since the conclusions you all draw are so contradictory, I don't think these charges have much informational value—at least not about us. There's clearly a cognitive bias at work here.

If you don't believe me, here are some quite typical posts that run the contrary direction to yours:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019694

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307091

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034119

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529468

These people are having the same reaction as you are, they just start from the opposite end of the football field.

That doesn't mean we're magic centrists in a centrist fairyland. It means the situation is affected by other factors, some of which aren't obvious. If you want to look at this objectively you have to work to suspend your own political feelings, which is not easy to do and not something many people want to.

this isn't a mathematical proof. a few counter-examples are easy to create. i looked pretty comprehensively at your history and i think the bias is beyond obvious.

> If you want to look at this objectively you have to work to suspend your own political feelings, which is not easy to do and not something many people want to.

And something I think you have failed at doing. (As you believe of me, so I guess agree to disagree.) However, you are the one bringing it up in a moralistic and pedantic way from a position of power as a moderator.

LOL. You guys do an excellent job overall but you are in tech in the Bay Area no? An area where gravity is different and the poles are reversed. Where whirlpools spin backwards. An area unlike any other. In an international industry filled with young, intelligent, usually college educated people.

And, if the above is correct it's totally fine. Almost every community will have a majority opinion and the cool part is that the staff at HN doesn't let it get too far out of control. And I have seen posts complaining about large numbers of "fascists" on HN for instance which blew my mind, but apparently it is largely a matter of perspective.

Incidentally, I keep saying this and people don't apparently agree, but not everything fits neatly in boxes of left and right. My belief is that people who are really thinking will find, given time that they don't eternally fit neatly in either category.

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