Hacker News Reader

Comment by snisarenko | Hacker News Reader

Hi HN mods,

I don't want leave unrelated comments. But I have genuine question here.

Why is this article allowed to stay up on Hacker News and be open for discussion ? How is this related to hacker news or hacker/tech culture ?

Is it worrying that Hugary's PM is grabbing authoritarian powers? Sure. Does this have wide implications for Europe? Sure.

But if this article is allowed to stay up. Then why was the post about the House Intelligence Committee Report on FISA Abuses nuked from the front-page last February ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292336

One would think, illegally spying on a US presidential campaign is pretty worrying as well (its a bi-partisan issue, that could affect both parties, so put down your pitchforks). In fact, such event could undo the underpinnings of the US democracy. A pretty important topic to discuss I'd say.

View on HN

> could undo US democracy

That’s like, just your opinion, man.

> Hungary established dictatorship

See, this one actually did fundamentally change how government works. Fait accompli. If you can’t see how that’s different... I dont know what to say.

This event will profoundly affect the daily lives of hackers. The other did not.

Before I respond, just want to say I am trying to be respectful, and not start a flame war. I value the high quality discussion that happens on HN

> That’s like, just your opinion, man.

It is my opinion that if any siting president (of any party) can abuse FISA court to spy on an opponents presidential campaign, the US democracy is in trouble

> Hungary established dictatorship > See, this one actually did fundamentally change how government works.

Spying on a presidential campaign is in my opinion a fundamental change in how US government works.

I'm not trying to start a flame war either. I'm worried about the same things you are. But I also talk to people that don't read the news, and this is the kind of thing they will never care about because it doesn't affect their lives. Some other people say that Obama spied on Trump's campaign, so nothing is new here and therefore democracy isn't changing.

Trump is bad, sure. But he doesn't do anything like Orbán did. I don't even think he's smart enough to do it. A EU country becoming a dictatorship is a watershed moment that will have repercussions for decades. A US House report will be relegated to a sentence in high school history books in the best case.

Can you not see that one is of more interest to hackers than the other? For reals?

The general consensus is that people will upvote what they want to read or they deem important.

This is a fair and honest question. Not everyone knows the fine points about HN, and the answer to this question not posted anywhere in a manner that would make it obvious.

I think the answer is because the rules are not black and white, and such a post may have started a flame war and so maybe the mods dropped it. I think when there are 'more comments than upvotes' or some such ratio, they have a look and kill discussions that are going downhill.

Trump is 'closer to home' possibly making it more personal and therefore flame-bait-ish, while Orban is an abstraction for most people.

Also, the near existential reality of the entire freaking world being 'locked up at home' makes the issue rather topical!

The mods don't read threads, and don't respond to questions directed at them. Traffic on HN is too high for them to actively monitor. They depend upon users emailing them to alert them to issues with content.

Meta-comments like this are useless at best, trolling at worst.

I don't think this is accurate.

I've previously alerted the mods to threads of discussion within a post where one user was calling for the mods to nuke a blatantly anti-semitic post, and I emailed them. My email got a response, the plaintive posts in the thread didn't, and the mods said you need to email them to get their attention [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21003570

Even if mods don't respond. I think this comment is useful for the community as well.

There is no dedicated meta-discussion section on hacker-news. So it has to happen somewhere.

And no I am not trolling. I do value the high signal to noise ratio on HN, which is why I participate. My comment is meant to make not just mods, but users think about what counts as signal, versus noise on this forum.

I don't think you were trolling, but you were addressing the mods while aiming at the users, which is a coy sort of tactic to have a meta-discussion. Why not be more direct and address the community about whether a broader range of acceptable topics is desired?

If I appeared coy, I am sorry. That was not my intention.

I've seen comments in several previous HN discussions respectfully address the mods. Based on this I assumed it was fair to address comments to mods if it helps improve quality of HN discussion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com