Ask HN: Is this too political for Hacker News? [video] | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is this too political for Hacker News? [video]

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4 points_DeadFred_10 comments

Since 'flag worthy' seems more of a feels thing than anything tangible here I'm interested in seeing if this is too political for Hacker News and flag worthy so we can get a better baseline of what this community find off limits to discuss.

You can't put your comment in the title on HN, especially not if it's a goady meta one. So I don't think 'political' comes into it for this sort of post - it breaks the site guidelines in a straightforward, generic way.

Was supposed to be an Ask HN but apparently I messed it up.

You'll probably want to check out some of the moderation comments linked here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42781655

Yes, but also your title is terrible. and I dont think this is tech related

I understand that Elon is a nazi though

It's very much community related though. We have an un-regulated process that the community decides the boundaries for. I think it's legitimate to ask the community to help publically define what those boundaries are? Think of it as a documentation request for the wet-ware algorithm.

We have an un-regulated process that the community decides the boundaries for.

That's not a very accurate description of how HN works.

Think of it as a documentation request for the wet-ware algorithm.

You can try to do that by asking directly, either other users, or the moderators. But the site itself is for conversation, not running weird 'experiments'. Most people respond highly negatively to this sort of thing, whatever the topic - the gotchaness and the goadiness (along with a hint of pre-sneering) completely overwhelm whatever else it might be about.

My bad. Doesn't look like I can delete my submission. I apologize for coming off gotcha, gloaty, or sneering I thought I was being pretty blunt.

I was genuinely surprised yesterday and realized I have a huge misunderstanding about how things operate here.

On the Elon thread dang stated that users flag articles and implied that user flagging was the overriding arbiter of authority on HN and linked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775519 (implying flagging/community consensus is above the mods) which is how I came to my 'not very accurate description of how HN works'. Yesterdays response further confused me as the community discussion in the flagged article seemed to lean more towards unflagging than support for the flag remaining. Thanks for clarifying that I still misunderstand.

I will ask others still in the bay area for more insight directly and refrain from talking/asking about HN on HN.

Honest question what is pre-sneering? Maybe you are mistaking my shock at events yesterday and the position taken here for sneering? I have to admit I am extremely shocked and disillusioned. But I'm definitely not sneering. I think you are mistaking my not obeying in advance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tocssf3w80) and asking a very blunt question for some sort of juvenile internet snark. I think responding negatively and how I assumed most people would to outright Nazi behavior and defense/deflection/headburrying of it is different than run of the mill internet snark/sneering. I guess keeping with that post about being post-authenticity yesterday maybe somehow challenging actual nazi behavior is now somehow un-authentic/sneering.

"too political for you" kind of sounds pre-sneerish, like, "can you handle it?". I think most adults naturally respond to "I'm just trying to test you" with "I'm just trying to tell you to go fuck yourself". Maybe that wasn't your intent, I'm just describing how it comes across.

Yesterdays response further confused me as the community discussion in the flagged article seemed to lean more towards unflagging than support for the flag remaining.

What you see in those comments is not necessarily more representative of community sentiment than the flags. I think both the type of controversy and the fact that it generated several meta threads give the misimpression this is some sort of moderation (both user and admin) outlier. But it's not, it's how HN operates all the time, it's a big part of what makes it HN rather than some other forum with different goals and conventions. Most current events stuff is 'moderated' away (by nonvoting, flagging, sometimes mod involvement, etc) as largely offtopic. There are occasional exceptions but in general, it's just not what the place is set up for.

First let me apologize that I posted in a way that you took that feeling from it. It was mean to be ironic humor to foster communication not smug and stifle it.

'too political' is the policy label HN uses. That I am referencing the term used seems like good faith and it would be odd and reduce comprehension for me to invent a new descriptor.

My intention with linking to a boring 1940s 'nazi's bad' film that has been non-political consensus for 80 years as a starting point that no one could possibly think is political was to be ironic not sneering. I thought I was asking 'between the clearly not political consensus that nazis are bad... and the richest man on earth flaunting nazi symbolism multiple time at the current President's inauguration... where does the 'too political' HN flag kick in?'. I'll try to avoid humor when making statements that people can feel judged by.

I think the I/P conflict being a special case immune from HN flagging is what threw extra confusion in the mix for me. The multiple I/P posts left up which have way less relevance to tech and are way more political than yesterday's events (because for 80 years before yesterday 'sieg heil bad at Presidential inaugurations' wasn't considered political and I still don't see it as political just horrific, to be honest.) gave me the impression ongoing exceptions were routinely made but now I understand those were special I/P conflict exceptions that this didn't rise to.

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