Ask HN: Why are all the HN posts about the presidential election result flagged? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why are all the HN posts about the presidential election result flagged?

23 pointsAustin_Conlon20 comments

Is this not significant news?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I assume people believe it doesn't fall under the guidelines:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon[...]. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

and

"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."

Fair enough to have those rules, but I feel this is big enough and with far-reaching enough effects that there should be at least one thread. It has relevance to pretty much anyone in any industry. HN clearly wants to discuss it. That's why I'm here right now, and I've never even been to America.

Think you just need to make the case in how you discuss it. Make it into a discussion that people can contribute to in a way that brings out how it is a new phenomenon showing a big change, and in a way that people who frequent this site can add insight to beyond what is in the media.

The future of the next 4 years is usually a new phenomenon showing a big change.

It usually hit the nerve sparking uncivil discussion.

I truly appreciate it's flagged and removed, keeping HN as very low anxiety place. Great HN guidelines other media should learn!

Have great weekend everyone

An incumbent U.S. president losing re-election is an interesting rare phenomenon.

Maybe so, but you need to make the case in a way that's compelling enough that it doesn't get flagged by HN people as off-topic I guess. E.g. there is an unflagged story about president and twitter currently in the new queue.

Dang's comment from 2016:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12910929

>> "Don't worry, we'll restore it or an equivalent; momentous stories like this one (or Brexit) are exceptions to the general rule against politics here.

Remember when slashdot was interesting? Keep dragging divisive topics into HN and it will turn into the sh!thole that slashdot is now. I'm not just talking about politics, an article about vim vs emacs is (usually) just as worthless.

There are places to discuss politics. But I come to HN regularly because the topics are usually about things that stand or fall on their own merits and inherently promote further exploration of a topic, often linking to related resources that readers may not be aware of.

There is nothing new in politics, it's the same competing agendas recycled over and over again. I worry HN is slipping more towards that genre of tribalistic topics that achieve nothing more than virtue signaling and mud slinging.

HN is not a general news site. If you want to read about or discuss the election, there's more appropriate sites for that. I'm sure you can find them on your own.

Why would there need to be more than one post?

When I wrote the question it looked like there wasn't even one that wasn't flagged, now it's consolidated into one post of AP calling it.

(1) General politics is considered off-topic, so most people would just shrug and move on.

(2) I imagine there are some people who got very agitated this morning (I wonder why) and decided to show their displeasure by flagging and downvoting everything related to general US politics.

Add (1) and (2) and we have our current situation. Nothing of value is lost, IMHO.

It is 'significant news' but...

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Downvoters: So it isn't significant news then and it doesn't go against the HN guidelines shown in [0]? Care to explain then?

"Most" being a key word there.

Again, the same point shown in guidelines.html: 'If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.'

However, perhaps this one is too big to ignore but seems like HN might as well edit the guidelines here for this reason.

"Probably" also being a key word.

I assumed it's because it's premature for the networks to call it. The results are close in several states and are in recounts or being challenged.

Even premature for AP to call it?

That calculus is taken into account for projections. (notably, the PA call was done after the margin hit right outside of recount range)

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