We all know that anecdotes aren't statistical evidence. That doesn't make them offtopic. They're interesting
They were interesting before they were weaponized by politicians. Then they became a threat.
This crap doesn't belong here, dang. Seriously.
They were interesting before they were weaponized by politicians. Then they became a threat.
This crap doesn't belong here, dang. Seriously.
My purview is limited to HN and I try never to extrapolate beyond that, but as far as HN goes, we've always favored the principle that readers are smart enough to make up their own minds. I've been saying that for 7 years (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) and I don't think that the crises and tectonic shifts of the past few years have given any reason to change that. (It has been a lot of work trying to shore up a culture of thoughtful commenting, with mixed results, but that's a separate issue.) IMO you guys should worry less about restricting what other people might see or think and worry more about finding the best information and the best arguments to persuade each other with.
To repeat, lest anyone misunderstand: my remarks are limited to HN, which is the space I've observed enough to speak about. I'm not saying HN is an exception, and I'm not saying it isn't an exception; I don't know.
Edit: two more points. First, I think there's a perspective bias here. We all assume that we're the smart one capable of making judgments about what the dumber ones might think, but literally everyone sees themselves that way. That shows not only that we can't all be right about that, but—more interestingly—that this entire line of thinking is invalid. It's a hard-wired unreliable narrator.
Second and last, if HN readers aren't smart enough to make up their own minds, then this place is fucked, so we might as well make a Pascal's wager.
That's not how this works. If you allow enough bullshit through the filter that's another example of the 'broken windows' theory: it will accelerate evaporative cooling, leading to more bullshit being posted and ending up on the homepage and so on. As moderator you are one of the very few people that can stop that spiral from getting out of control and the balance is quite precarious.
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
There is nothing in there about censoring things because they have been weaponized by politicians or because they are a threat.