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Comment by coherentpony | Hacker News Reader

I'm getting really tired of the politics posts on here. Can we please stop upvoting stuff like this? If I want to be outraged I'll go to /r/politics.

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"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" -- http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." -- http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"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." -- http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

A smartphone app leaking election results before voting starts is an "interesting new phenomenon," IMO.

So instead the results being leaked early via a typewritten page or someone leaking the results early via an email, in this case the results were leaked early from a mobile app. How is that in any way novel or intellectually gratifying?

I've never before heard of election results being leaked (through any medium) before an election has taken place. It sounds like a new phenomenon to me.

  Emperor Augustus assured Gaius Malefictus that he would be
  elected to the senate: "Don't worry about the elections. I've
  made the appropriate arrangements. This day next week, you
  will be a senator."

I can't imagine something like that ever happening in the history of politics. Or the results of a boxing match leaked early to the mafia boss before the fight has taken place, or...

Corrective upvote for your previous post since I agree that the level of interest to most HNers is roughly the same as if the leak had occurred via a different medium (calls to mind the Chicago Tribune's famous gaff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman), but I strongly disagree with the second part of your post. This is an extremely rare occurrence--where a faux democratic regime that everyone knows to be authoritarian but which makes the effort to pretend to have elections (unlike, say, China's government which directly states that they don't like the idea of elections where the populace votes) accidentally reveals that its elections are indeed rigged. Many of us find it fascinating, and that's why it's at the top of HN. If you don't find an article interesting, I don't get the point of sarcastically criticizing other users for upvoting. There are plenty of articles on derivative startups that hit the front page of HN every day, but I don't think you typically ask on those threads, "How is that in any way novel or intellectually gratifying?" Just accept that each of us finds some highly voted articles interesting and some not.

At least those derivative startups are building something. However, you're correct. I should have just bit my tongue and moved on.

As a rule of thumb, when someone who has been a user here for over 6 years cites one of the guidelines, it is a really bad idea to get into a citing match with them. You will just get embarrassed, like you are now.

guys

guys my regdate

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Yeah, well, you know that's just, like, your opinion, man.

What politics? This is almost like the opposite of politics, and a computer glitch that revealed the absence of those real politics.

It's a tech-related fumble. I think it's appropriate.

This isn't about politics in the sense of it being a debate about policy. This is a funny example of technological misuse exposing a government for rigging an election. Technology and freedom tend to be two of HNers biggest interests, and being interesting to a lot of HNers is the criterion for what's on topic here. If you personally aren't interested in current events, as with any other topics technical or not, you don't have to read those articles.

Yet I can't help but feel that if there were no technological element to this story, it would still be posted here.

Maybe, but I feel pretty comfortable in my role of "official deputy HN no-politics scold" (reporting to 'davidw), and I'm the one who posted this.

Perhaps, but I'm not sure how your feeling about what would have been posted in counterfactual circumstances justifies your complaint about what has been posted in the actual circumstances.

I mean, now it sounds like you aren't complaining about what actually was posted being off-topic, but about something that you imagine might have been off-topic which would have been posted had it occurred.

  "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."

Let's see: Politics? Check. Interesting new phenomenon? Nope. Would they cover it on TV news? Check. Conclusion: probably off-topic.

This isn't politics, it just has to do with a government.

Politics would be an article arguing why it's unfair that the President rigged the election. They mention the background political information because THAT'S GOOD JOURNALISM. You need to have that background information about the political climate to understand what's the importance of what's happening.

Would we be discussing this on HN if it were the results of a boxing match or horse race leaked early, because that wouldn't be about sports?

Are you really trying to suggest that tptacek is looking for political discussion or trying to push a political agenda here? Because it seems pretty clear that the tech angle is the one he and most readers are interested in.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this article making it to the top of the front page imply that most people would disagree with you?

While it is politics, the interest here is the screw up employing new technology during a scam election. Technology that also in turn can be used to further expose just how corrupt some governments truly are.

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