I think the sample size is too small. I also think it sets a dangerous precedent to censor on a forum for a technology that is supposed to be anti-censorship. I think political posts should be relocated to meta/off-topic.
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I’ll agree. I think the sample size would have been bigger if there was a neutral/impartial option in the choices but regardless I think your suggestion could be effective enough. New members don’t see meta by default do they?
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I don’t think so
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The forum is as inclusive as it needs to be. I think the OP demonstrates good intentions but the approach is a bit misguided since the solutions to issues that have been raised require more exclusivity and moderation of the discourse rather than inclusion and free flow of ideas.
The focus of the forum is ‘The Safe Network’. In consideration of the way technology and the internet are intertwined with most of society it is challenging to separate political and socio-economic issues unless the discussion is overtly partizan or spam. This is strikingly true considering the recent events which have occurred that demonstrate how big tech, communications, data privacy, and free speech affect society and how things may change following the advent of Safe Network. Like it or not, the Safe Network is about more than just technology, it’s about people too. The purely technical discussion is found on the dev forum counterpart.
We have an off-topic category that serves as a dmz catch-all to accumulate all of entropy generated during normal discourse rather than just throwing peoples’ political, tech-less, religious, philosophical, or quirky opinions/comments in the trash. There have been concerns raised about certain members abusing the off-topic category without necessarily breaking forum rules in a literal sense. As a possible solution to that issue I would like to propose the following change:
Users must be regulars (>=TL3) to post in Off-Topic.
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I just tested and it is not visible. If you want you can make a new poll and publish it in the community category.
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Very well put
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Proposed change sounds good to me. I trust moderators judgment, especially since it would be all of you having to enforce such things. I just don’t think politics needs to be front and center and poisoning other threads.
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100% agree with that.
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I agree with you and so do the current forum guidelines.
Religious, political, and other “prone to huge arguments” topics are only allowed in the Off-Topic category
The easiest way for users to help mods keep the forum tidy is to use the flagging system.
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The hacker news comment guidelines are amazing, and dang (their primary moderator) does a great job at reminding people to maintain those guidelines. You can see from his comment history he takes time to clarify with people who step on the wrong side of the guidelines, it’s very effective. We are of course two different communities with different goals etc so that must be considered, but I have found their approach very effective at maintaining an inclusive atmosphere.
I feel the HN guidelines are effective because a) they’re regularly referenced when things go sideways and b) they’re very effective as a heuristic for ‘should I post this or not’.
Seems like a good time to look at the safenetforum.org guidelines, which are pretty good, but maybe we can be more proactive with linking back to them when something rubs us the wrong way. This would reinforce the kind of culture those guidelines are aiming at.
I’m going to quote the HN comment guidelines in full because they’re very handy to keep in mind for generating interesting rather than heated conversation. Not suggesting we adopt them or that we have a problem with inclusion, but they’re handy to have in the toolbelt.
HN Guidlines: In Comments
Be kind. Don’t be snarky. Have curious conversation; don’t cross-examine. Please don’t fulminate. Please don’t sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. “That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3” can be shortened to “1 + 1 is 2, not 3.”
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that’s easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Eschew flamebait. Don’t introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
Please don’t post shallow dismissals, especially of other people’s work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Please don’t use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
Please don’t comment on whether someone read an article. “Did you even read the article? It mentions that” can be shortened to “The article mentions that.”
Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don’t create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.
Please don’t use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put *asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.
Please don’t post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you’re worried about abuse, email us and we’ll look at the data.
Please don’t complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don’t feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don’t also comment that you did.
Please don’t complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They’re too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful.
Please don’t comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
Please don’t post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit.
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