zlacker

>>dang+(OP)
A submission on climate change was flagged and removed due to these political guidelines. Is this really considered political? Wouldn't it be more justified to call it 'scientific'?

How is anyone supposed to realistically draw the line between what is political and what is not? Couldn't any topic in the world be related back to politics one way or another?

This seems like a blatant plot to censor 'unwanted' topics and articles. A huge downvote from me.

>>jc_811+gp
If it's the one I recall, it was about "how to talk to climate change deniers" or something like that. I flagged it (dang says to overflag rather than underflag in this regard anyhow). I'd have a hard time categorizing it as "not political". It's a charged political topic, the details of that conversation had nothing to do with technology, and almost entirely were about "how to argue with the people you disagree with" who happen to almost entirely belong to a single political party.

>>ocdtre+Hr
I do see what you're saying however, climate change is not a political topic in itself. It is a scientific topic that has to do with the world getting warmer.

The article was not "how to argue with people you disagree with" but how to connect with an audience who does not believe in a scientific consensus due to misinformation. In fact the point of the article had nothing to do with arguing (or political parties), but rather empathetically connecting with an opposing viewpoint.

This is exactly what I meant from my parent comment. Because a topic has been hijacked by political parties we can't bring it up? Climate change = science topic. It is a well documented phenomenon that 97% of the world's climate scientists agree on [1].

Being on either side of the political spectrum is irrelevant here, as at its core this has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with science.

[1] http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

>>jc_811+hu
Abortion can be categorized as a medical issue, I suppose. And perhaps even polling data or accuracy can be thrown in as statistics. This is a fuzzy line, which is compounded by the notion that members of political parties generally argue that their view is fact rather than opinion.

When you consider HN submission rules, it does indicate "more than just hacking or startups" and things that "gratify intellectual curiosity" are in, but also that politics is generally off-topic. On a topic like this that toes the line, you probably should assume it's further off-topic than on.

The very nature of an article that is about how to talk to someone with an opposing viewpoint isn't satisfying an intellectual curiosity, but positioning someone to persuade others. Whether you phrase it as "connecting with an audience" or not, it's inherently about an argument, and how to win it.

I would argue that a discussion of new facts or research uncovered about climate change is a submission about science, and anything specifically about "climate change deniers" is politics, or at best, "argument".