zlacker

>>dang+(OP)
This is a terrible decision. The tech industry has built powerful tools of social control, and runs vast databases of private data on pretty much everyone in the country. We have a golden period of forty-some days before a new administration comes to power that has shown every intent of using that information to deport people and create a national Muslim registry.

We need to be talking about the political implications of what we've built, and figuring out how to fix our mess. This is like the period before the hurricane: everyone should be busy boarding up windows, and you can't do that if you decide you're just not going to talk about the coming storm because it makes you feel bad.

>>idlewo+ck
Not to mention that "can we please stop with all the politics" is not political neutrality, it's a position that supports the status quo.

Silence assists certain forms of repression.

>>flashm+Su
And it's already the case on HN that political discussions are quickly flagged into oblivion, so I'm not sure how this current week will be any different.

I was pretty let down that HN did not do more to protect political discussions during the US election cycle and I really didn't see all that much vitriolic behavior in the first place. Even if there is bad behavior though, is that something that we need to be protected from at all times? Maybe it is better to let it happen, point it out when we see it, and then hopefully learn to discuss more civilly as a community in the future.

>>3131s+eV
A much better course of action would be attempts to improve political discourse, rather than demonize the adjective.

>>Chris2+1q1
They've tried, hard, for some time now. Look through dang's and sctb's comment history to see how hard they've tried to improve the discourse.

>>DanBC+Rq1
I think a reform of the guidelines would be more effective. Not every mod-comment is seen.

I also think that specific flags would help, i.e. flag a comment that is against some guideline, with reference to the rule it broke.

>>Chris2+YA1
What guidelines would you suggest?

>>dang+FN2
You would be in a better position to notice common fallacies etc, but any "list of logical fallacies" is a good starting point, especially those fallacies that can be used to insult, or insinuate, E.g. Specific guidelines about ad-homs. This would also include advice not to use personal information/ circumstances in an argument, unless you are happy to see them criticised.

One of the worst fallacies, us probably the kind that removed the civility from a discussion, and hence the good faith.

As a side note, the worst kinds of guideline is an ambiguous one, that leaves a lot to interpretation, e.g "act civil" is itself a nice rule, but otherwise useless, better off as a heading above specific clarifications.

HN doesn't need to be Wikipedia wrt comment rules, but a few Wikipedia style rules might be good.