zlacker

>>pg+(OP)
A hard ban on politics and current events, instead of the wiggly one we have in the site guidelines now.

>>tptace+o
The problem with that is that it's hard to say exactly what counts as politics. E.g. is an article about economic inequality like this one

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2402027

politics? I don't think so. Economic inequality is a very interesting social phenomenon, though it is often written about in a heated/political way.

>>pg+h1
Require articles about (say) economic inequality to be scholarly.

>>tptace+l4
tptacek, it would be great to require everything on HN to be "scholarly" or sufficiently serious, no? But the question is how to do that.

>>crassh+8m
Simple; they would need to be published in journals, or have bibliographies, or have a cite record. "Scholarly" isn't really a subjective term.

>>tptace+EF
I believe scholarliness is not simple. Examples that muck up a naive attempt at defining "scholarly":

. Econophysics, fuzzy logic, systems theory -- are those really serious fields? Could they become serious? The answers are subjective.

. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning -- too specific? is this just a journal that someone started to enhance her reputation in a self-defined field? how long has it been around and how long will it be around?

. Douglas Hofstadter -- scholar or dilletante?

. the blog of Terence Tao -- it is serious but is not published in a journal

. http://arxiv.org/find/math/1/au:+Jormakka_J/0/1/0/all/0/1 -- a guy who claimed to solve more than one Millennium Problem and is widely considered a crank. Articles were published in journals.

. http://arxiv.org/find/math/1/au:+Perelman_G/0/1/0/all/0/1 -- a guy who did solve a Millennium Problem. Articles were not published in journals.

Listen to Frank Wilczek talk about his feelings about not having his genius recognised: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Science/Physics/The-Univ... (Q&A at the end).

Academics play the karma game with much higher stakes.