In the old days I don’t remember as much political / world news allowed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
But I’ve seen more types of TV news stories going through, like stories about political protests, stories about politics in Eastern Europe, free speech debates, etc.
Without getting into the details of each particular submission I’m curious if you think the submission standards have remained consistent throughout the years or if your curation philosophy has changed at all and if so, in what ways?
P.S. Thanks for all you do as mods and for making HN an a valuable and unique community. It’s awesome to go to a thread and see helpful links or comments that enhance the conversation.
And more broadly speaking, what are the roles of technology in an extremely political sensitive climate. Should Telegram do A or B, and what about Whatsapp, Facebook moderation, Apple App Store disallow certain group, is that a curation problem or a political problem? Fake News, Yellow Journalism, none of these are "new". But now they happen on Tech rather than traditional media, is that a tech problem or a political problem? We just dont have any concrete answer.
There are other Geopolitics issues. I mean if WW3 did start surely that is important enough for HN submission. Or China decide to invade Taiwan, so to speak. Surely the threat of TSMC Foundry supply is important enough for submission even if the article itself doesn't mention TSMC.
So while the rule is not black and white as zero politics discussions. I think the moderation is fairly consistent. Still dont know how Dang manages it. To the point I sometimes worry about him leaving YC, and HN may never be the same again.
Nah. Yesterday's political topic (there's almost always at least one per day) was about the WWII Tokyo firebombing.
I think the real answer is even simpler: I think dang (or whoever is on duty that day) asks themselves "is this topic going to lead to an interesting conversation, or will it devolve into a shitshow?" Shitshows generally get canned, no matter the subject. It's benign dictatorship at work.
HN, to me (and I am long in the tooth on this site), is about that which is fascinating to the mind, with a culture of good, meaningful content which is relevant to said minds...
Politics permeate our lives - and especially moreso now. (FB was never a thought re politics when it was born, but it has so much mindshare now that its inexcusable to not think of FB as a political force (even though its literally a revolving door with government security apparatai)
Also, @Dang is a fucking bad-ass... He is probably the best mod I have ever encountered...
He has on multiple occasions put me in my place, gently, as I tend to post heavy handed comments when drunk and we have gone at it and agreed about when we both posted drunken rage comments...
Yet @Dang ALWAYS replies to my emails and helps me when I ask for it...
I've been on HN/YC for a long time -- @Dang has never failed being just an awesome mod of this forum.
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The culture of HN posting is golden, thus far, and this forum is something to be protected. @Dang needs a mod protege to take the reigns when he decides to go live his fuck-you money on an island.