zlacker

Slashdot was never very good. One big reason for that was that it actively courted "humorous" comments. This was a huge monkey wrench in their moderation scheme, it meant that even if moderation made it possible to cut out the lowest end of the comment quality spectrum it still did very little to elevate the other end. More so, the system didn't discourage spam and trolling it just made it easier to hide, so any comments on the site were always swimming in an enormous sea of mostly hidden crap, which made it difficult for later comments to be noticed and moderated up. The moderation system in general did a very poor job at fostering good discussion. At best you could hope for a few decent one off comments. Another problem that slashdot has always had was a very strong leaning toward a mob mentality and exclusion of contrarian viewpoints. If slashdot talked about Microsoft, for example, it was a flurry of Microsoft bashing, not a discussion.

HN, for all its faults, does a much better job fostering high quality discussion. And probably promoting interesting submissions as well, although I think the system is much more flawed in that regard.

Anyway, I think that a good chunk of "political" stories that have become popular on HN lately do belong here. Surveillance and freedom and how they pertain to the online world are big, fundamental issues of serious historical importance that we need to grapple with today. To remove those from our view because today it tends to be difficult to have a high quality discussion about a political topic is, I think, a mistake.

I think the issue is not one of whether or not HN should abandon talking about political subjects I think the issue is making sure that HN concerns itself with subjects that are legitimately important and conducts discussions that are mature, well-reasoned, and intellectually stimulating. And I think those things are well within the grasp of the HN community.