I think generally the mods like to avoid anything involving "politics" since it's likely to start a flame war.
The issue, of course, is that literally anything can be "political", and moreover by trying to actively avoid political discussions you sort of tacitly endorse the status quo.
It's a tough line to draw, and I'd be lying if I said where I knew where to draw it; HN is a fun forum specifically because the moderation is generally very good. They're not perfect but they do try and shut things down before they devolve into flame wars and personal insults. If there weren't aggressive modding, HN would devolve into 4chan or 8chan, and it wouldn't be appealing to me after the age of ~17.
It is a difficult issue. For the longest time, the status quo-favoring position of not complaining about anything divisive too much worked well because the status quo had been relatively unchanging - most people grew up with it so everyone took it for granted, and even most types of pushback was far more reserved than what we see today.
But now that the status quo of Western countries had begun rapidly shifting into something completely different, the other side of that initial ruling is starting to bear fruit. I really think that at this point they should revisit this policy - not to abandon moderation, but make amends that try to distance this place from the current political establishment. What was yesterday's implicit favoring of the boring consensus is now a defined position that's supportive of whatever the current powers do. But, being more cynical, given how close HN is to Y Combinator, I'm not sure if that option is on the table.
The main reason to avoid flamewars is to protect the atmosphere on HN but you can't make the case that if the world is on fire we can just sit here and pretend it isn't happening and discuss the latest tweak to react as though it is the most important thing in the world.
I've long argued for a 'other' category as one overflow method or a homepage that is generic and subject specific pages for those that only want LLM news or Apple. I'm sure we could agree on a 10 level 'top' set with 'All' the default. That's one step closer to Reddit of course, but with the growth that HN has seen over the years you can't continue to pretend that the 'small town' measures still apply to this big city. A lot of this really is just about scale and you need to adapt to scale.
If I were in your shoes, I would consider dang’s response in this thread and contemplate whether this is the correct forum for your style of political analysis.
I did observe some of this activity over the past couple days and note that many of your interlocutors were also flagged, downvoted, etc., and not always for clearly legitimate reasons. I turned on showdead for a while just to follow the plot. So it goes.
I think it’s a good policy (in general, not specific to HN) to match your interlocutor’s effort. There’s no return on investment in any case.
I always have showdead on. I turned it on as soon as I learned that there was such a feature. Even the crypto scam posts amuse me.
I don't feel that I have a particular "style" of political analysis. In the case of ICE I'm not even doing political analysis; it's legal analysis.
I don't like seeing my communities swell with outrage that appears, to me, to be based on propaganda and ignorance. I would not be talking about these topics otherwise. And my defenses are not based in ideology, unless "the terms people are using here describe really serious terrible things, and shouldn't be abused" is an ideology.
I don't like being dissuaded from responding to it, because without any reassurance that it will be cleaned up as off-topic, that comes across to me as suppressing an opposed point of view. That especially galls on platforms that otherwise appear committed to open discussion of contentious topics.
I’m not dissuading or suppressing your point of view, mate. You’re clearly in some distress over this, but feel obligated (honor-bound?) to continue prosecuting your case. It’s a vicious cycle: the harder you hammer on this, the less persuasive you become, and accordingly the less satisfied you’ll be with the state of affairs. That’s all I’m saying.
We would have curtailed the AI discussion years ago of preventing flame wars was the primary issue. I do think that they simply cling to outdated sentiments that politics is "dirty laundry" to take out instead of properly cleaning hoise.
I've been frustrated by the flagging (because fascism is so real right now) but I've been a moderator in the past and I know it's impossible to keep a large majority happy. It's hard for me to criticize the mods much.
Yeah, I’ve been a mod on a relatively small Discord server (~60 users) and even in that scope it can be difficult to keep people happy with stuff I’ve done.
Best way to mod is to strive to keep discourse civil (by setting up a policy) but at the same time let people talk about what hey want to talk. Not letting them talk because they may fight or disagree is a patronizing behavior.
Makes enough sense. I'm not a mod of that server anymore because I got an in argument with the server's owner, and decided to leave, so I haven't gotten to practice my mod stuff in awhile.
> the mods like to avoid anything involving "politics" since it's likely to start a flame war.
You're correct that we like to avoid flamewars, but not correct to say "anything involving politics". We don't try to (or want to) avoid politics altogether—a certain number of threads with political overlap have always been part of the mix here*. For (reams of) past explanations see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
What we want to avoid is HN being taken over by politics altogether, and thereby turning into an entirely different site. We want HN to adhere to its mandate, which is to optimize for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). That certainly includes some political discussion, but (a) not beyond a certain threshold, and (b) not every kind of political story or article. (For example, opinion pieces are usually less of a fit than stories which contain significant new information, and so on.)
Unfortunately, this way of doing things inevitably generates conflict. For politically passionate users, that "not beyond a certain threshold" bit is far too little—especially in turbulent times, as now. Apart from that, there's no agreement on which particular stories deserve to be on the frontpage, and even if there were such agreement, there's still no way of making sure that the most deserving stories get the spots (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306).
Everyone has the experience of being frustrated when a story that they care about gets flagged or otherwise falls in rank. When feelings are running hot, people jump to the conclusion that we're secretly on the opposite political side, or trying to suppress discussion on a particular topic. That's not the case at all—it's all explicable by the principles that we've been repeating for years—but that none of that changes how it feels.
Then there are the users who feel like HN has gotten too political and is a shadow of its former self—this also has always been with us: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
Let me just preempt this by saying that I think you and tomhow do a very good job at moderating, and I'm just some goober on the internet sitting on a high-horse, so take what I say with as much respect as possible.
Hacker News is my favorite forum in no small part because this forum's users are, on average, a lot more educated than the average internet user. If not formally, a lot of the people here still do value learning and education as a whole. Those environments aren't organic on the internet, and it is largely due to efforts from folks like you to cultivate this audience and I do not want to dismiss that.
The concern, then, is that when the educated people can't discuss (and let's be honest, argue about) politics, then the only people who will be discussing politics will be the uneducated people. Politics is inherently contentious and we can't make progress (however you want to define it) without occasionally hurting feelings.
Now, a perfectly valid counter to this is "we're not stopping you from discussing contentious political issues, you're welcome to discuss it on one of the many other forums on the internet, just not here". That's fair enough, but it can come off as a little arbitrary, because virtually anything can be deemed "political"; I could argue that disagreements with type systems or the ISO standard of C or complaining about SQLite could be construed as "politically motivated".
I do realize that a line has to be drawn, though. The last thing I want is for the forum to devolve into 8chan or The Drudge Report or something, so while I don't completely agree at where you draw the line, I do understand why it is drawn.
I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for.
If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters.
(For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions. All the more reason not to nurture threads about it here.)
PS: I'm a longstanding "too-much-politics-on-HN" person, and even I'm a little annoyed that Jonathan Rauch's piece won't work here, if only so I can annoyingly noodle on the varying definitions of fascism. But flags are the right call here.
>For the record: I don't believe there's a productive conversation to be had about ICE in Minnesota and wouldn't care to argue with anyone defending their actions.
Funny because I'm probably very radical about ICE and I can still find subtleties on how to reform this. I've never been "Defund the police", quite the opposite. I believe LEOs should have standing, qualities, and training that makes them stand by their emergency peers. Truly the best of the best. Getting that badge should be a similar thrill to being accepted into a top college. They should have years of schooling before truly starting to gain their title.
Getting into a firefighting isn't easy, so why should an LEO see of as a career as a backup for failing to graduate high school? That's where all this falls apart. And now the standards barely get these ICE goons a month of "training". That needs to change.
But with current times, that's not a topic I can discuss on X nor Bluesky. That makes it all the more frustrating that HN plugs its ears on such subtlety instead.
If that's the case, then I suppose this community is no different. And I don't like saying that because 1) I don't personally believe that and 2) it's against guidelines. But reality can be disappointing at times.
I recall us having a conversation about checks and balances long ago and you were pretty strongly trusting in those keeping the US safe in the longer term. I am quite curious what your expectations are for the mid-terms and the presidential election three years from now based on the recent past, are you willing to write about that?
> do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs?
When I see a submission like the current one, I get the impression just from the title that the OP doesn't believe it.
The easy fix is to let go of the unsiloed concept and to add a couple (<10) main subjects and an 'all' page. That way whoever wants to can discuss what they want and flags can go back to their original meaning.
> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for.
I think this is a poor litmus test, because there are plenty of stories on HN where the majority perspective is going to be either agreement or disagreement. For example, zero day exploits, leaks, anything related to Tesla circa 7-8 years ago etc. The notion that every conversation needs to have multiple perspectives is a common fallacy; I think we can agree that things like companies ignoring security holes is bad for example and someone saying 'actually, it's good' isn't actually adding anything productive.
> If not, they're wrong for this site; more than wrong, corrosive. The stories themselves aren't bad (I have a lot of strong political beliefs too), but they're incompatible with the mode of discussion we have here: an unsiloed single front page and a large common pool of commenters.
That ship sailed long ago with stuff like the Google Manifesto or companies like Palantir. People rightfully point out ycombinators (and by extension, HNs) connection to the current political environment which means people here, especially long standing users, will find themselves more and more agitated.
For me at least, these kind of stories are increasingly unavoidable because they aren't just things I read on the internet, they're directly my life. Schools have gone into lockdown here in Seattle when ICE activity flares up, stores I've gone to have needed to prepare and think long and hard about what to do when ICE knocks at the door. Naturally this means people are going to gravitate towards stories here that are directly related to their life, and when those stories get squashed people start to notice the disconnect. People might go on HN to avoid these stories, but I literally cannot avoid my life.
>> I think a useful litmus test for these kinds of stories is: do the people who most actively participate on them believe there's a conversation to be had, with multiple perspectives, not all of which agree with theirs? That's what this site is for.
This would disqualify more than half of AI/LLM/<insert_tech_person> stories. This seems like a cope out. It is our inability as tech people to embrace the discomfort that is not rational and engage with it.
Yes, I've been flagging a fair amount of them too.
Although generally I think the un-nuanced AI hype/doom articles are not nearly as damaging as the flood of one-shot LLM projects being presented under "Show HN" with apparently none of the framing text (HN post, project README, responses to feedback) being human-written.
This thread isn't a great place for it, but I think we should formalize Show HN a bit (don't let people post freeform "Show HN" posts, have a submission queue) and then I have a lot of thoughts about community-based coaching.
My point is that the discrimination to flag one and not the other seems arbitrary. It has nothing to do with promoting/preserving intellectual curiosity etc. We are deluding ourselves by repeating that.
In that we are practicing the very doublethink we criticize in the society.
I've read his responses here and in other topics over 2025. He still seems to maintain that politics is something to avoid, regardless of quality. Not explicitly, but the way he talks about it gives that impression.
Having a tepidness when it comes to the dozens of slop articles on some trivial Ai blogs contradicts this mission to encourage curiosity and encourage a quality discussion. It feels outright contradictory and feeds into this sentiment that "anything tech is fine, nothing political is". Having flaggers do the work and promoting it as "community vote" is a convinent smokescreen, even though we all know flagging is based on a super minority of the community.
I know it feels knee-jerk, but I had this sentiment for a few years now as AI rose, and it of course hit a fever pitch in 2025. I think seeing a Tesla earnings call flagged because it wasn't stellar earnings really made me go from quiet apathy to being more vocal on the phenomenon. The actions (which I disagree on) simply do not match the words behind it (which I overall agree with).
> I think seeing a Tesla earnings call flagged because it wasn't stellar earnings
This is a perfect example of imagining or assuming our (or the community's) motivations or allegiances then criticising us for what you imagine or assume.
Tesla is far more commonly criticised than praised on HN these days. The moderators have no allegiance or care for Tesla, its reputation or its stock price.
If a ”Tesla earnings call” story was flagged, it would be for the same reason that almost all earnings call or stock price stories are flagged on HN; they usually don't qualify as great topics for curious conversation.
The quality of threads in politics discussions is absolutely dismal. Just the worst. Many of the flagged stories are quite good! But good stories are a superset of good HN threads, and threads are the point of the site.
I think it's noteworthy that we couldn't even keep a metadiscussion of this topic completely civil. This shouldn't surprise anyone. "Don't bring up religion or politics"; it's a rule of etiquette (and probably the most common bit of advice in the "Respect" section of every page on WikiVoyage). Why do we think we're exempt?
It's very difficult to talk about, because it's important and people have strongly held beliefs. Respect that, and the purpose of this site.
Mods is a part of the community the same way your manager is part of your team. The power dynamic cannot be ignored and is often used to the advantage of those in power.
Calling out hypocrisy, especially of a superior, is important for order in a community. Otherwise you get a smaller version of the US c. 2025
I don't see anything wrong with it. Yes, the executive branch wants chaos. If we can't agree on that (something both sides of the lane agree on, even of the reaction differs) how can we really dig into solutions?
The guidelines read clearly to me like tone policing is expected:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
> Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Those points have nothing to do with tone policing, so I don't understand the objection.
Flagging https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46768275 is completely inappropriate (I do not accuse you specifically). It does not in any way violate HN guidelines. The comment it was responding to clearly did, and was correctly flagged and killed as a result.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Yes, this is exactly what my framing was doing - it is more substantive, positing a starting point for people who earnestly want to solve this problem. How the heck do we save, or at least triage, our country when we've got a hostile federal executive trying to start a civil war (among many other types of overt damage) ?
This conversation is open to people of all political persuasions except Trumpists/fascists (or whatever you want to call yourself). I myself am coming from more of a libertarian / Austrian economics background. I can have some wildly different takes on constructive solutions than someone who is a lifelong Democrat, or a conservative who has been pushed out of the Republican party.
The thing you seem to keep missing is that you were not invited to this conversation - or more accurately you've self-selected out. You could choose to join the conversation at any time, but to do this you need to stop throwing out these disruptive upside-down framings that are basically just promulgating the rogue regime's unapologetic litany of bullshit that's trotted out every time they kill another American.
> This conversation is open to people of all political persuasions except Trumpists/fascists
> The thing you seem to keep missing is that you were not invited to this conversation
I didn't vote for Trump, don't live in the US, wouldn't have voted for Trump, and am not a fascist, so I don't understand the objection. But even if I were any or all of those things, I would not require your permission to post here.
It is worth noting that you are the one in this exchange seeking to establish authoritarian control.
You're supporting the actions of the regime and seemingly echoing a lot of their propaganda. For the purposes of my statement, this makes you a de facto Trumpist. Specifically, the problem is that you're railing directly against the assumptions that were set out to have a productive conversation.
I am not "seeking to establish authoritarian control". I am pointing out that you are being disruptive to good-faith productive conversations. The only reason you seemingly responded to my initial comment was to engage in ideological battle. It's like when someone barges into a discussion about Python, asserting that Python sucks and everyone should use PHP instead. Regardless of whether they have a point or not, it's not particularly germane to conversation for the people who wanted to be talking about Python.
>The concern, then, is that when the educated people can't discuss (and let's be honest, argue about) politics, then the only people who will be discussing politics will be the uneducated people. Politics is inherently contentious and we can't make progress (however you want to define it) without occasionally hurting feelings.
I completely agree. That's why ultimately I abandoned the mainstream stuff (outside of YouTube. Yay monopoly) for discussion and go to Tildes for a lot of political talk. But Tildes is small by design and will have some blind spots.
I feel denying a quality article like this (or rather, upholding the minority's rule of denying) cracks into the idea that these policies work to keep HN high quality. Especially when what's on the front page right now is "I ported typescript to rust in a month with Claude!". These don't feel quality driven.
For what it’s worth, I visit HN before my first coffee, and I am fine with not getting a faceful of US politics first thing in the morning. If I need that I can look in any other direction already. I visit this website specifically because it talks about other things.
Tying your flagging behavior to your first coffee is abuse of flagging. There are at any given time 100's of people drinking their first coffee, if that's the criterium then HN will become a wasteland.
The limit should be outright fascism. It's not a tough line to draw if you've any inkling of 20th century history. The USA isn't sleepwalking, it's goose-stepping into a fucking nightmare.
The issue, of course, is that literally anything can be "political", and moreover by trying to actively avoid political discussions you sort of tacitly endorse the status quo.
It's a tough line to draw, and I'd be lying if I said where I knew where to draw it; HN is a fun forum specifically because the moderation is generally very good. They're not perfect but they do try and shut things down before they devolve into flame wars and personal insults. If there weren't aggressive modding, HN would devolve into 4chan or 8chan, and it wouldn't be appealing to me after the age of ~17.