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Comment by snth

9 years ago

Hacker News is a high quality forum because it disallows political discussion.

Maybe someone could build a forum that enforces civil discussion on political issues, either with automated or manual moderation, but Hacker News' moderation isn't nearly strict enough.

3 comments

snth

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lotsoflumens  9 years ago

> Hacker News is a high quality forum because it disallows political discussion.

It's interesting that you think so, because this very discussion is extremely political, though perhaps meta-political.

I think Hacker News may be unique in that political discussion can take place in a technical forum.

The main barrier to thoughtful discussion may be the HN points system.

I suspect that many insightful posts are not written due to self-censorship (fear of losing points). It's completely irrational of course, the points are meaningless, but when they are lost it can cause some distress. Nobody likes to lose a game.

dragonwriter  9 years ago

> Hacker News is a high quality forum because it disallows political discussion.

Hacker News does not disallow, and but for a brief experiment never has disallowed, political discussion. This non-existent ban does not, therefore, explain HN's quality.