HN tends to downvote any political comments, especially comments that turn the discussion more political, even in a story that already tangentially touches on politics. The HN guidelines more-or-less document the former; the latter seems like a natural consequence. In general, politics is almost always off-topic here; there are many other places to discuss politics.
Downvotes are a symptom of that: people downvote politics they disagree with and upvote politics they agree with. Politics, more so than many other topics, tends to bring out "downvote = disagree", not just "downvote = not a contribution". That's in addition to the people (myself often included) who downvote any comment that turns the discussion more political, because such comments typically reduce the quality and novelty of the discussion.
What is the definition of "political"? If it's a question of tax, of stock options, of a free speech law, which top HN submissions often are, these are all political in the traditional definition. I feel your definition is something you have in mind, but haven't articulated. By political it seems like you are talking about "right versus left explicitly" type politics?
> In general, politics is almost always off-topic here
This attitude is one of the most damaging flaws in tech culture. There is this idea that engineering, design, and sometimes even business are somehow outside of politics, which is absolutely incorrect.
Politics is simply how humans interact to negotiate the mechanics of society. Creating a good or service has political consequences. Often these consequences are small, but modern technology has had an amplifying affect on political consequences that has grown rapidly. Silicon Valley culture even has a word that recognizes this: "disruption".
As politics is increasingly important in technology, traditional powers have started to fight back. A good example is the current drama over encryption (Apple/FBI, WhatsApp/India, etc); giving people the ability to communicate without government (or other) eavesdropping is not only a political act, it's also a significant shift in power that upsets the traditional political equilibrium. Local tax law is merely the current battlefield.
When you create something that affects people - even in small ways - you are taking a political position. Pretending that your work is somehow outside of politics doesn't make technology and engineering politically neutral. Ignoring politics is still a political statement; you're saying you don't care about the political consequences, which is irresponsible.
> there are many other places to discuss politics
HN is exactly the place that the politics of technology should be discussed.
> reduce the quality ... of the discussion
While I agree that rudeness, personal attacks, and other low-quality rhetoric should be discouraged, remember that attempting to silence political discussion is itself a political statement. You aren't removing politics completely; you're de facto stating that any point of view outside the status quo shouldn't be heard.
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There is "no neutral ground in a burning world"[1]. Please consider and discuss (politely) the political consequences of technology as we integrate it into our lives. If you don't, someone else will.
Solving political problems, or more broadly solving real-world problems, is definitely on-topic. But just expressing political viewpoints or rhetoric in ways that don't actually improve the discussion is off-topic. We're not here to signal affiliation and spout rhetoric; there are plenty of cesspools on the Internet to do that in rather than turning HN into one.
This is, by far, the most political site I go to. The top comments are often politicized and the top stories are typical social media "outrage" stories.
I think you're painting a picture of HN that really doesn't exist, but did probably long ago. HN now suffers from the 'eternal September' many popular forums do. Techy forum participants are often high school and college students with far left anti-US views common in youth. Its no surprise that these viewpoints are the dominant narrative here.
I imagine there are people who downvote all politics, but they are clearly a minority here. The downvote button is just a agree/disagree button in practice and shows an obvious political bias.
Your the one creating the "eternal september" discussion in this thread. You take a story about international trade and make into a left-right issue, promoting your pet opnion that Europe have moved to far to the left. Then you turn the whole thread into meta by complaining how HN is turning into reddit (something so common it even is warned against in the guidelines).
Not only are your comments utterly predictable, and therefor uninteresting, they are factually incorrect. It's often the right wing that want to protect the local market. The US just forced China to limit subsidies on exports [0]. The UKs exit of the EU is largely a result of the left wing not being able to convince their votes, in favor of right wing conservatives.
That Europe has turned to the left as a result of the financial crisis is also not substantiated [1][2]. The few countries that have in recent years are have all been forced to enact (right wing) economic reforms. Including Greece, France and Portugal. Which is why people are protesting, not because they have suddenly become more leftist.
If you think HN has become leftist it's very likely that you are simply older than most people on HN. Young people today, whether they consider themselves left or right, are forced to care about things like housing, healthcare, employment and other issues that were previously considered left wing because society is changing.
We must not be reading the same threads because I don't see anything remotely "anti-US" when reading HN. It almost sounds like you are accusing us all of being unamerican, which is one of the sillier political epithets history has provided us.
What I do see is a realization that the US is a fairly small minority of the global population, and that globalization and automation are stampeding across labor-based economies, and discussions of solutions to the resulting societal problems.
> HN tends to downvote any political comments, especially comments that turn the discussion more political, even in a story that already tangentially touches on politics
That's... really not true. Case-in-point: look at any frontpage post that talks about health insurance, wage floors, guaranteed minimum income, etc. There's a clearly dominant opinion, and left-leaning opinions tend to be the most frequently-posted (as well as the most frequently upvoted). This is ignoring tech-politics (ie, net neutrality, digital privacy).
People do use the downvote as a signal of disagreement (which is a problem[0], because it just polarizes discussions even more by driving away constructive, dissenting opinions[1]). But the people who downvote any political sentiment don't outweigh the rest, as evidenced by the end results.
[1] There are topics on which I have a lot of domain knowledge relative to the typical HN commenter. I used to be more proactive with sharing this information in HN comments when relevant, but I only do this a small fraction of the time compared to a few years ago[2]. There's nothing more discouraging than writing a 500-word comment with multiple footnotes and external citations to primary sources and peer-reviewed articles, only to be downvoted for expressing a contrary opinion, or even simply a more nuanced version of the dominant one.
[2] I won't say whether it's gotten better or worse, but I've certainly learned from those experiences over time, and from my observations, so have other users.
The fact that your excellent and sourced comment has been downvoted to the point of it being near invisible on my screen just further proves your point.
>There are topics on which I have a lot of domain knowledge relative to the typical HN commenter.
I also agree with this. I have domain knowledge in a couple odd places and the top voted comments on these domains on places like reddit or HN are embrassingly wrong. It used to be we'd get a random expert drop some serious knowledge but those people seem to be gone. If you're just a run of the mill Joe and finding your random musings racing to the top via upvotes, chances are you don't know what you're really talking about, but you know how to "work the room."
Experts usually have better things to do and probably get easily discouraged by being downvoted and having to real with disingenuous or ignorant replies. Internet forums have a real problem with Dunning-Kruger suffering participants. Say, some geek does a little light reading and now thinks he's an expert on some topic. The guys upvoting him did the same light reading. So if you disagree with that Salon or Guardian or Huffpost narrative, then you're going to be downvoted because it goes against what the "local experts" think. The problem is that article, even if it isn't biased, certainly has not exhausted the problem domain or touched upon more advanced criticisms or alternative theories. How could it, in an article written for a general audience and often under 700 words?
Its a bit like being in a small town. You don't criticize the local pastor or mayor, unless you want an earful on how "we all know better than you." This is also why certain types of people flee small towns. Its insular nature is same as on internet forums unfortunately. Being mindful of this seems to be the only sane path forward and having serious skepticism of popular internet narratives as well.
HN tends to downvote any political comments, especially comments that turn the discussion more political, even in a story that already tangentially touches on politics. The HN guidelines more-or-less document the former; the latter seems like a natural consequence. In general, politics is almost always off-topic here; there are many other places to discuss politics.
(Personally, I tend to agree with http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ .)
Downvotes are a symptom of that: people downvote politics they disagree with and upvote politics they agree with. Politics, more so than many other topics, tends to bring out "downvote = disagree", not just "downvote = not a contribution". That's in addition to the people (myself often included) who downvote any comment that turns the discussion more political, because such comments typically reduce the quality and novelty of the discussion.