Why is HN so political?

I hope admins can reign in

There is probably no need for moderators to do anything. Moderation is crowd sourced. I believe it only takes 4 people that have at least 31 karma to flag something to make it go away. Someone can briefly vouch it if they have 31 karma but then it can get flagged again.

If there are not at least 4 people that click flag (assuming I have the right number for flagging) then perhaps this is becoming a political site meaning they will have to revise the guidelines. I suppose a moderator could revise the sites code to auto-[dead] submissions with political keywords thus requiring a vouch or if that already exists add some words to it.

You received a response from HN moderator tomhow in the thread you are subreferencing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47404267

> Mainstream world news has a place on HN if it contains "significant new information", and as much as this site is primarily for curious conversation and gratifying intellectual curiosity, we don't want to pretend that horrific events like this aren't happening.

That thread is just 1 out of 30 on the front page. Far from "so political."

I was just thinking the same thing the other day. It feels like the tribal screeching matches continue to permeate more and more places that were originally a nice place to hang out and learn or have constructive conversations.

I've seen it more here too and have been using that "hide" button a lot more than I ever thought I would.

Two things: bots trying to push contrasting viewpoint and obvious propaganda, and mods not removing political posts immediately.

Participation is optional if you do not care for the discourse. To complain publicly is a choice, when it is unlikely to change moderation activity, no?