If I remember correctly, HN is supposed to have information interesting and useful for thinking people. This example doesn't qualify as off-topic then.

Apparently the guidelines even explicitly say:

“Off-Topic: Most stories about politics”

I would certainly classify this as such.

Good exception. I think you're right... benefits of discussing can be outweighed by how easy it is to drop into a bad quarrel.

> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic

This is part of the framing from the guidelines, this type of article would very much be covered.

I imagine your comment is being downvoted because a significant portion of your comment is a statement, not a question, and that statement is something that people disagree with.

HN has an off-topic policy, but it's enforced primarily by user flagging. In recent months, there's been a large influx of people who feel political activism is so important that it needs to happen everywhere, so posts tend to get upvoted faster than they can be flagged.

You'll note that this article now has a [flagged] tag next to it, which means enough users flagged it that it's removed from the feed.

It's probably not new users, but the current time period. This is a US election year, which (for US users in particular) brings many political topics to the fore. Some posts are more appropriate here than others, but political content in general will get more attention as a result.

True. I don't remember it being so bad in 2016 - but then again I spent much less time reading HN then.

I remember a lot of posts (and a lot of them being flagged) but I have no solid numbers to base this on. But I also let myself get caught up in the politics in general and probably noticed them for that reason as well (my brain was primed to notice them).

I need to start taking year long retreats every four years.

Yeah, why was this posted?

It's all fair game until the mods bump it off the frontpage.

That's not an accurate summary. HN users flagging an article is the primary reason articles go missing from the front page.