Could you specify what characterises those topics, the discussions concerning them, and their treatments in your view?
In particular keywords or phrases which appear, preferably in titles, though perhaps also in comments, would be useful.
I'd also be curious as what might falsify a sense that HN's membership shies from politics, can't discuss political matters reasonably, and/or has a specific political leaning.
(I've created an archive of HN front-page submissions from 2007 to present, and am investigating various aspects of the site. The data itself comprises the post date, page position (1--30), submitted site (as noted in parentheses following the title, I'm not capturing the actual URL presently), the submitter, and the vote and comment counts. I've done some cursory exploration based on sites that correspond to political commentary, such as think-tanks or highly-partisan media, and a bit of looking at phrase patterns in titles, but not much beyond that. Sentiments on what topics HN discusses poorly might be useful here.)
In particular keywords or phrases which appear, preferably in titles, though perhaps also in comments, would be useful.
I'd also be curious as what might falsify a sense that HN's membership shies from politics, can't discuss political matters reasonably, and/or has a specific political leaning.
(I've created an archive of HN front-page submissions from 2007 to present, and am investigating various aspects of the site. The data itself comprises the post date, page position (1--30), submitted site (as noted in parentheses following the title, I'm not capturing the actual URL presently), the submitter, and the vote and comment counts. I've done some cursory exploration based on sites that correspond to political commentary, such as think-tanks or highly-partisan media, and a bit of looking at phrase patterns in titles, but not much beyond that. Sentiments on what topics HN discusses poorly might be useful here.)