This has been HN policy since the beginning, and while HN is usually still quite unpleasant, policies like this one are largely responsible for preventing it from being worse. There are social contexts where discussions of topics like US immigration policy can do good rather than harm, but HN is not one of them.

>This has been HN policy since the beginning,

This is not true, at least according to dang if I recall correctly. There was a change in moderation strategy since the pg days. The way I remember dang's own explanation was that pg was more hands off in his moderation of political topics. Sure, you can say that it wasn't the same community back then, less flamewars etc, but the fact of the matter is the creator of this site moderated things slightly differently.

Maybe you won't find it ironic, but the creator of HN is often sharing posts on twitter that would be flagged to oblivion if someone other than him posted it on here. Regardless of all the reasonable explanations (this is a tech site, journalists/politicians are on twitter), it's still an interesting datapoint that the creator of this forum in this day and age thinks it's more important spending his own time talking politics on twitter more than talking tech on this forum.

I think people who say "do it on twitter like pg, instead of HN" forget that pg's twitter positive experience is largely due to the fact that he has a million plus followers on twitter and people in other fields know who he is so he is able to get high value engagement that counteracts the trolls. Your average HN user is not going to have pg's twitter experience, and so they'd rather try their luck posting in the best forum that's hospitable to them, HN.

You're right; the guideline to not submit most stories about politics was not present from the beginning, but rather newly added in May 02008: https://web.archive.org/web/20080527112502/http://ycombinato...

But that greatly predates the changes in moderation strategies or hiring dang and sctb.

Surely the understanding of the site's social dynamics has evolved over time, though, and so the reasons for the same guideline are different now.

>But that greatly predates the changes in moderation strategies or hiring dang

dang explicitly states they do it differently than pg it:

when a thread turns into a political flamewar, we moderate it more than pg used to. There were many past submissions that neither users nor moderators would allow today [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869

Thank you!

Are you kidding? There are so many VCs here who have the resources to push for fair treatment of immigrants and foreign visitors! HN is the perfect place to discuss this.

I am not kidding. The problem is that the discussion collapses into an unpersuasive and uninformative partisan flamewar, so it does not improve the choices that those VCs will make. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43413819 for a more in-depth discussion.

Sometimes things get messy discussing important topics, we should err on the side of sunshine rather than darkness for these discussions. HN has a lot of powerful and wealthy people who have a responsibility to protect the system they relied on to become rich and powerful, but instead these people ignore the discussion because it doesn’t mesh with their ideas that America is the greatest.

See my connect from a few comments ago where I mention how interesting it is we can discuss authoritarian slides everywhere else except when it happens in America. It’s almost a conspiracy, IMO.

Also, I can understand demonizing the current admin, they’re flaunting the most important laws that protect us, and for some here the USA is poised to upend their lives or worse.

In any case, this discussion isn’t interesting, and constant complaints of bad behavior are stifling the actual discussion more than those flagged, dead comments that started shit.

I deeply regret that you are providing such a perfect illustration of my point.

I regret that you think that, but I’m not explaining to you why you’re wrong, it’s as pointless as you trying to convince me that I’m demonizing anyone with that comment.

> the comment section may get heated

Have you read this discussion? It was already heated, although the comments posted recently have been better.

Before greggyb asked why it was flagged, the top comments were about "the dumbest bully from their grade school" and "team grade school bullies". Does that not sound like flag-worthy discussion to you?

Name calling like that buries legitimate discussion, like the claim that she was not in fact eligible for a TN visa because she "worked for" a startup she co-founded (Holy! Water).

"NAFTA specifically prohibits self-employment for TN visa holders. This restriction poses challenges for entrepreneurs who wish to start a business in the United States."

https://www.visapro.com/resources/article/tn-visa-to-green-c...

When the people in charge are acting like the dumbest bully from my grade school, then yes, it does sound like valid critism and a legitimate point of discussion.

That seems like a reason to flag the comments, not the article.

It's amazing how many people don't know how hypocritical and self-serving each side is when it comes to speech and censorship.

this sort of comment is exactly why i flag this sort of content, to put it kindly, you're sort of missing the point and using a strawman argument