> Telling people not to be political is a political act
There's a place for politics - which is not here, if you read the guidelines.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Only an extremely socially maladjusted individual tries to insert politics (or, any particular topic) into every forum/discussion that they're in.
The guidelines do not say "do not discuss politics". They say no political or ideological battles.
And no-one is talking about inserting politics into every discussion. You have no idea how often the people mentioning it on this page are mentioning it elsewhere. The parent commenter is taking the more radical view, which is to ban it from the space entirely.
> The guidelines do not say "do not discuss politics". They say no political or ideological battles.
Yes, and HN seems to be incapable of following that rule, so advocating for an outright ban on politics is extremely appropriate.
> And no-one is talking about inserting politics into every discussion.
My comment very clearly says "into every forum". You are advocating for the insertion of politics into every forum.
Well you wrote "forum/discussion". My apologies for not quoting you verbatim.
And I am not advocating for anything. I am pointing out the contradiction of the proposal to ban politics on topics that are politically charged. It is not a neutral act. You can still try to ban politics if you like! But everyone else also gets to decide that.
> And I am not advocating for anything
Reading your original comment, you're very heavily implying it, and trying to guilt people who don't agree with you:
>> Telling people not to be political is a political act – specifically, one that accepts whatever comes, doesn't care about power, is happy with whoever rules whom and how justly. Those are your politics, or at least sufficiently so that you're happy to park those issues while discussing tech. They aren't everyone's. You can turn off the non-technical comments by ignoring them.
And this:
> I am pointing out the contradiction of the proposal to ban politics on topics that are politically charged.
Is incorrect, as repeatedly brought up, because (1) saying "there is a forum for politics, and it isn't here" is not a political statement and (2) nobody advocated for a ban specifically on topics that are politically charged - that's your moving the goalposts.
> advocating for an outright ban on politics is extremely appropriate
This line of thinking makes no sense. If you got your way no one could comment anything critical of Trump or other world leaders. Anytime a new tariff is announced or restrictions on tech, we're just not allowed to discuss it?
I suppose we'd only be able to discuss that one Austrian's paintings and that's it.
There is no separation of politics from anything. You can’t discuss sports in a sports forum and pretend it’s possible to keep politics out of it. Likewise with tech. If HN’s guidelines pretend that’s possible, they’re mistaken.
You could moderate it, such as deleting comments, but it would be about as helpful and arbitrary as deleting every odd numbered comment.