Tell HN: Please stop posting political content
A Hacker News user is asking the community to stop posting political content, stating they visit the site to avoid such material.
Background
- Hacker News (HN) is a massively popular tech-community news aggregator and discussion board run by the startup accelerator Y Combinator. Its front page is curated by upvotes and an algorithmic anti-flamewar filter.
- "Tell HN" is a meta-post format where users address the whole community directly, often to complain about trends. This one is asking people to stop posting political stories.
- The complaint reflects an enduring tension on HN (and similar sites): the community was founded for "gratifying intellectual curiosity" about tech and science, but many users feel that political and culture-war stories — even when tech-adjacent — drown out substantive technical content and lead to toxic arguments.
- This is not a site-policy change; it is one user's plea. HN's official guidelines ask for "intellectual, not political" discussion, but what counts as political is constantly debated.