My experience is that HN's Overton window is probably on average 15-20% larger than most forums. That's not uniform across all topics though. So if you skew toward a particular set of topics it may feel like a typical forum, or even in some ways more constrained.

Strong disagree here... While there are definitely those that will bury some opinions with downvotes, there are others that will upvote. Conservative, Libertarian, Progressive, Liberal and even outright Communist views get expressed in varying comments and that's just political leanings.

I only really recognize this because I'll be actively reading/replying sometimes and see comments go +/- 2-3 up or down votes back and forth on the same comment. While you may be at say -2, that's just the aggregate. I sometimes wish I could see the total up/down votes just out of curiosity.

Then you're not spending enough time reading the comments on controversial stories. Disagreement is alive and well on HN.

Is that a moderation issue? Because to me that's more of a system / culture issue.

You can't argue in people's stead. If most dissenting commentary is hurtful, inciteful, manipulative, generally demagogue, etc., it's going to get culled, and you get a situation where "dissent isn't thriving".

I'm not sure about that, but a lot of it depends on what you consider to be "dissenting opinions".

I think it’s a tough balance because you want discussion but certain topics have diminishing returns.

On the one hand, I think it's a bit unfair that this comment is currently downvoted as it's discussing moderation on a topic about moderation, so very much on-topic in this particular submission.

On the other hand, I think it needs to be more specific in order to be valuable feedback. Which dissenting opinions? Can you provide specific examples of comments you think got unreasonably flagged?

There's been an uptick in political posts which are off-topic per the guidelines, so an uptick in the absolute number of flagged submissions would just mean the community is properly enforcing the guidelines, which is good. However, as a consequence of that uptick in political submissions and flagging, there's also an uptick in the number of users complaining a post is unjustly flagged, because they incorrectly conflate enforcing the guidelines with political opinion, and that is not good.

I think a lot of users are tired of this back and forth, so my guess is they are reading between the lines of what you said (since you didn't provide specifics) and filling in the blank with what _they_ think you mean about undeserved flagging, with the topic of politics being top of mind at the moment. This shows that being specific helps both by providing actionable feedback while also increasing clarity, which is your responsibility as a communicator.

Little ironic considering you're the second comment everyone sees on this thread at the moment.

There are some shibboleths that you absolutely can't touch or you'll be downvoted rigorously. But less than on other fora.

Your comment being downvoted for suggesting dissenting opinions are not treated well on HN kinda makes your point. I agree in general and spend less time here because of it. HN is still not as bad as many alternatives, but I wouldn't say it's great for ideologically diverse views.

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The problem is HN is mainly left leaning so its difficult to have discussion at times as dang and the community will shut it down quickly as differing opinions are not welcome even if its factual.

(chances are people will downvote without comment or scream "ThAtS nOt TrUe")

(Love how HN proved my comment as correct)

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I think the fact that you're being downvoted for your comment proves your point.

HN does not welcome dissenting opinions in certain areas of tech where the individual freedoms of techies come into conflict with status quo social harms to non-techies; so, for example, you won’t see many HN articles about the ethical dilemmas of working at Palantir, how our industry’s libertarian foundations obstruct labor organizing today, what advantages the ‘bros’ receive in return for their misogyny, and so on. HN is a light-touch moderation site — as libertarian as possible, in keeping with our roots — so I certainly don’t hold the mods as responsible for the community’s defensiveness in that regard. In general, whether tech or otherwise, it’s not possible for a community to welcome uncomfortable dissent against its own underpinnings without a heavier hand on the moderation wheel than is cultural acceptable for HN and for our community. That doesn’t mean that HN rejects all dissent — certainly they may be other pillars of obstinance I haven’t personally identified and studied over the past fifteen or twenty years participating here — but, yes, absolutely, HN’s community has zero tolerance for certain dissent.

I'm like 80% sure this is trolling as a tee up for all the people responding with "HECK YEA DISSENT IS HAPPENING." :D