> Mainstream world news has a place on HN if it contains "significant new information", and as much as this site is primarily for curious conversation and gratifying intellectual curiosity, we don't want to pretend that horrific events like this aren't happening.
That thread is just 1 out of 30 on the front page. Far from "so political."
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
The definition of "interesting new phenomenon" has room for variance in interpretation, but the sentence following really scopes that down.
So, yes, participation is optional; however, if moderation can't keep it under control, HN will suffer, badly.
If you believe they aren't doing their job, I would re-evaluate your priors and the mental model on the topic. If mods wanted you to have a different experience, it is well within their power to make those changes trivially, either through human or programatic actions. This is distinct from "I do not like the experience I am having and mods will not change the experience." But, if you are here, it is likely well within your control and capabilities to build your own tools to improve the experience to your liking if mods will not. It is theirs to operate as they wish, after all.
You're quoting guidelines as if they are law, while the law is what you experience constantly as mods tend to the site. "The purpose of a system is what it does."
There is probably no need for moderators to do anything. Moderation is crowd sourced. I believe it only takes 4 people that have at least 31 karma to flag something to make it go away. Someone can briefly vouch it if they have 31 karma but then it can get flagged again.
If there are not at least 4 people that click flag (assuming I have the right number for flagging) then perhaps this is becoming a political site meaning they will have to revise the guidelines. I suppose a moderator could revise the sites code to auto-[dead] submissions with political keywords thus requiring a vouch or if that already exists add some words to it.
FWIW it could be worse:
"13 signs he's not into you 𐦉"
"⪽ Predictions for Pisces on March 15th ⪾"
SunshineTheCat•1h ago
I've seen it more here too and have been using that "hide" button a lot more than I ever thought I would.