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No, it is not. From the HN guidelines: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

by Sandman 16y ago

No, it is not. From the HN guidelines: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. And unlike cosmok, I do mind it, because this type of news is slowly turning HN into something it shouldn't be. There's a reason for this particular guideline, and I think we should honor that. EDIT: I don't mind the downvoting, but please, if you do that, at least post a comment on why you think my comment deserved to be downvoted.

younata 16y ago
it shouldn't be downvoted anymore than cosmok's (which as of now, is sitting at karma 0). I upvoted you to keep you closer to cosmok's comment.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
htp 16y ago
I didn't down- or up-vote you, but my immediate response to your comment was: "is this really the time to worry about what HN is or isn't turning into?" If your downvoters think the same way I do, they're downvoting because they don't think right now is a good time to worry about the future of HN, no matter what the guidelines say. This isn't to say your opinion is invalid (it's a perfectly legitimate thing to worry about); it just seems ill-timed in the face of potentially catastrophic disaster, and downvoting is an easy way to express disapproval.
erikpukinskis 16y ago
I agree it's important that we maintain a culture of curation here, but some events are big enough that they eclipse cultural mores. With respect to the kind of exceptions we make every day, I agree with you. But once or twice a year, a lot of people die, and everyone kind of stops what they're doing and pays their respects, wherever they happen to be, whether you're in line at the bank, or on the floor of the senate. We all happen to be on HN 24 hours a day, so this is where we all stop and take notice.
mechanical_fish 16y ago
They may be downvoting you because they are emotional. Or they may be downvoting because you are wrong. ;) This story violates neither the letter nor the spirit of the rule against "video" of a disaster; aka cheap sensationalism. Rather, much of the thread is the opposite of sensationalism: e.g. patio11 on the average state of Japanese disaster preparedness. This story has all sorts of HN community relevance, ranging from how are community members experiencing this on the ground to how do otherwise abstract geology papers manifest in real life to hey, wait, my startup is sitting in a prime earthquake zone; how should we prepare? And, you know, this is a magnitude 8.9 earthquake. They don't happen every year. We can afford a handful of threads on each one. It's nice to try to have an interesting news site, but if this isn't news one has to question the entire concept of news. Which is fair: News is not for everyone, and perhaps news is not for you. It's just not to your taste. Have you tried an exclusive diet of decade-old paper books?
grammaton 16y ago
While I agree with what you're saying, there's an exception to every rule. Normally I'd be one of the first to point out something is off topic. I've done so in the past. However, the strongest earthquake to hit Japan in three centuries, causing loss of who knows how many lives and how much damage? This is news worth looking beyond the "hacker" moniker for.

by Sandman 16y ago

younata 16y ago

it shouldn't be downvoted anymore than cosmok's (which as of now, is sitting at karma 0). I upvoted you to keep you closer to cosmok's comment.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

htp 16y ago

I didn't down- or up-vote you, but my immediate response to your comment was: "is this really the time to worry about what HN is or isn't turning into?" If your downvoters think the same way I do, they're downvoting because they don't think right now is a good time to worry about the future of HN, no matter what the guidelines say. This isn't to say your opinion is invalid (it's a perfectly legitimate thing to worry about); it just seems ill-timed in the face of potentially catastrophic disaster, and downvoting is an easy way to express disapproval.

erikpukinskis 16y ago

I agree it's important that we maintain a culture of curation here, but some events are big enough that they eclipse cultural mores. With respect to the kind of exceptions we make every day, I agree with you. But once or twice a year, a lot of people die, and everyone kind of stops what they're doing and pays their respects, wherever they happen to be, whether you're in line at the bank, or on the floor of the senate. We all happen to be on HN 24 hours a day, so this is where we all stop and take notice.

mechanical_fish 16y ago

They may be downvoting you because they are emotional. Or they may be downvoting because you are wrong. ;) This story violates neither the letter nor the spirit of the rule against "video" of a disaster; aka cheap sensationalism. Rather, much of the thread is the opposite of sensationalism: e.g. patio11 on the average state of Japanese disaster preparedness. This story has all sorts of HN community relevance, ranging from how are community members experiencing this on the ground to how do otherwise abstract geology papers manifest in real life to hey, wait, my startup is sitting in a prime earthquake zone; how should we prepare? And, you know, this is a magnitude 8.9 earthquake. They don't happen every year. We can afford a handful of threads on each one. It's nice to try to have an interesting news site, but if this isn't news one has to question the entire concept of news. Which is fair: News is not for everyone, and perhaps news is not for you. It's just not to your taste. Have you tried an exclusive diet of decade-old paper books?

grammaton 16y ago

While I agree with what you're saying, there's an exception to every rule. Normally I'd be one of the first to point out something is off topic. I've done so in the past. However, the strongest earthquake to hit Japan in three centuries, causing loss of who knows how many lives and how much damage? This is news worth looking beyond the "hacker" moniker for.