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What about this one? > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratf

• dang 4y ago
  I'm not quite sure what you mean? if you're asking why the Abe story didn't count as off topic under that guideline, I guess the gruesome reason is that a major assassination in Japan is somewhat of an "interesting new phenomenon"—not literally, but it hasn't happened in a very long time. Also, it contradicts many perceptions about Japanese society and culture. Also, sometimes a story is so big that moderating it is effectively impossible—the more you bury it, the more it spawns new threads and gets upvoted. Trying to stand in the way just leads to it taking up more space and oxygen. In such cases, we've learned to allow one big discussion to absorb the interest, after which the community is usually ok with us marking reposts as dupes or follow-ups. People still need to follow the site guidelines in such a thread though.