6 ms·

This is a fascinating story, but I must ask - does this belong on hacker news? Please, I ask with no intended malice.

rickdangerous1 15y ago
Yes.
DanBC 15y ago
From the guidelines: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > 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.
- Drbble 15y ago
  But guess if they'd cover it on radio news, it could still be on topic.
- andrewflnr 15y ago
  I can totally see this on TV news, as a brief spot on a slow news day. But I have to admit, if I was only going to admit one off topic story per week or something, this one would make it.
nolok 15y ago
While I see your point, it's come to a point where I prefer to see such interesting non-tech article rather than the crcle jerking of (poorly made) benchmarks / you should do this / no you should do that / php should die / my answer to "php should die" that I should have posted as a comment but didn't because I'm only milking for more adviews / etc ...
- mirkules 15y ago
  Besides your point with which I agree (and am saddened by), the point of this community is to stimulate our collective minds, discuss ideas we wouldn't normally think of. Evolution is one such topic of conversation -- what evolutionary traits made these creatures grow so big on Ball's Pyramid, how did they grow so big so quickly, how did they get there from the other island, etc... By expanding our collective horizons, we are able to extrapolate useful information and perhaps even apply it to our jobs or startups. For example, ant colony optimization came about by studying ants - not exactly what the OP would consider HN material. Genetic algorithms came about by studying genetics, mutations, and all things Darwin. So instead of asking, "why is this on HN," we should ask ourselves or each other "how/what can we learn from this and apply it to our fields?"
davidw 15y ago
It's good to always be asking that. As someone who often thinks "no, it doesn't", I think this kind of story is ok: it's not about politics or some kind of charged topic, it's just a random, interesting story. If you want one that's in need of flagging, the "big brother speech jamming gun" one is a great candidate.
- thisduck 15y ago
  So is it unhackerlike to be politically charged?
  - DanBC 15y ago
    Political discussions are usually polarised, and thus they start with pointless bickering and end with ranting flame-fests. People tend to enter the discussion knowing what they think, with little to no chance for changing their minds. There are very many places where such discussions are welcome.
    - morsch 15y ago
      And most of those places suck. You have to wonder, can you design a discussion community framework in a way that enables more constructive discussions on these topics? Maybe something different than a straight threaded (or non-threaded) discussion forum? In the same manner that Stack Overflow tries to do it for programming and more general Q&A; not that I'm saying it'd work the same way as SO.
  - davidw 15y ago
    Not at all. It just belongs on a different site.
alapshah 15y ago
Judging by the 200+ up votes, yes. Plus, the aforementioned hacker news guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- elliottcarlson 15y ago
  Every time I see someone ask, "does this belong on HN", I think exactly that. Obviously it was interesting enough for 200+ people, so if it's not interesting to you as an individual then you can move to the next article. It astonishes me how many people seem to think it's <Your Name Here> News instead of Hacker News.
  - davidw 15y ago
    That's wrong too though: if I get 1000 people who love professional cycling news to sign up to HN and start upvoting articles about Alberto Contador, that doesn't mean it's on topic.
    - alexqgb 15y ago
      It's wrong only if you assume that guidelines should pertain to an absurd range of deliberately destructive yet highly implausible scenarios, as opposed actual problems that could regularly occur in their absence.
      - davidw 15y ago
        My example is contrived, but if you think about things like the TSA, US electoral politics, and that sort of thing, it begins to look much more realistic.
  - lotharbot 15y ago
    The guidelines do specify a few things that might be interesting enough that they'll get upvoted, but still don't belong here -- "most stories about politics, crime, or sports", for example. Unfortunately, some people vote without reading the guidelines; it's up to the rest of us to use the "flag" option accordingly.
onedewd 15y ago
I enjoy reading two-three non "hacker" topics every day and having it discussed with this community, instead of say reddit. Since this community is closer to my mindset. Saying that, i see that this kind of exploration with rewards like a previous thought extinct specimens is a "hack" of nature, it was an investment, a climb to the top and a reward :) . Therefore it is hacker news.
- mitchty 15y ago
  In a way these scientists "hacked" a species from going completely extinct.
scott_s 15y ago
Science is always welcome on HN.
a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
It helps prevent in-breeding of articles.
alan_cx 15y ago
The number of replies strongly implies "interest".
methoddk 15y ago
It definitely belongs here. Science is awesome and this story is remarkable.

Yes.

DanBC 15y ago

From the guidelines: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > 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.

Drbble 15y ago
But guess if they'd cover it on radio news, it could still be on topic.
andrewflnr 15y ago
I can totally see this on TV news, as a brief spot on a slow news day. But I have to admit, if I was only going to admit one off topic story per week or something, this one would make it.

nolok 15y ago

While I see your point, it's come to a point where I prefer to see such interesting non-tech article rather than the crcle jerking of (poorly made) benchmarks / you should do this / no you should do that / php should die / my answer to "php should die" that I should have posted as a comment but didn't because I'm only milking for more adviews / etc ...

mirkules 15y ago
Besides your point with which I agree (and am saddened by), the point of this community is to stimulate our collective minds, discuss ideas we wouldn't normally think of. Evolution is one such topic of conversation -- what evolutionary traits made these creatures grow so big on Ball's Pyramid, how did they grow so big so quickly, how did they get there from the other island, etc... By expanding our collective horizons, we are able to extrapolate useful information and perhaps even apply it to our jobs or startups. For example, ant colony optimization came about by studying ants - not exactly what the OP would consider HN material. Genetic algorithms came about by studying genetics, mutations, and all things Darwin. So instead of asking, "why is this on HN," we should ask ourselves or each other "how/what can we learn from this and apply it to our fields?"

davidw 15y ago

It's good to always be asking that. As someone who often thinks "no, it doesn't", I think this kind of story is ok: it's not about politics or some kind of charged topic, it's just a random, interesting story. If you want one that's in need of flagging, the "big brother speech jamming gun" one is a great candidate.

thisduck 15y ago
So is it unhackerlike to be politically charged?
- DanBC 15y ago
  Political discussions are usually polarised, and thus they start with pointless bickering and end with ranting flame-fests. People tend to enter the discussion knowing what they think, with little to no chance for changing their minds. There are very many places where such discussions are welcome.
  - morsch 15y ago
    And most of those places suck. You have to wonder, can you design a discussion community framework in a way that enables more constructive discussions on these topics? Maybe something different than a straight threaded (or non-threaded) discussion forum? In the same manner that Stack Overflow tries to do it for programming and more general Q&A; not that I'm saying it'd work the same way as SO.
- davidw 15y ago
  Not at all. It just belongs on a different site.

alapshah 15y ago

Judging by the 200+ up votes, yes. Plus, the aforementioned hacker news guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

elliottcarlson 15y ago
Every time I see someone ask, "does this belong on HN", I think exactly that. Obviously it was interesting enough for 200+ people, so if it's not interesting to you as an individual then you can move to the next article. It astonishes me how many people seem to think it's <Your Name Here> News instead of Hacker News.
- davidw 15y ago
  That's wrong too though: if I get 1000 people who love professional cycling news to sign up to HN and start upvoting articles about Alberto Contador, that doesn't mean it's on topic.
  - alexqgb 15y ago
    It's wrong only if you assume that guidelines should pertain to an absurd range of deliberately destructive yet highly implausible scenarios, as opposed actual problems that could regularly occur in their absence.
    - davidw 15y ago
      My example is contrived, but if you think about things like the TSA, US electoral politics, and that sort of thing, it begins to look much more realistic.
- lotharbot 15y ago
  The guidelines do specify a few things that might be interesting enough that they'll get upvoted, but still don't belong here -- "most stories about politics, crime, or sports", for example. Unfortunately, some people vote without reading the guidelines; it's up to the rest of us to use the "flag" option accordingly.

onedewd 15y ago

I enjoy reading two-three non "hacker" topics every day and having it discussed with this community, instead of say reddit. Since this community is closer to my mindset. Saying that, i see that this kind of exploration with rewards like a previous thought extinct specimens is a "hack" of nature, it was an investment, a climb to the top and a reward :) . Therefore it is hacker news.

mitchty 15y ago
In a way these scientists "hacked" a species from going completely extinct.

scott_s 15y ago

Science is always welcome on HN.

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago

It helps prevent in-breeding of articles.

alan_cx 15y ago

The number of replies strongly implies "interest".

methoddk 15y ago

It definitely belongs here. Science is awesome and this story is remarkable.