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From the guidelines: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfal
by swombat 14y ago
From the 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.
- prawn 14y agopg himself posted a Watertown Twitter list: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575255 Do you think that was intended just as a temporary resource, a suggestion that he did think this was on-topic or just got caught up in the moment, or was an invitation to discuss the new level of live public participation (to whatever extent) in the unveiling of a big story? I think there's an interesting discussion to be had around the latter. As I said in the linked thread, I have a very strong dislike of typical 24-hour news broadcasts, but I have found the online tracking of this story as it's unveiled quite gripping. Been following it really closely for maybe five hours?
- danielweber 14y agoBoston is a start-up hub, 'pg is from there, a lot of users are from there. So there will be a lot of interest here, just like if the bombing were in Silicon Valley. (I'm trying hard not to say what HN policy should be with this comment. Just explaining human behavior.)
- tzs 14y agoAlso 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." Note that the "off-topic" guidelines contain two exceptions. The first sentence provides an exception for interesting new phenomenon. The interaction between social media, traditional media, and the police in this case is interesting and new enough to arguably qualify. The "cover it on TV news" sentence says it is probably off-topic, not that it certainly is.
- davidw 14y agoI find this manhunt absolutely riveting for some reason, but I don't think there's any 'intellectual curiosity' about it. BTW, Freenode #boston channel is not a bad place to follow it.
- leoedin 14y agoI'd argue that a post-event analysis of those interactions would be justified. However, much of what was posted here really wasn't. There was comment threads with minute-by-minute updates of events, links to images of suspects and links to live police radios. I personally wouldn't consider any of that to be the type of stuff that should be submitted to HN. I think the thing that must be remembered is that almost nobody who reads HN reads it in a vacuum. I'm willing to bet that almost every user here has an account on another website which is more suitable for discussing current events. HN isn't in competition with these sites, and it doesn't need to have their breadth. This is a site for engineers and developers about technology.
- pyre 14y agoYou should definitely take this up with the site owner: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575255
- shocks 14y agoSorry, but I really dislike these "From the guidelines" snarky comments. We have a voting system that lets users decide if a submission should be here.
- kmfrk 14y agoIf those rules are indeed set in stone, admins/moderators have abandoned the idea of enforcing those rules years ago.
- eplanit 14y ago"evidence of some interesting new phenomenon" Without a doubt this story qualifies as "on topic". The way digital media has been used, 'crowdsleuthing', social media, the unprecedented lockdown of a city....could go on and on.
- pyre 14y agoDidn't they lock down the city over those Adult Swim advertisements that were 'obviously' bombs because they had exposed wires and batteries?