Ask HN: Should ground breaking, 1-4/year type news stories be flagged off-topic? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should ground breaking, 1-4/year type news stories be flagged off-topic?

5 pointsdoki_pen7 comments

On really import things, like the Arizona shooting, I love to hear what the HN crowd has to say. Especially if we have some folks in the area that can give some intelligent insight. I think it's ok to have a few high profile off topics.

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There's no need to even ask the question. The community will flag or not flag. The story will either live or die. Some "a few times per year" stories will be interesting enough to generate a discussion, and some won't. It's no different than any other submission.

A post that generates discussion can still be flagged.

If the discussion is just noise (as is usually the case when politics is involved), I have no problem with it being flagged.

Would depend, what people think is really important. I come to HN to read about computer related things. I can get everyday news from other sites. Same for the discussions. I wouldn't expect too much special insight from HN people on this specific topic. Even if people live in the area, what should they know, that you can't read on CNN? (This may be different for other topics, yours may just be a bad example)<br /> And I really don't need the kind of "ban guns" discussion that started at /. right now. So I go with user "rewind", just let the community decide.

Of course the community should decide. The question is, how should they decide?

Are you saying that someone with enough karma to flag articles should or shouldn't flag popular off-topic articles?

This is difficult in every single case.<br /> If the article is popular, the community made a decision. Flagging it as off-topic should e handled with care. Maybe he should at least have a look at the ongoing discussion to see, what people have to say. This may give him an idea, why others voted for it.

I'd prefer to not see them flagged, simply in the hopes that having the story at the top of /news would result in it not being submitted 100 more times.

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