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Comment by alain94040 | Hacker News Reader

Flagged per the guidelines: if it's on TV, it doesn't belong here :-)

This is what the guidelines actually say:

"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."

This event is covered on TV, moreover it is covered on other sites which are more mainstream such as reddit, digg etc. I come here to read tech and startup news, this is not something I want to read about on HN.

It is also a shame that users who try to question the relevancy of HN submissions get downvoted. Even though it has more than 100 upvotes it is still not relevant to what this site is about. Unless the goal is to become reddit 2.0 with lots of mainstream articles simply because a large amounts of users think it is interesting, I think this kind of articles are best enjoyed elsewhere on the web. I flagged this story, even though I find it interesting.

I think answering the "What system have you hacked?" question on the next Y Combinator application with "Taking down my country's dictatorship" would be a pretty kick ass answer.

I think we can live with 1 spot on the front page for a few hours of one day being used up by the story of a 30 year old dictatorship being overthrown by its people. Especially considering there were about 8 stories this morning about the Nokia/Microsoft partnership of which 3 were basically dups of a press release.

Political activity != hacking. Nokia and Microsoft are tech companies.

I would point out technology and the Internet played an important if not vital role in the events of Egypt and Tunisia.

Technology and the Internet play a vital role in pretty much everything these days. What will HN cover next - a Tea Party rally, if it was announced on Twitter?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/02/11/exp.gho... this might be more down your alley. A Google marketing exec doing some great marketing... for Facebook.

Come on now. Don't be so facetious. What chance do you honestly think a Tea Party rally has of maintaining a top spot on the HN front page? We are talking about historic events here.

(and, no, me checking my email this morning is not also a "historic event" ;)

Agreed, the question on the y combinator app (though I've never seen it so I may be misquoting) is something akin to "name a non-computer system that you have hacked".

It's not an easy question. I just wanted to clarify that the HN guidelines do not categorically rule out submissions such as these.

I think that those who question the relevancy of submissions such as these deserve an answer that is more than "Actually, this is all about hacking!" I did not upvote this submission but here are my reasons for not flagging it:

1. This is likely not a controversial issue among HN readers, major ideological disagreements that might result into insults and people screaming at each other are unlikely. A constructive discussion is likely.

2. The developments in Egypt had no overwhelming presence on HN during the last weeks. I think that frequency and not only the topic matters. This submission would definitely be inappropriate if Egypt had been on the top of HN all the time over the last few weeks but that hasn't been the case. Occasional interesting off-topic diversions have been a part of HN for as long as I can remember. We have to be vigilant so that they don't overwhelm HN but they are occasionally ok.

3. The developments in Egypt are serious and not superficial or phony, worthy of a constructive discussion.

The general story has nothing to do with hacking or startups, it's not intellectually interesting, and is currently being covered in the smallest detail and speculation on countless TV channels, not to mention Reddit and Digg. If you have some intellectually interesting technical details/speculation about what this might mean for e.g. Internet and the business environment in Egypt, go ahead and post that. But the general story was off-topic yesterday, and still is today.

Enough users upvoted it to get it in spot #1 on the front page. The userbase thus finds it relevant to them.

> Enough users upvoted it to get it in spot #1 on the front page.

Well, now I'm curious to see if pg manually shoves it off again, like he did with the earlier Very Popular Egypt Submission.

That could have been a result of flagging. Flagging will push a submission down.

No, it probably means the userbase has grown too much and HN needs a bit more policing in order to stay on topic.

From HN guidlines

If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)

Your account is 178days old.

That's not what I said.

Not to mention that I come here specifically to hear HN's views on the situation.

The OP is Al Jazeera. That means it's not on American TV, at least.

They also broadcast a very useful live stream. It's on the Tubes, and it is relevant.

>>The OP is Al Jazeera. That means it's not on American TV, at least.

Really? Because it's on Al Jazeera it means it's not on top of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News right now? A prime example of how logic flies out (even in the smallest details) when discussing politics.

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