Is this post appropriate for HN?
"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."
I think it's fair to post stories which are headlines in ~all news simultaneously, even if not "hacker news" -- nuclear explosions, assassinations of G7 leaders, major wars, etc.
And unlike cosmok, I do mind it, because this type of news is slowly turning HN into something it shouldn't be. There's a reason for this particular guideline, and I think we should honor that.
EDIT: I don't mind the downvoting, but please, if you do that, at least post a comment on why you think my comment deserved to be downvoted.
I upvoted you to keep you closer to cosmok's comment.
If your downvoters think the same way I do, they're downvoting because they don't think right now is a good time to worry about the future of HN, no matter what the guidelines say. This isn't to say your opinion is invalid (it's a perfectly legitimate thing to worry about); it just seems ill-timed in the face of potentially catastrophic disaster, and downvoting is an easy way to express disapproval.
With respect to the kind of exceptions we make every day, I agree with you. But once or twice a year, a lot of people die, and everyone kind of stops what they're doing and pays their respects, wherever they happen to be, whether you're in line at the bank, or on the floor of the senate.
We all happen to be on HN 24 hours a day, so this is where we all stop and take notice.
This story violates neither the letter nor the spirit of the rule against "video" of a disaster; aka cheap sensationalism. Rather, much of the thread is the opposite of sensationalism: e.g. patio11 on the average state of Japanese disaster preparedness.
This story has all sorts of HN community relevance, ranging from how are community members experiencing this on the ground to how do otherwise abstract geology papers manifest in real life to hey, wait, my startup is sitting in a prime earthquake zone; how should we prepare?
And, you know, this is a magnitude 8.9 earthquake. They don't happen every year. We can afford a handful of threads on each one. It's nice to try to have an interesting news site, but if this isn't news one has to question the entire concept of news. Which is fair: News is not for everyone, and perhaps news is not for you. It's just not to your taste. Have you tried an exclusive diet of decade-old paper books?
However, the strongest earthquake to hit Japan in three centuries, causing loss of who knows how many lives and how much damage?
This is news worth looking beyond the "hacker" moniker for.
Edit: I mean this in earnest, we can and should help.
In a scenario like this, who gives a fuck if it's off topic? And for the record, I saw the story here first, so I am thankful for that.
The reason you saw it here first is because somebody posted it here despite what the guidelines say, and you happened to come at the right moment, before you checked other news sites you usually do.
The fact that you saw it here first does not change the fact that the article is, according to guidelines, off-topic.
Oh, and FYI, not posting this article on HN != not having compassion for fellow hackers.
Also the fact that the post has over 300 points and is comfortably the most talked about thing within the community is proof enough that topics like this should be allowed to remain within HN
Absolutes are silly.