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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

Most off-topic major news ends up being flagged. There are two main pieces of world news today: 1) Malaysian airlines plane downed in Ukraine; and 2) Israel launches ground invasion of the Gaza strip. I would guess stories about either one are likely to be flagged here.

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Yeah, but you've been on here long enough to know that major off-topic news won't get flagged/will be forced up on the front page for a while. HN understands that sometimes our tech news bubble has to be popped with a little dose of the real world every once in a while.

This isn't just a plane crash, this was an aircraft that was shot down while on a perfectly normal commercial flight between two major international hubs. This could have very serious, long-term global ramifications and every person who comes to HN should be aware it happened.

You'd have to be living in a basement not to have heard of a major airliner being shot down.... oh wait...

If someone lives in a hole so deep that they haven't heard about this, I'd say it won't make much of a difference for them. I haven't flagged this, but I think you're overestimating the importance of the presence of this story on HN.

The value HN brings to a story like this is the in-depth, rational analysis that's much better than the news can muster.

Already in the wayback thread on this, I've discovered a news tracking startup and an in depth discussion for people who take this exact flight and route.

This wasn't a plane passing between Baghdad and Kabul or some similar dangerous route. There's been a couple of other flying related accidents today also. This is the notable one.

If you take a plane frequently (like I expect lots of people here do), you'll probably be interested in this story and the kind of in-depth discussion that only HN can bring to bear on it.

edit Just found out the relative of a person I know was on the plane and is now dead.

Honestly, this was a great reply until that last sentence. I recommend you remove it.

I don't know who's downvoting you. I removed it, you were absolutely right and I let emotions grab hold.

From HN guidelines:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports [...]. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8050351

Fair point. However, for this specific event other news channels are good enough. More importantly posting politically charged stuff on HN may over time increase the incidence of this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8042471 ;-)

I think that's an HN corollary to the 'on a computer' patents.

Just add "on twitter" to any off topic news item and suddenly it's on topic.

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