zlacker

>>KenCoc+(OP)
From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

Yes, this is important, yes, it's newsworthy. No, it's not "Hacker News". It's all over the news, and there's nothing specific about hacking, or start-ups. It's not even of "deep interest" in any real sense. It's tragedy, pure and simple, and then it becomes politics.

>>ColinW+e1
Flag it, don't post in comments complaining about it.

Then again, your comment reminded me to flag it...

>>scarmi+T1
I have flagged it, and I'm not so much complaining, as reminding people that this isn't a generic social site, it's intended to be specific to hackers. As such, anything that's not specifically of interest to hackers as opposed to general members of the public, does not belong here.

Yes, this is of relevance to the vast majority of people in the USA, and it should be of major concern, and that's exactly why it doesn't belong here. Sometimes people need to be reminded of that.

Well, that's my point of view.

>>ColinW+k2
Try on a little human emotion and sensitivity for size: this isn't your site to police. Even pg has pointed out the precision of the wording which you seemingly ignored.

>>llambd+D2
Posting an article on a website isn't sensitivity. It just lets people gawk.

Despite what pg says, this article does not belong on Hacker News. This has absolutely no relation to hacking in general. There are a multitude of sites that will provide content like this article. There are precious few sites limited in scope to what Hacker News should be about.

>>kevinh+y8
I see "most popular articles don't belong" as excepting things like, say, assassination of a President or a 9/11 happening. And it can be useful for people to talk about and figure out what's happening.

But looking through the thread, most people aren't posting information. They are debating policy at a time when emotions are (validly) hot. There are lots of places on the Internet where one can debate political policy (and I love doing so), so it seems weird for it to be here.