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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

> I am glad this has finally got to the top of HN

Because once HN is aware of it, we'll... uhm... Send Putin some nasty Perl scripts?

This, like almost all political / breaking news stories, is probably off topic for this site, given the guidelines:

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"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 will probably be the opening item on most TV news shows this evening. It's currently the lead article on www.cnn.com www.corriere.it www.bbc.com/news/ etc...

View on HN

I really wish "complaining about stuff being off-topic" was also against the guidelines.

Oh wait, it is:

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

If no one points it out, people won't learn.

You folks can downvote all you want. I am more than willing to spend my "karma" to attempt to preserve this site from politics.

Also, while we're being picky, "I wish it were", not "I wish it was".

Good luck fighting the good fight, that ever noble pursuit of educating the masses about an arbitrary set of rules.

Back in the real world, some of the most enlightening discussion is "off-topic". So this example is not HN, but: I still remember back in the heyday of Slashdot reading the thread on 9/11 as it happened. Did anybody complain that that wasn't "News for Nerds"? What's happening in Ukraine is in that similar category of potentially world-shaping events. It doesn't hurt any of us to start paying attention.

Exactly. If whatever is happening in Ukraine ends up sparking a large-scale war (hopefully not), you will be reading about it in history books. That makes it both new and interesting, which fits the guidelines.

One major correction: "It doesn't hurt any of us to start paying attention."

Do not confuse "not wanting it on HN" with "not paying attention".

Have you read the commentary here? A lot of it is really bad.

> Have you read the commentary here? A lot of it is really bad.

I agree a lot of it is pretty far from the mark, but I object more strongly to the idea that one must dogmatically follow the rules.

Also, I do think folks here sometimes get carried away with the "no politics" rule in particular, as if to define politics too broadly or kind of miss the point. (OK, so this has political implications, but imagining some sort of time warp, would you deny a story on World War II because it's "too political"?)

I think politics is fascinating. But 99% of internet discussions about politics are crap. I'm beginning to develop some theories about that revolving around the idea that good discussion is costly, and cheap shots/conspiracy theories/empty words are very cheap, meaning the former get crowded out by the latter. In any event though, the discussions are pretty much horrible and worsen the site, which is one of the few good places to discuss hacking and startups out there.

>>But 99% of internet discussions about politics are crap.

So are 99% of HN discussions about guidelines. You do notice the irony, right?

I would agree if it weren't for the following:

There are already many political topics discussed here. That's a reality. As people always point out, they are interesting to large number of people. Maybe HN is over the purely-technical-topics phase.

I know many Americans read HN and this is a great opportunity to spread the word amongst those who might not have the experience to care. U.S. is still a democracy and at least in terms of public popularity its politicians care about their citizens' opinions. So, no Pearl scripts, but maybe this will help strengthen the U.S. position which is of paramount importance at this point.

People said the same thing on Slashdot after 9/11, and they were wrong then, too.

Once-a-generation events, with major impacts that last for decades across an entire region of the world, transcend "news for nerds" guidelines.

Well, this is really not once per generation. They did this with Georgia and Moldavia already. And more are to follow.

And indeed, there it goes - it's dropping off the front page like a lead balloon.

But Slashdot today is also a mere shadow of what it was in 2001. At least some of the decline in readership over there has been due to a gradual increase in politics-oriented submissions being shown on the front page, rather than technology/science-oriented submissions.

While events like this do have significance, without a doubt, there is already ample coverage in a very wide variety of general news outlets. Many of the ones that are online allow for discussion, as well.

So there's little need or reason for news sites focusing on rather specific topics like technology, science, mathematics and entrepreneurship to devote page space to rather unrelated political topics. The focus and the depth of coverage is what makes such sites appealing in the first place. Diluting them with news that can be found elsewhere is counterproductive.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. This is entirely accurate.

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