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.
Airbnb, Zynga, Pinterest, Twitter, and dozens of other startups with employees probably reading HN are located within a couple blocks of that location, and there's a "shelter in place" order.
There's an unwritten "unless it relates to SF" exception to that rule (see: the SFO crash last week), as so many HNers live/work here. This is only a few blocks away, I'm very glad it made it to the front page.
That's fair, though I wonder if it would be more appropriate to level that at the droves of Aaron Schwartz/Ed Snowden/SFO crash posts that have been filling the front page this year.
Unlike all the other off-topic posts that make the front page, this one could have saved somebody who would otherwise be headed that way now. At least in my book, that justifies its presence here.
So? With a lot of us working a stone's throw from where this happened it's relevant. The majority of US startups making the apps and web systems you use work within a mile of this.
It is a dangerous area around there. I seen a shooting 2 years ago around there and the vehicle just drove off. I see windows broken out of cars all the time. Seen a huge wreck on 6th and Brannan when someone stole a car a wrecked it into a Mazda and then started running down the road. Crazy stuff. I avoid 6th street and 5th street the most.
SFGate article: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-killed-in-SoMa-jewel...