Could we save the "awesome pics!!!!" for other sites? Also - I can't find it quickly, but are the originals actually free to be cut and pasted on whichever site so desires?
I am concerned people don't understand the point of the site if so many of them are voting for this. And it takes more than a 'flag' to communicate that.
What, specifically, is the point of this site that everybody that up-voted (presumingly because the post gratified their intellectual curiosity) is missing?
But, in the meantime, might I remind you of this section of the Hacker News Guideline [1]:
'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. [...] If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.'
If we're gonna be all arsy and quote the guidelines, they explicitly define as off-topic:
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 nature pictures are roughly in the same category as cute animal pictures, as far as HN is concerned.
