There's no guarantee that people voting stuff up are anything more than registered users of this site.  That doesn't necessarily even meet whatever nebulous definition of 'hacker' one might use.<p>Lots of things are 'of interest to hackers'.  Most of us would be more than capable of flooding the 'new' page with various links about politics, economics, or other things that interest us.  But if you want that, perhaps another site (reddit, for instance) would be better.<p>If you are going to use the "it's ok if people vote for it" metric, then my own comment is ok too.  Also, I can't flag articles, as PG removed that ability from me in a fit of divine wrath for having mentioned that I flag pretty much everything I consider off topic (I would have preferred he simply ask me to politely desist, as I would have happily complied, but such are the vagaries of deities).