With recent Jim Simons passing, I noticed some comments were asking @dang to display the black bar in his memory.<p>I then looked at previous mentions of the black bar on HN, and it seems that it is quite often subject to discussion.<p>Thus, should HN black bar become community driven?
That would seem like an over-engineered solution to a niche problem. Let's be honest, most of the time only a small portion of users know and care who passed away.
No. Not everything, especially something this inconsequential, needs the input of a community. I actually can't think of a bigger waste of resources. A committee of elected folk to decide if someone's death warrants a 50PX bar being black?
Online communities with reasonable debate are under attack by state actors, HN is no exception.<p>In this context, no matter how well meaning the proposal is, opening an avenue for acrimony here is not something we can afford.
Forget the black bar. Give love and respect to people while they are alive, not after. They can't do shit with your virtue signaling once they have passed away.
It should just be algorithmic. If the front page has an article with the word “dies” and there is a persons name detected, and the article has a certain amount of comments, then show the black bar. Easy.
One is reminded of the "flying flags at half mast" custom (in the U.S., at least), where it has happened more and more often over time. Should all flagpoles just be made twice as high, since some good person has died every day of the year? It's a hard problem. Fortunately, it is also a problem that doesn't really _have_ to be solved.<p>Letting @dang (or whoever it is) decide is not a perfect system, but it's probably as good as any other. Imagine if either Biden or Trump died, the storm that would ensue if one side wants the black bar and the other is outraged at the idea.
> should HN black bar become community driven?<p>How do envision it would work?
How much effort do you think is it worth building out and maintaining such functionality?
Yes, ever since dang explicitly refused to honor Terry Davis, the disturbed genius who authored TempleOS: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS</a>