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Comment by wfunction | Hacker News Reader

Still bothers me that we didn't get a black bar. Can someone explain what the criterion is?

I'm starting to think this black bar was a bad idea. All it gives is fruitless discussions like this one on the merit of a person to be awarded the black bar upon their death, like if it was a trophy or a medal of accomplishment.

I think the first implementation of the black bar was for Steve Jobs. Well, I'm not a fan of Steve Jobs, and I think that individuals like Maryam Mirzakhani are far more important in the course of humanity than Steve Jobs ever was. But I don't question the decision to put the black bar for Jobs: it corresponded to an emotion, felt by a lot of people here and more importantly by the owners of HN. It was their way to express their emotion, other people wrote blog posts, tweets or Facebook status. But it was all a question of emotion, and the merit of the person was secondary. The black bar is like the black clothes of people at burials or the black veil of the widow: it's there to express sorrow, not to mark how much the person was a great scientist or entrepreneur. And who are we to judge emotions or impose them to other?

I don't think there should be a specific criterion. Putting on the black bar now when it was not done spontaneously is like faking a deep sorrow that do not exist.

More importantly, I think, is the connection HN's operators felt to Steve Jobs --- for whatever reason, and don't discount that for some of them that reason could be pretty personal and authentic.

I could not agree more with you about these discussions, which occur at the bottom of every thread about any recently deceased, like a sort of ghoulish, amoral Slashdot "first post" contest. It is not OK to litigate how strangers choose to relate grief, least of all in their own damn house.

Stories and threads on HN are, for the most part, a sort of community property. The bar at the top of HN is not: it belongs to the operators of HN. Litigating how and when they use it to express grief is not an especially polite thing to do.

The easiest way, then, to understand the "black bar" is to think of it as an expression of sorrow that has a direct connection to HN's operators.

If it was a private thing I would be totally with you, but the black bar's entire purpose is to send a public message to the community. It seems natural for the public reading the message to wonder why it was sent (or omitted) on a given occasion. It's not "why aren't you grieving?" but rather "what message are you trying to send us through displaying or omitting it?"

The public message is that "someone who has had a profound impact on YC, or HN and its members has passed away". That impact is up to the operators to decide.

Much the same way a family remembers their loved ones, but doesn't grieve every important person who has passed away irrespective of their stature. Like parent was saying, it's a little discomfiting to see this discussed on threads.

I really think all but a handful of HN readers first learned about Mirzakhani upon her passing. It's a tragic event -- highly so -- but not one of particular significance to this community.

I seem to recall feeling similarly a few times when we did have black bars. Sadly I don't remember who they were (which I suppose vaguely confirms what I'm saying?) but I do remember being surprised that I hadn't heard of them before, and didn't expect many had either.

Isn't it generally reserved for important figures in the history of computing/the tech industry? I don't think it takes away from the magnitude of her accomplishments or the tragedy of her early death to say that she was a giant in her field, but not really in our field.

That's a good point, I don't recall everyone who's had a black bar, though the few I do were in tech. I guess it would be an odd list to keep, but if anyone happens to know of one that exists, I'd be curious to see the list of the past N people we've had black bars for.

Edit: I just did some digging around and it seems they didn't have a bar for Neil Armstrong's death either, so this seems right on the mark so far.

I've seen this sentiment posted before with no answer...I find that even more frustrating.

Yeah. I'm more or less convinced sparky_z has the correct answer, see above.

if that's the case, it should definitely widen to mathematicians, considering there is a math article posted at least once a day.

Likewise. A Fields medalist deserves better. In fact, the first female Fields medalist.

If that's the only reason, then it's not good enough.

But then, we can see your tantrum over the matter above..

I don't agree with gp's inflammatory tone, but do you not think a Fields medalist is not worth a black bar? I can buy not agreeing with tokenism, but her merit stands on its own imo. We lost a great mind; nobody's saying we should be in sack cloth and ashes but I think it's worth recognizing in some manner.

That said, I understand how HN is not really a Math/CS forum, it's more about industry.

I'm referring to the fact that she was the first female medalist. That's not enough to merit a community that usually doesn't bb mathematicians to make an exception - that would be tokenism.

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