Not sure how many HN people follow the Bogle philosophy, but to me it feels not inappropriate to turn on the black bar.
That said, I think the discussion of a black bar every time someone dies is a little repetitive and kind of sours the process.
On a related note, I was looking for the list of people who got black bars, and I couldn't find one. Does anyone know if there's an (un)official list?
I'll start:
Aaron Swartz
Gerald M. Weinberg
Steve Jobs
Stephen Hawking
Andy Grove
Marvin Minsky
I seem to remember Terry Davis didn't, which disappointed me, but made sense as there was confusion around if he was dead at first.
https://i.imgur.com/ZphvVST.png
This is done when someone passes who is considered especially (noteworthy|significant|involved|something) to/with the HN community. AFAIK there's no exact formula for determining who the mods deem worthy of that tribute, but I do know that they don't do it for everybody famous who dies. It's usually people who are particularly close to the HN world in some way.