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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

Now there are two depression threads on the front page. We usually don't allow that (I mean same-topic frontpage threads, not depression threads). Normally the easy answer would be to downweight the follow-up [1], but this post is nicely reminding the community that HN polls are a thing. So I don't know what to do!

I'm tempted to put up a poll asking whether to keep the poll or the original thread, but I have to go offline for 90 minutes and I don't want HN to blow any fuses.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=follow-up%20by%3Adang&dateRang...

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Please don't take either down. Please make an exception. It isn't like a normal article post, and sure you don't want this to become a trend, but damn we're also in a mental health crisis as a society right now, and meaningful conversations are going on in the comments of both of these posts.

This isn't a mental health community, but these posts happened and got their upvotes and that shows there's a group of HN readers right now for whom this is as important as anything else they might find on HN. It could be there's folks who can't or won't see what they need to see to help themselves outside of the serendipity of HN happening to bubble them up to the front page.

HN has had many threads about mental health and emotional topics and will have many more in the future. I don't think so much depends on having two threads rather than one at this moment.

But there are exceptions to everything and the two threads are curiously distinct, in a way that makes merging them feel a bit wrong, like merging two different meals or something. So I think it's fine for indecision and oddity to win out for a change.

Is there a reason the submit page doesn't have a link for making a poll? Perhaps the lack of discoverability is hindering this somewhat? I had no idea polls were even a thing here (first I've ever seen, thought it was a 'beta'/test feature).

A secret reward for people who read the FAQ? I don't know. It hasn't ever really been HN's way to prioritize discoverabillity. That has downsides of course.

This poll isn't particularly well formed, particularly it lacks an option for chronic depressive symptoms, every day.

It seems likely the options are lacking in the lower end of the spectrum as well, there's a big jump between not at all and several days worth of symptoms

Sure, it is not a meaningful diagnostic tool or method to collect a representative sample from HN, but it is sparking meaningful conversation, so I hope Dang does not remove it based on the merits of its survey design.

You put it very well.

It would spark a flamewar about survey design if we ever tried that anyhow. For one thing these are all self-reported.

Well, it seems better the original "depressed" or "not depressed".

At the same time, perhaps multiple polls phrased only slightly differently but yielding significantly different results is a lesson in the overall problematics of polls, surveys and questionnaires.

After reading the comments on the original, I expected to see a "Poll: Did you know that HN has polls?"

I certainly didn't know about the feature.

Just stay calm and let it happen Dan :)

Merge the threads into a single poll which also links to the non-HN poll in the question. Engaged people will do both polls, you won't be shortchanging either of them.

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