Show HN: Send Coal to Congress | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Send Coal to Congress

coaltocongress.com

12 pointslcusack19 comments

Heck, at least half the people on HN won't get why coal was chosen. Perhaps an answer as to "Why coal?" would be appropriate on the home page.

Also, there is no call to action (or it's not clear enough). I clicked through to the cart and it gives me a three-step explanation but no links or buttons that say "Click me to get started". I was on the cart page and, at the bottom, it just says "It appears that your cart is currently empty!" This could be massively improved if you just sit your mom (or someone non technical) down at a computer and watch what they click while trying to accomplish a given tasks (or just exploring).

As someone who does not get why coal was chosen, I was hoping you would explain why coal was chosen in lieu of waiting for the website to update.

Not big on my US history (not being from the US and all) but my guess is this is something to do with Roosevelt and the coal strike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Strike_of_1902

The reference to "The Naughty List" makes it clear why coal was chosen: Santa Claus has been believed to make a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior ("naughty" or "nice") and to deliver presents, including toys, and candy to all of the well-behaved children in the world, and sometimes coal to the naughty children, on the single night of Christmas Eve. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

My first thought was obviously that of Santa Claus, and leaving coal in the stockings of naughty children. However the commentary here and the text on the website lead me to think it was perhaps referring to something more localised to America or its politics.

I thought of the Santa Claus connection as well... but it's not Christmas. Not even close. Satire is humor, and with humor, context is important.

If this really is a "you get coal for xmas" joke, then it's going to fall flat for a lot of people.

FWIW packages sent to member offices get scanned by a mail processing center off site, I'm not sure if they'd actually deliver the coal on to the office or not =P.

I looked into that some and it didn't sound like coal was an item that'd get flagged

Coal contains things that are considered toxic.

The dust of coal itself can also have adverse health affects if inhaled. You might want to properly shrink wrap the coal. You don't want some poor unpaid intern to get a whiff of coal in their lungs between when they open the package and throw it in the trash. The workers who inspect all packages might not appreciate it as well.

What does sending coal to a congress member do? Why not donate the money to the candidate you think you should be in congress?

> What does sending coal to a congress member do?

Makes money for the person selling the service of sending coal to members of Congress (and, secondarily, for the coal industry.)

> Why not donate the money to the candidate you think you should be in congress?

Because there is no way for someone to throw up a quick service to make money off of that.

Please sort the list of states in the filter. Reading each of 50 entries to find my state is suboptimal.

This plan crashes and burns at Step 3. Hope you make money though.

this is pretty awesome, do you make a profit off of this? how many orders so far?

I'll make a small margin if I get I bunch of orders, but haven't had many orders yet. Any improvement suggestions?

You should add an option to send coal to the President, as well. I know it is Coal to Congress... but we should give credit where credit is due!

Christmas has come early!

But... by buying coal, you're supporting their interests. Much of congress has an incentive to blow up Appalachia.

But maybe they'll get so much coal they never wanna see another piece again?! ;)

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