HACKER Q&A
📣 slater

Moratorium on pandemic posts?


I can't be the only one who's hiding all the stories about the pandemic, right?

I think at this point we all understand that it's a terrible situation, we should all wash our hands, and working from home has its pros and cons.

There's about five new "here's something i threw together in JS that grabs some covid data from some gov't data feed" links every day, and there are multiple threads daily on the topic of "how can we, as hackers, help?" (or a variation thereof).

And that's not to speak of the tedious click-baity junk of non-primary news sites just parroting whatever news just came out of $govagency$

Yay/Nay?

  👤 JMTQp8lwXL Accepted Answer ✓
Better to allow the posts, and those who wish to discuss them, then not allow them at all to save a few folks from clicking 'Hide'. Usually it is obvious from the post title if it's COVID related or not. Having to read the title isn't causing great injury to you.
👤 zw123456
Are we sure that the economic damage of the shutdown of the world economy out weighs the heath risks of the virus. Are we in group think here? A major recession/depression means a lot of people go hungry, lose access to medical care etc. Does anyone know of studies or research that looks at the health impacts of a shutdown vs. the health risk of the virus ? Just asking questions.

Is the real question here being hidden ? I am asking a legitimate question that never gets an answer.. that tells me something.

👤 ak39
No.

For two reasons:

1. The frequency and number of posts is data in itself about the overall sentiments of this pandemic not only in the general public but also within our smaller subset of technologists. (I want to know whether it is hot or not anymore.)

2. The voting system on HN is sufficient to move the quality submissions relating to COVID-19 to the top. I have faith in its ability to sift the good ones from bad ones. (Yet! Looks at Dan!)

👤 DoreenMichele
I occasionally leave my opinion that "this particular piece is crap" in essence and I'm actively looking for non-COVID stories to read and comment on. I think helping bad COVID stories sink faster and helping support some diversity of subject matter is a good thing.

But I think a moratorium is too much. Better to try to actively support some variety and actively try to help people sort the wheat from the chafe.

/2 cents

👤 ggm
Is a "useful level of indirection" not perhaps possible?

news.ycombinator.com/covid19/normal-URL-behaviour

👤 3minus1
I like 'em
👤 auslegung
Nay. This is possibly the most economically damaging, socially isolating, fear-inducing, death-causing event in generations, and will be for generations to come. It will be the most discussed topic around the world for all of 2020, and will continue to shape our lives, policies, regulations, laws, and social norms for decades. Ignore it if you want, but asking everyone else to join in your self-induced blindness is unnecessary.