4 ms·

Interestingly, none of the top posts have been about COVID, which has been arguably the biggest event of 2020 (the only thing that is related is the Twitter wor

Interestingly, none of the top posts have been about COVID, which has been arguably the biggest event of 2020 (the only thing that is related is the Twitter work forever from home announcement).

whym 6y ago
I would guess many COVID stories that could be big were submitted, upvoted, and quickly flagged because they were deemed out of scope. If they were not flagged, perhaps one or two could have been among the top 10. But even then I wouldn't be sure about that. For comparison, "Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967) was among the top posts and not flagged, because of its historical significance (per dang's comment there). I don't think COVID was less significant, but there was no obvious point in time to focus among many related stories spanning over months, unlike the presidential election that had a single victory moment.
pmiller2 6y ago
That's true, but, if you venture into page 2, the #22 story of this year was about the death of John Conway.
runawaybottle 6y ago
The most interesting Covid posts were in February. One was about how China was running the largest remote work experiment the world had ever seen. Ominous stuff if you go back and read it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22221507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22221507 Curated Coronavirus discussions from the beginning of the year is pure history, good stuff to examine a moment in time.
elorant 6y ago
Probably because the covid issue evolved gradually. First we knew that something was happening in China but couldn't tell what it was exactly, then we realized it was a decease but didn't know how bad, then there was the lockdown but information from China is regulated so no big story here, and then it hit Europe and all hell broke loose. The thing is that there wasn't a singular event that would have captured all of our attention catapulting it to the top of HN.
lavp 6y ago
> which has been arguably the biggest event of 2020 Who’s arguing against that?
esturk 6y ago
If you go into the "Biden wins White House..." thread, there's actually quite a lot about COVID, seeing how political it became.

Interestingly, none of the top posts have been about COVID, which has been arguably the biggest event of 2020 (the only thing that is related is the Twitter work forever from home announcement).

whym 6y ago

I would guess many COVID stories that could be big were submitted, upvoted, and quickly flagged because they were deemed out of scope. If they were not flagged, perhaps one or two could have been among the top 10. But even then I wouldn't be sure about that. For comparison, "Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967) was among the top posts and not flagged, because of its historical significance (per dang's comment there). I don't think COVID was less significant, but there was no obvious point in time to focus among many related stories spanning over months, unlike the presidential election that had a single victory moment.

pmiller2 6y ago

That's true, but, if you venture into page 2, the #22 story of this year was about the death of John Conway.

runawaybottle 6y ago

The most interesting Covid posts were in February. One was about how China was running the largest remote work experiment the world had ever seen. Ominous stuff if you go back and read it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22221507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22221507 Curated Coronavirus discussions from the beginning of the year is pure history, good stuff to examine a moment in time.

elorant 6y ago

Probably because the covid issue evolved gradually. First we knew that something was happening in China but couldn't tell what it was exactly, then we realized it was a decease but didn't know how bad, then there was the lockdown but information from China is regulated so no big story here, and then it hit Europe and all hell broke loose. The thing is that there wasn't a singular event that would have captured all of our attention catapulting it to the top of HN.

lavp 6y ago

> which has been arguably the biggest event of 2020 Who’s arguing against that?

esturk 6y ago

If you go into the "Biden wins White House..." thread, there's actually quite a lot about COVID, seeing how political it became.