Poll: Do you think HN should go dark in protest of SOPA?

You make symbolic gestures because ... they're symbolic.

They're going to be recognized directly by those who utilize whatever it is that's being sacrificed.

And more widely, reporting on the issue (because that's where the symbolism hits the road, so to speak), is going to take note that "demonstrating support and solidarity with the anti-SOPA movement, numerous websites, including went dark for the day". For HN to be in that list will add to its weight. At least somewhat.

And, well, we're all talking about this. Here on HN. Go do something useful and have this debate elsewhere.

Hrm: Perhaps I should petition Krell Power Systems to go dark in support. But man is that power-up sequence a pain afterwards.

You know what? It's still worth it.

It's whistling in the dark.

The people who know about SOPA, or should know about SOPA, don't frequent HN. They use Google and Facebook.

The people who are in charge of legislating SOPA, or voting on it, are similarly not effected. I think Wikipedia should black out each legislator's page with a big "SOPA WILL CENSOR THE INTERNET" notice. That will get the attention of the 6 o'clock news more than some evil hacker news site doing a "protest". After all, what senator's ego could bear having their Wikipedia page defaced?

Agreed, shutting down a website that no one in congress reads, knows about, or would care about even if they knew seems pointless to me.

If you want to have real effect continue (or start) to write your congress-person, educate your friends, and pressure them into doing the same. Post on Facebook, twitter, etc.

Compared to these real actions, shutting down HN is useless pageantry.

Perhaps on that day, HN blacks out all normal content and instead just features a list of all the sites that have gone black in protest? Could let users submit URLs to be added to the list.

No. I like the exclusion from HN consideration policy better. Has longer-lasting ramifications to it.