This questions often pops up whenever there's a thread about someone passing away on the front page. I think it's problematic since it will be up to the admins to decide whether a person was "important" enough to have a black bar. A very hard task where each consideration will be controversial. Therefore I don't think they should do it all.

They've done it for people particularly important to the community...Steve Jobs and Aaron Swartz (I think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5046845).

I think it's a difficult task in that you can't include everyone...but I think it'd be fine if the admins did it by personal consensus...I imagine who they think would be noteworthy would be in line with what most users think.

I agree.

The black bar exists because the owners/admins deem it to exist. It is necessarily a mark of respect granted by them, not by the community.

Any discussion or meta-discussion about its application will only confuse this true meaning and doesn't help anyone.