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An apology...

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Re: An apology...

#101

Post by tsally »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #81
mustpax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So news articles about sexual abuse should include the name, age and address of the victim? After all, who is to say it is not relevant to the story.

There are laws against reporting those names for that very reason. Because there is an ethical obligation by reporters to report all the facts and we as society have decided reporting those details isn't acceptable so we restrict them from reporting those details. Just as we do with the names of children. But the very existence of those laws proves the point I was making which is that reporters should be bound to rep…

So we've established that there is a continuum between reporting all the facts and reporting none of them. As we've said, legally reporters are bound to stand at one point on this continuum (report most facts, but no names of abuse victims, no names of children in the police blotter, etc). It is a reasonable belief that ethically reporters are bound to stand at another point closer to reporting less facts, including omitting the name of someone who lost company property.

There's no proving or disproving points here, as you seem to think. It is a valid belief that ethically the name of the engineer should not have been reported. You might not share this belief, but it is a valid belief to have and it cannot be disproved. Your ethics are simply different.

Re: An apology...

#103

Post by jacquesm »

pg wrote: post #61
mahmud wrote: post #40

I will celebrate the day when HN front-page is not filled with Apple drama and gossip.

The reason the frontpage has the stories it does is because they're the ones users have voted for. If you want different stories, the solution starts with you: try voting for some. You haven't voted on any of the stories currently on the frontpage.

> You haven't voted on any of the stories currently on the frontpage.

You do realize you're effective saying here that you monitor the personal voting record of users, and that you're willing to disclose that record without their permission?

Also, his whole point was that he didn't vote for those stories. There may be others that he did vote for but that didn't make it to the front page because of all the apple drama.

Re: An apology...

#104

Post by Maktab »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #82
fhars wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omitting irrelevant facts is the whole point of news publishers in the informaton age. You don't pay them to find information, you pay them to filter information.

The mistake you make is in assuming your judgement of what is irrelevant is sacrosanct. Again I give an example... Let's say a Conservative reporter is in Iraq and for whatever reason he's the only reporter allowed there. Let's say he finds out that there were no WMD but says to himself "That's irrelevant because President Bush thought there were WMD so there's no reason for me to report on that". Would that be right…

The question is whether naming the guy contributed anything to the story and was in the public interest, or whether it was a purely vindictive action by Gizmodo. Considering the fact that the main story is the existence of the prototype and that it's authenticity has already been confirmed by Apple's response, I'd say it was the latter. Revealing the guy's identity added nothing to the story, unlike in your example where the lack of WMDs would be the story.

Gizmodo have chosen to not only imperil this guy's current job with Apple but also his future career prospects. First by providing a market for stolen Apple secrets and being a willing buyer and publisher of the prototype and its details and second by splashing his name all over the internet. Count me amongst those who will boycott Gizmodo and all other Gawker sites from now on.

Re: An apology...

#105

Post by thewileyone »

Get a hold of an Apple prototype - Awesome

Tearing it apart to expose new features - Awesome

Posting it all online for the world to see - Awesome

Exposing the employee who lost the prototype - Major dick move

Re: An apology...

#106

Post by Maktab »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #83
mustpax wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not ask if you ever misplaced a top secret prototype device, and quite honestly I'm a little appalled that you feel you would be above making "foolish" mistakes. I asked if you ever misplaced anything valuable or anything that mattered to you. A wallet could be something valuable, or your keys. Most valuable, however, would be your sense of compassion, which right now you have clearly misplaced.

There's a difference between what is valuable to me and what is valuable to someone else (like my company). Yes I've misplaced things that are valuable to me but when I did I only hurt myself. I did not have an obligation to someone else that I did not fulfill. This engineer had an obligation to his company that he disregarded and his only excuse is "I was drunk and thoughtless" (which really isn't an excuse at all).…

There is a vast difference between believing that the guy did nothing wrong and believing that he didn't deserve to get his identity made public even though he made a serious mistake. I think most people responding here would understand if Apple decided to fire the guy, as he was clearly negligent. What many of us are upset with is Gizmodo's revealing of his name which will cause the guy harm that's far in excess of the severity of his mistake.

Re: An apology...

#107

Post by ugh »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #82
fhars wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omitting irrelevant facts is the whole point of news publishers in the informaton age. You don't pay them to find information, you pay them to filter information.

The mistake you make is in assuming your judgement of what is irrelevant is sacrosanct. Again I give an example... Let's say a Conservative reporter is in Iraq and for whatever reason he's the only reporter allowed there. Let's say he finds out that there were no WMD but says to himself "That's irrelevant because President Bush thought there were WMD so there's no reason for me to report on that". Would that be right…

There are many journalists in Iraq. And you know why that is? Because if there were only one of them, he might make wrong judgments. Yeah, there might be wrong judgments when humans are involved, no one could disagree with that. The way out, however, is not to force journalists to report everything, the way out is to make sure there are always a good many journalists writing about the same stuff.

Journalists have to make judgments all the time, they have to decide which parts of a story are important and which parts are irrelevant. If they didn’t do that – if they weren’t allowed to do that – they wouldn’t do their job. Reporting whatever you hear and see is not what being a journalist means.

You can have nice arguments about which judgments are the right ones, which are the wrong ones. Saying that Gizmodo should just report whatever they know is not such a argument.

(You actually start to make the right kind of argument in your last paragraph which is nice but I don’t see how there is any evidence at all that hints at the scenario you are describing. There are always many things which are possible but that’s hardly a convincing argument. Evidence is what’s needed.)

Note please, that the New York Times [1] doesn’t mention the name. Apple engineer is all they write.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/technology/companies/20app...

Re: An apology...

#109

Post by bad_user »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #83
mustpax wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not ask if you ever misplaced a top secret prototype device, and quite honestly I'm a little appalled that you feel you would be above making "foolish" mistakes. I asked if you ever misplaced anything valuable or anything that mattered to you. A wallet could be something valuable, or your keys. Most valuable, however, would be your sense of compassion, which right now you have clearly misplaced.

There's a difference between what is valuable to me and what is valuable to someone else (like my company). Yes I've misplaced things that are valuable to me but when I did I only hurt myself. I did not have an obligation to someone else that I did not fulfill. This engineer had an obligation to his company that he disregarded and his only excuse is "I was drunk and thoughtless" (which really isn't an excuse at all).…

> Yes I've misplaced things that are valuable to me but when I did I only hurt myself.

What a responsible human being you are. You probably don't have kids though :)

People lose their kids in places like supermarkets all the time ... I haven't (yet) but it's a possibility (because kids by definition don't stay put) and I'd appreciate that if you found my child instead of stealing it from me to sell it to the highest bidder, you'd return it to me, because otherwise I might just burn down your house with you in it :)

Yeah, it's a bad analogy because for most people a phone is not equal to a child, but for passionate engineers the line is kind of blurry, isn't it?

> the attitude in this comment thread has been that being drunk makes it ok to be derelict in your duties

No, the attitude is that it's not OK to steal property, even if that person you're stealing from is drunk ... and to make matters worse the buyer also made the story public, for no public good whatsoever.

Re: An apology...

#110

Post by ableal »

pg wrote: post #61
mahmud wrote: post #40

I will celebrate the day when HN front-page is not filled with Apple drama and gossip.

The reason the frontpage has the stories it does is because they're the ones users have voted for. If you want different stories, the solution starts with you: try voting for some. You haven't voted on any of the stories currently on the frontpage.

The 'new' pages are a pretty dire sight (yes, I occasionally submit stuff, and even go there without submitting). One gets that Augean stables feel, but the guy who cleaned them up was a demigod.

I actually signed up here, after just reading for a few years, because I thought the site was good and I could help a bit, instead of leaving quietly when it soured.

I have two suggestions:

- Put up a minimum threshold for submitting and voting.

- Charge a fraction of a point for votes; perhaps with a daily maximum. Erode karma stashes.

Thanks for the site, and best wishes any way you play it.

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