Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#72> a big part of it is that they have "Bible" in their museum name, and that gets all the bigots out in arms. This is laughable considering Hobby Lobby is run by religious bigots.
Religious flamewar is not ok and we ban accounts that do it. Please do not post flamebait to HN.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21323683 and marked it off-topic.
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#73> a big part of it is that they have "Bible" in their museum name, and that gets all the bigots out in arms. This is laughable considering Hobby Lobby is run by religious bigots.
Hey, dang, where are you, man? Gonna ban this guy for "ideological flamewar"? Nah, this Dan is a founder , a YC alum with 11,000 karma points. He can say whatever he wants. At worst, he'd get a "Well, yeah, you're right, they are religious bigots, but please be more subtle about it." But he won't even get that, because no HN user with >=500 karma's going to flag his comment. Of course, weberc2's comment is downvoted.…
I replied to that comment as soon as I saw it, which was before I saw your comment here. Also, plenty of users flagged it—it plainly breaks the site guidelines.
Anyone worried about how we moderate this sort of thing is welcome to look through https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#74The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law). Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby"…
The headline is factually correct. The contract was made in 2013 between Dr. Obbink and Hobby Lobby Stores, not between him and the museum, which didn't yet exist. The first sentence of the third paragraph reads: "Thirteen fragments from the collection were found in the Museum of the Bible, a Washington institution founded by Hobby Lobby’s evangelical Christian owners, the Green family." So the headline is correct an…
It would be supremely ironic if one of the fragments being sold contained the 10 commandments…
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#75The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law). Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby"…
You are trying really hard to obfuscate the issues here. The accusation is that Obbink stole the fragments and sold them. Using the correct name of the corporation to which he sold the stolen fragments is not "a fun way to denigrate the people involved". As far as the museum, given their clear willingness to skirt legal and ethical boundaries in the acquisition of these artifacts, it's a major problem that these are…
That crosses into personal attack and breaks the site guidelines. Please edit such swipes out of what you post to HN.
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that you can't read the article shows. You are totally misrepresenting what is happening now and what happened in the past to push a particular political agenda. This has nothing to do with export laws. The documents were the property of Oxford in a collection that he oversaw. Now Oxford discovered that he sold the documents. Also, ancient artifacts are protected regardless of their value. That is what keeps…
Your comment crosses into personal attack. That breaks the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do that, regardless of how wrong or annoying another comment is. You also can't take HN threads into religious flamewar, and we ban accounts that do that as well, so please don't do that either. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I should add that there's a fine factual comment struggling to get out…
These criteria are reasonable, but it seems to me that they also need to be applied to the grandfather post. Surely, it's not OK to preemptively fling accusations of anti-Christian "bigotry" against people who would like "Christian" businessmen to take that "shalt not steal" bit more seriously?
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#77The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law). Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby"…
> and that gets all the bigots out in arms.
Please edit flamebait out of your posts here. It leads to fire-meets-petrol feedback loops, nowhere more reliably than on religious topics. Your comment is fine otherwise and deserves better.
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are trying really hard to obfuscate the issues here. The accusation is that Obbink stole the fragments and sold them. Using the correct name of the corporation to which he sold the stolen fragments is not "a fun way to denigrate the people involved". As far as the museum, given their clear willingness to skirt legal and ethical boundaries in the acquisition of these artifacts, it's a major problem that these are…
That crosses into personal attack and breaks the site guidelines. Please edit such swipes out of what you post to HN.
Unless it's already been edited, that comment is in no way a personal attack. Not even close.
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment crosses into personal attack. That breaks the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do that, regardless of how wrong or annoying another comment is. You also can't take HN threads into religious flamewar, and we ban accounts that do that as well, so please don't do that either. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I should add that there's a fine factual comment struggling to get out…
These criteria are reasonable, but it seems to me that they also need to be applied to the grandfather post. Surely, it's not OK to preemptively fling accusations of anti-Christian "bigotry" against people who would like "Christian" businessmen to take that "shalt not steal" bit more seriously?
Yes, that bit was flamebait. I didn't see it earlier, and have replied now.
Religious flamewar grows exponentially. First step flamebait, second step flame comment, third step entire thread flamewar. What it does to the site, exercise for the reader.
Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
That crosses into personal attack and breaks the site guidelines. Please edit such swipes out of what you post to HN.
Unless it's already been edited, that comment is in no way a personal attack. Not even close.
Of course this is all open to interpretation, but in the way we interpret the site guidelines for moderation purposes, "You are trying really hard to obfuscate the issues here" is crossing into personal attack. Note that phrase "crossing into"—it's meant to imply an errant elbow rather than charging at someone. Both are penalties but the latter is worse.
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Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and note this bit: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."