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Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

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Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#51

Post by jspthrowaway2 »

oinksoft wrote: post #40
glhaynes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why: edw519 could easily and reasonably think that what Aaron did was wrong while being very sad that he committed suicide.

A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a game.

Some users get upvoted fairly quickly by username alone, too. Think pg, edw519, patio11, tptacek; I've noticed comments from them will have upvotes in seconds, regardless of content. It's just name recognition, for better or worse. pg could probably leave a comment saying only "This is a comment." and get a hundred points of karma off it. (I'd pay him to try.)

So, to an outside observer, you might suggest that these users game Hacker News but the real answer is that they have an audience. It's debatable whether that's their fault, on a case-by-case basis, though.

Then you could probably say it goes the other way: a large part of the community feels a certain way because Ed says so (in the top position), or Thomas says so. I've noticed the atmosphere of a thread change after a comment from a "well-known" person is left, rather rapidly on occasion. The momentum of a community like Hacker News is an interesting study, and although I didn't get an opportunity to watch the thread under the microscope, I bet a large part of it was shaped by Ed's comment.

Recently I've learned how Hacker News threads are living organisms, and I've noticed the impact of the commentary that I make. If you pay close attention, you'll be surprised at how the thread evolves and grows, particularly based upon what's in the top position.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#53

Post by jacquesm »

sethbannon wrote: post #28

As the OP of the HN thread in question, the response then saddened me. But that pales in comparison to the grief I feel now. I hope HN takes this as an opportunity to reflect and introspect.

I completely missed it at the time and I feel that I'm a complete fool because of that.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#54

Post by andrewtbham »

"unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge."

Considering the outcome... Does anyone know an example of what judges do when defendants appeal openly for financial help? Was this really good legal advice?

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#55

Post by tptacek »

oinksoft wrote: post #40
glhaynes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why: edw519 could easily and reasonably think that what Aaron did was wrong while being very sad that he committed suicide.

A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a game.

If you think it was easy for Ed to post what he did about Aaron's legal troubles, you don't understand the sentiment on HN at all. He posted that comment because that's what he believed at the time.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#56

Post by mnicole »

_delirium wrote: post #36
joeco wrote: post #9

It seems significant to me. There are a lot of users on HN whose default move is to criticize whatever story just made the main page. Maybe that's not the best default position.

Here's a long discussion thread from mid-2012 sort of on that subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747 Paul Graham also mentioned somewhere that he's been collecting examples of "middlebrow dismissal" as a common kind of default response, in an attempt to understand/combat the phenomenon.

Like a commenter upthread mentioned, I think it's a combination of that and people upvoting names they recognize or that the community knows as/sees as "voices of" the community. They just take their word for it given past posts, rather than having it occur to them that maybe this topic isn't actually their forte. Additionally, someone taking the time to write out rebuttals just to be downvoted and "told off" with pointless and degrading one-sentence rebuttals is pretty pathetic.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#57

Post by jacquesm »

tptacek wrote: post #55
oinksoft wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a game.

If you think it was easy for Ed to post what he did about Aaron's legal troubles, you don't understand the sentiment on HN at all. He posted that comment because that's what he believed at the time.

Exactly. And given how sensitive Ed is normally about issues involving people you can bet that he feels this more than most would.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#58

Post by vy8vWJlco »

danso wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Here is the HN thread from back then. Some of it makes for pretty uncomfortable reading right now. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

It is an interesting thread...I had wondered why Aaron hadn't beat the drum for support but clearly he hadn't yet won the support of the community...I didn't post in that thread but I could see myself thinking, "He's a successful startup guy, why does he need our money?"...which apparently fueled some of the skepticism back then. I guess it's worth keeping in mind when assessing MIT's soul-searching: how many of the…

I view HN as a community/forum of mostly "business hackers" (for obvious reasons: startups, duh). By analogy, I wonder: would a "business hippie" be more or less sympathetic to the original "hippie" goals? In either case, while I don't consider business and hippie/hacking to be a contradiction, I do think it's a tenuous combination that can easily re-frame one's original values unsympathetically.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#60

Post by rickmb »

jacquesm wrote: post #18

Here is the HN thread from back then. Some of it makes for pretty uncomfortable reading right now. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

Sometimes it takes a shock for people to reconsider their position, especially if what they're really doing is defending their own lack of action. Let's not run to judge the people who posted in that thread many months ago.

Personally, I gave up on participating in any kind of activism about 10 years ago, partly because I didn't feel we were getting anywhere and the next generation didn't seem to care. I feel pretty uncomfortable about that now.

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