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Retraction from Tumblr

istumblrdown.com

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Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#51

Post by ben0x539 »

aespinoza wrote: post #47
ben0x539 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we appreciate the apology? We might blame tumblr a little less now than if they'd stayed their course, but I don't see why it should swing over into appreciation of what they're doing. Perceivedly, it happens a lot that big scary companies bully smaller entities with meritless but expensive-to-fight legal threats. That sometimes there's enough of a public notice of that to make the company reconsider and t…

I think you are missing the point here. It is stupid to blame Tumblr for all the other big scary companies. They made a mistake. They apologized and fixed the problem, and according to the apology they found a bug in their process and fixed it. Instead of bashing Tumblr for apologizing, we should be happy they retracted. If HN was the reason why they retracted, then great. But let's stop looking down on Tumblr purrin…

The apology fits the patterns of those big scary companies. It's better than not giving an apology, sure, but in just my personal, humble opinion it does not exonerate them.

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#52

Post by bjackman »

mikeash wrote: post #49
alan_cx wrote: post #32

Why no appreciation of the apology? If all people are going to do is find fault with people apologizing, why bother? How should Tumblr reacted? What are they supposed to do?

It's a bad apology. There's no real admission that they messed up (they implicitly blame a third party, and "process") and no mention whatsoever of doing anything to avoid future mistakes like this.

I disagree: "We deeply apologize for our mistake". I interpret the mention of a third party as an attempt to say "this was a mistake, not just us deliberately being dicks", not "this was not our fault".

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#53

Post by ben0x539 »

whistlerbrk wrote: post #50
aespinoza wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point here. It is stupid to blame Tumblr for all the other big scary companies. They made a mistake. They apologized and fixed the problem, and according to the apology they found a bug in their process and fixed it. Instead of bashing Tumblr for apologizing, we should be happy they retracted. If HN was the reason why they retracted, then great. But let's stop looking down on Tumblr purrin…

He is missing the point, it's not even his apology to accept, it's Zach's. He's appeared to do since he considers the apology 'genuine'. The thing to note in all this is: "Our legal department very recently started using a third party vendor to assist us in pursuing trademark infringers and, due to an error in our new process, your domain was mistakenly caught in the cross-fire." If tumblr has switched to yahoo! lega…

> He is missing the point, it's not even his apology to accept, it's Zach's.

Of course it's not for me to accept or not accept that apology and no one should care about my opinion on the matter. But I think not appreciating the apology is a defensible position to take and I'm trying to articulate why I feel so. Feel free to dismiss me. :)

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#54

Post by pearjuice »

"So I'll be bringing it online in a few weeks again."

Wait, what? He gets to keep his product but post-pones its availability by a "few weeks"? Opportunity missed. Or am I missing something?

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#55

Post by pearjuice »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #30
Zaheer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. Tumblr's parent is Yahoo and Yahoo will be keen on being friendly to the developer community to attract top talent. Much of which reads HN.

I know it seems that way, but that's actually reddit and r/programming. Based on sheer numbers, I think most engineers don't frequent Hacker News. I was just at dinner with an ex-Zynga game dev last night who had never even heard of it.

>ex-Zynga game dev

Well, he did say "top talent"!

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#56

Post by zachinglis »

pearjuice wrote: post #54

"So I'll be bringing it online in a few weeks again." Wait, what? He gets to keep his product but post-pones its availability by a "few weeks"? Opportunity missed. Or am I missing something?

It's not really a product. It's a page that says "Tumblr is up" or "Tumblr is down." Very very niche and incredibly limited functionality.

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#57

Post by calbear81 »

sjtgraham wrote: post #45
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #40

> ...pursuing trademark infringers... That's the part they should be apologizing for. Unless their business is actually getting hurt in any way (is someone selling fake Chinese made Tumblr t-shirts on the black market?), this is just a systematic exercise in corporate bullying. They shouldn't be engaged in this in the first place. Tumblr is not friggin' Nike.

There's no choice in the matter. Do you realise trademark holders have to vigorously defend their marks in order for them to remain protected? Failure to do so jeopardises protection. Disclaimer: IANAL

Thank you for pointing this out. Tumblr is just doing what any company who has spent time building their brand must do if they want to be able to retain their trademark. Their 3rd party enforcement company didn't exercise "common sense" and when Tumblr realized this they said sorry.

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#58

Post by a3n »

chadwickthebold wrote: post #48
sjtgraham wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no choice in the matter. Do you realise trademark holders have to vigorously defend their marks in order for them to remain protected? Failure to do so jeopardises protection. Disclaimer: IANAL

... and istumblrdown.com is somehow stealing tumblr's business?

Only when tumblr is down.

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#59

Post by dylangs1030 »

pearjuice wrote: post #55
dylangs1030 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it seems that way, but that's actually reddit and r/programming. Based on sheer numbers, I think most engineers don't frequent Hacker News. I was just at dinner with an ex-Zynga game dev last night who had never even heard of it.

>ex-Zynga game dev Well, he did say "top talent"!

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but it's unfair to judge someone's ability based on where they used to work.

This friend of mine was laid off in New York and received his severance; based on what I know about him, he could work in a multitude of places right now if he wanted to.

Zynga's vilified image aside, there is no reason to believe their engineers are not "top talent."

Re: Retraction from Tumblr

#60

Post by jcromartie »

alan_cx wrote: post #32

Why no appreciation of the apology? If all people are going to do is find fault with people apologizing, why bother? How should Tumblr reacted? What are they supposed to do?

They could fire the third party who is sending erroneous legal threats to people who couldn't possibly fight them.
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