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Dear Paul

zedshaw.com

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Re: Dear Paul

#81

Post by VeejayRampay »

jacquesm wrote: post #53
VeejayRampay wrote: post #15

People can say what they want about Zed Shaw, in the end, he built things. Things used by millions of people. And he does deserve respect for that.

Building things is nice and will get you respect for building things. Attacking people and being abusive will typically undo some of that. The tech community has a couple of other examples of people that built things and that managed to lose a lot or even all of the respect they deserved for that because of other things they did.

I would agree with that, definitely. But then I would expect both sides of the story to be expressed in a more balanced manner in the articles criticizing the contents of what has been produced. I've found that more often than not, people tend to be blindsided and go for blood because it's better shock value and helps create buzz and clicks.

Something akin to: "Zed Shaw took on a complicated task, one that hasn't been fully mastered since K&R, but he still took a swing. The author knows what he's talking about, having produced software X/Y/Z. Yet, teaching C, a language that has known worldwide adoption in all layers of software for the past 30 years or so, is such a divisive and complicated matter that I feel that even a skilled programmer such as him somehow missed the mark. Here's my opinion about the good aspects and somewhat less perfect bits of Learn C the Hard Way, so that future readers will know where to exercise caution and where to relax while unleashing C's potential".

This conveys the very same opinion, but in a way that is less polarizing and recognizes that writing a book about C programming is a touchy subject, where opinions are aplenty and often strongly engrained in a long-established mindset, making any potential author a target for criticism.

But really, I absolutely agree that "You built something" is never an excuse for any behaviour, I would just like to think that it buys any person a wee bit more of the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Dear Paul

#82

Post by cookiecide »

icebraining wrote: post #69
jkire wrote: post #59

> I hate abusive fucks And yet he's sitting there saying things like "[HN] is a place for men with tiny little mosquito penises". I once heard a piece of advise (by Caitlin Moran): you should never write angrily. You may be angry, but don't write angrily. People tend to react with the same emotions, if you come across angry then people will tend to respond with anger. The guy is obviously angry and upset, but its com…

Sounds like a recipe for the sterile PR speak we're surrounded by. If he's angry, why shouldn't he write angry? And the preoccupation with swearing is just puritanical nonsense.

Well, there's a difference between speaking to vent and speaking to effect change. If you want to change things, speaking (or writing) angrily is usually counterproductive. If you just want to express yourself, then you can write however you please.

Re: Dear Paul

#83

Post by riffraff »

icebraining wrote: post #69
jkire wrote: post #59

> I hate abusive fucks And yet he's sitting there saying things like "[HN] is a place for men with tiny little mosquito penises". I once heard a piece of advise (by Caitlin Moran): you should never write angrily. You may be angry, but don't write angrily. People tend to react with the same emotions, if you come across angry then people will tend to respond with anger. The guy is obviously angry and upset, but its com…

Sounds like a recipe for the sterile PR speak we're surrounded by. If he's angry, why shouldn't he write angry? And the preoccupation with swearing is just puritanical nonsense.

because then instead of paying attention to what you have to say, we will pay attention to how.

(As an example, consider the above sentence continued with "stupid motherfucker. I can't understand how idiotic and entitled people on the internet are this days.")

There is a vast gap between sterile PR speech and "weak limp dicked little loser".

Re: Dear Paul

#84

Post by horsesmouth »

> Currently the most popular way to slander someone on HN is to create a “throwaway” or “anon” account, say what you want, then slink off into the shadows like a weak limp dicked little loser

> undescended nerd testicles

> your balls are so incredibly dirty

> their tiny puds

> your moronic baby penis followers

> their teeny tiny weenies

> men with tiny little mosquito penises

Well, from the horse's mouth: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zMZZPiJrBo0/maxresdefault.jpg

Re: Dear Paul

#85

Post by hueving »

enraged_camel wrote: post #56
thaumaturgy wrote: post #44

Disappointing to see this at 139 points in under an hour (and still going...). It's just a lot of bile. I like Zed when he's talking about software development. I like tptacek when he's talking about cryptography or money or cooking or any of the other several subjects he's reasonably skilled in. I like pg when he's talking about startups. All of them are capable of getting their hackles up, getting in fights, saying…

You should only flag things that are against the guidelines. In that regard, I don't see anything about this particular post that is problematic. It has some bile, sure, but the man makes some excellent points that we would benefit a lot from openly discussing here. The best communities are those that self-reflect. They don't sweep the criticisms under the rug -- and I perceive your flagging as an attempt to do just…

How many little dick insults before you just consider the author to be inflammatory and small-minded? If this weren't for someone with a big name, it would have been dead on arrival.

Re: Dear Paul

#86

Post by derefr »

icebraining wrote: post #62
derefr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, it's sort of odd that it was directed to pg, considering pg has made exactly one comment on HN in the last year. That's pretty much the point Zed was making, in an off-kilter way. Zed is all about real names, taking responsibility for things by putting your name on what you say, talking to people in real life to settle disputes because people aren't empathetic enough online, etc. The abusive comments on HN ne…

I think you missed this part: "Apparently you will allow links to be posted repeatedly even after they’ve been voted down if it’s “gratuitously negative” of me, but take anything about one of your shitty startups down immediately. " (Emphasis mine)

I didn't, but I'm presuming a specific mechanism to that, because HN really doesn't have that much moderation (just dang, as far as I know, and previously just pg very part-time.) This might be overly charitable, so correct me if you know more:

Probably these YC companies' founders—or, if they've gotten big enough, their social-media people—read HN. They see these things, and then, being wiser-than-most to how HN works, they report them directly to the HN email address.

From there, maybe dang has specific orders to do things YC company founders ask him to do, but I doubt it; probably any contact to the moderation staff asking for a "gratuitously negative" (and possibly slanderous) post about you personally to be taken down, would be taken seriously. It's just that you'd have to do such policing and reporting yourself, like the YC companies do.

What I don't expect, is that dang remembers every possible YC startup (or has some userscript highlight all mentions of their names for him or something), and then deletes posts if-and-only-if they're both "gratuitously negative" and about a YC company.

Re: Dear Paul

#87

Post by hueving »

icebraining wrote: post #69
jkire wrote: post #59

> I hate abusive fucks And yet he's sitting there saying things like "[HN] is a place for men with tiny little mosquito penises". I once heard a piece of advise (by Caitlin Moran): you should never write angrily. You may be angry, but don't write angrily. People tend to react with the same emotions, if you come across angry then people will tend to respond with anger. The guy is obviously angry and upset, but its com…

Sounds like a recipe for the sterile PR speak we're surrounded by. If he's angry, why shouldn't he write angry? And the preoccupation with swearing is just puritanical nonsense.

>Sounds like a recipe for the sterile PR speak we're surrounded by. If he's angry, why shouldn't he write angry?

This guy let his rage blind him so much it's hard to actually get anything of substance out of the article. I think the only real example he gave was Thomas's video. The rest was just complaints about generic behavior towards him that I haven't ever witnessed in the last 4 years I've been on this site.

Also, it makes him sound incredibly stupid. The best insults he can come up with are that people have little dicks? What is this, high school? There are lots of much better insults around self-importance that you could easily sling at this crowd.

Re: Dear Paul

#88

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

jacquesm wrote: post #50

Nothing anybody ever said about Zed did Zed as much damage as anything Zed himself said. I'm flagging this because I don't think that Zed is doing himself a favour with this post.

This. Zed is a talented guy, but this is painful to watch.

Re: Dear Paul

#89

Post by hueving »

richmarr wrote: post #61
ghshephard wrote: post #12

I've read HN almost every day for the last 7 years. In that seven years, I don't recall ever reading a post that said something particularly slanderous about Zed. I have seen post after post about his Learning XXX the hard way, and, in fact, I've even purchased at least one as a result. The one thing different about HN is that if you even slightly start to get overly negative on a post, you are downvoted into oblivio…

That all sounds great, but then why is he so upset? It's impossible to reconcile your picture with his. So either (a) he's imagining things, or (b) you're painting over the cracks or can't see them, or (c) the real truth is somewhere inbetween.

Or (d), he thinks one comment is representative of the entire HN community.

Re: Dear Paul

#90

Post by SwellJoe »

icebraining wrote: post #60
ghshephard wrote: post #12

I've read HN almost every day for the last 7 years. In that seven years, I don't recall ever reading a post that said something particularly slanderous about Zed. I have seen post after post about his Learning XXX the hard way, and, in fact, I've even purchased at least one as a result. The one thing different about HN is that if you even slightly start to get overly negative on a post, you are downvoted into oblivio…

While I can't speak for zedshaw, I think the problem with HN is that while it, as you say, shuns and bans anyone who speaks in an aggressive tone or who directly vituperates others, it also allows (and often supports, with upvotes) one to completely slander someone as long as they do it in a calm and reasonable tone. As an example, specifically regarding anonymous accounts and zedshaw: https://news.ycombinator.com/it…

If that is an example of the "slander" Zed speaks of, his response is way overboard. It has that "more hacker than thou" tone that I find annoying in anyone (and most annoying when I catch myself using it, which is often), but I can't imagine anyone would consider it slanderous. And, it is by a no-name account, which, I suspect, makes everyone somewhat less likely to pay it any mind. The idea that something like that constitutes a years-long campaign of defamation against Zed is worryingly like paranoia.
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