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Dear Paul

zedshaw.com

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Re: Dear Paul

#151

Post by eropple »

dfischer wrote: post #29

I guess sometimes you have to act with such a personality to prove a point. It gets to a point though where you can't tell if it's pure ego or a form of expression; similar to how I would view Kanye West. Any jokes aside, I highly respect and am thankful for what Zed has contributed to tech, but I'm not seeing the point of this post. People are trolls on the Internet, it's a given. Anything with user generated conten…

> People are trolls on the Internet, it's a given.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. It's a given because people allow it to happen.

This is a reason I will spend some of my time thumping the occasional troll or bully around here--I realize it won't change them, but there are far more readers for the troll to hurt than trolls to reply to. I've gotten emails from readers thanking me for not letting the sort of crypto-racist or crypto-sexist or openly poor-hating rhetoric that festers around here go without refutation; I'd do it without that, but that reinforces to me the necessity of not letting shitty people do shitty things without opposition.

> if anything you do get an allergic, hyper-analytical observation on posts as comments that seem offensive but that's simply how some nerds are (I say this in both jest and pride)

You seem to be invested in excusing horrible behavior because "that's how X is." No, that's how X is now, and excusing poisonous behavior (including, as it happens, Zed's) is tacit encouragement thereof. There is a powerful need to make the world not be the that you feel compelled to excuse. if we're going to have a healthy future, and if you're a decent person it falls upon you to speak up and refuse the broken, mean status quo in which we continually simmer. You may not have asked for the nomination, but you cannot refuse it--for it is vital to be good in the face of small evils as well as in the face of large ones.

Excusing common reprehensibility because it is common is complicity. Don't do that.

Re: Dear Paul

#152

Post by maxerickson »

redox_ wrote: post #148
DanBC wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anon1385 has been here 1500 days and has over 8000 karma. Algolia has removed the comment scores from search so I don't know if that comment got any upvotes, but it's not grey.

We don't remove the comment scores actually :) For the first 10 days of a comment's life, HN's API always returns 0: so we index 0. After 10 days, comment scores are visible and should be updated in the index.

The API stopped returning scores ~ 10 months ago:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:redox_&sort=byDate&prefix&p...

ETA: Perhaps incident to this incident:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8604586

Re: Dear Paul

#153

Post by jwiley »

I like Zed, and appreciate his open source work and his programming books. I think he let himself get a little carried away.

"Taking criticism in stride is just part of quality, and trying to eliminate any criticism of your ideas is a sign of both immaturity and abuse of power."

http://zedshaw.com/2015/04/05/and-then-you-have-no-taste/

Re: Dear Paul

#154

Post by shabble »

ColinWright wrote: post #48
pwoeir wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"..he's got another thing coming." I am curious about what you think this means?

It used to be "he's got another think coming", meaning "he'll have to think again." It's along the lines of "he's had a thought, now there will be another thought coming." But it's been mutated by people who never heard the original properly and ended up misquoting it. It's like people who say "to all intensive purposes" when the original, meaningful saying is "to all intents and purposes." It has become an idiom, an…

In the simplest case, the thing referred to is 'a think', and they're entirely equivalent :)

I'd argue that this is more of an Eggcorn[1] than a malapropism, unlike your second example.

"The proof is in the pudding", or the classic "Could care less"[2] are the two worst offenders I can think of immediately.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw

Re: Dear Paul

#155

Post by PopeOfNope »

stingraycharles wrote: post #33
abalone wrote: post #22

Good example of a Streisand effect.[1] The red flag in this post is that it doesn't discuss concrete specifics, just claims "slander" and victimhood as if it's a given, then takes that all the way to "Paul Graham has created a great big slander and abuse platform." As far as I can see this the "retraction" he's referring to: "Zed Shaw will not kill your company. For a very poor choice of words, I apologize sincerely.…

I tried to find the video, which used to be hosted at http://www.viddler.com/explore/rentzsch/videos/31/ but has been taken down. If I may believe the quotes, he called Zed Shaw, djb, deRaadt etc all brilliant developers with terrible views on security. Since most developers out there have a terrible view on security, the takeaway is that Thomas actually gave a compliment by naming Zed Shaw in the same breath as DJB…

I'm sure Zed feels "complimented" every time he goes to a job interview and has to defend against the assertion that he's going to kill the company if he's hired. I believe the technical term here is "tortious interference."

Re: Dear Paul

#156

Post by thrillgore »

josteink wrote: post #100

What an odd rant. I don't see where it's coming from, and honestly, I expect better rants from Zed. So here's my response. Dear Zed. For better or worse you've made it; you've become a public figure. Your voice carries weight whose normal people's doesn't. Most people don't make it that far. And very few gets to enjoy the luxuries associated with that. But as you've clearly noticed, there's a backside: All public fig…

I don't want to be a useless +1 but this was pretty much my thoughts summarized. Zed's a great guy and his books have been very useful to me. But I remember when he dropped his Rails rant. He's a grating fellow and -- surprise -- you'll get the same response in kind.

Re: Dear Paul

#157

Post by PopeOfNope »

bootload wrote: post #140
derefr wrote: post #30

Is HN a thing that can be abusive? This is a serious question. Don't say yes or no yet. As far as I understand it: people are abusive. Places, or groups, can only allow for abuse, perhaps systematically, but cannot abuse anyone by themselves. On the other hand, places, or groups, can prevent abuse themselves. (I'll get to that in a moment.) In this case, specific people choose to act badly toward Mr. Shaw, anonymousl…

"Is HN a thing that can be abusive?" Absolutely. In the past I've watched karma burn as much as 30/40 points drop because I made some point that isn't what was expected. That's not the real problem. The real problem is the stream of stupid non helpful and nasty comments. "HN would be a very different place if it was trying to behave in a "role model" fashion toward the tech community." Suggested this but what I've re…

The real abuse is what happens beyond the walls of this forum. HN has an outsized influence on the startup culture in San Francisco and the tech community across the world. People read things here and it affects how they view the technology they use and the people they interact with.

Re: Dear Paul

#158

Post by snowwrestler »

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.

Writing angry is fine if you want to get into a fight. Writing angry is not a great tactic if you want people to stop attacking you.

Re: Dear Paul

#159

Post by dfischer »

eropple wrote: post #151
dfischer wrote: post #29

I guess sometimes you have to act with such a personality to prove a point. It gets to a point though where you can't tell if it's pure ego or a form of expression; similar to how I would view Kanye West. Any jokes aside, I highly respect and am thankful for what Zed has contributed to tech, but I'm not seeing the point of this post. People are trolls on the Internet, it's a given. Anything with user generated conten…

> People are trolls on the Internet, it's a given. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. It's a given because people allow it to happen. This is a reason I will spend some of my time thumping the occasional troll or bully around here--I realize it won't change them, but there are far more readers for the troll to hurt than trolls to reply to. I've gotten emails from readers thanking…

Good point. I commend you. Thanks. I'll try to do better.

Re: Dear Paul

#160

Post by thrillgore »

emsy wrote: post #11
jlgaddis wrote: post #3

Who's Paul?

Sad to see this downvoted, because Paul's full name is never mentioned in the article and someone who is using HN mainly as a news aggregator and doesn't know the full extent of YC probably never heard of Paul Graham in the first place. Get your shit together HN people.

I think that's a good litmus test to see how new you are on HN.
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