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Where’s _why?

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Re: Where’s _why?

#11

Post by AnnieLowrey »

raganwald wrote: post #5

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…

Hi there, raganwald, Annie here. I think this is a completely valid criticism, and it's one I largely expected. But for what it is worth, here are my thoughts.

As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.) I didn't expect him to get back to me, and certainly did not stalk him. And my hope is that the article approaches the infosuicide in the most humane way possible.

Re: Where’s _why?

#12

Post by Kiro »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #4
H_E_Pennypacker wrote: post #2

Link is broken. Any explanation of the article?

The author gives the background of _why, including apparently outing his actual identity and current city of residence. The author also discusses his own experiences trying to learn programming and specifically ruby. I found this part interesting, because neither the pickaxe book or _why's poignant guide did very much for him, but tryruby.org did seem to help. While I'm uncomfortable with the fact that they outed _wh…

(s/his/her)

Re: Where’s _why?

#15

Post by SoftwarePatent »

AnnieLowrey wrote: post #11
raganwald wrote: post #5

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…

Hi there, raganwald, Annie here. I think this is a completely valid criticism, and it's one I largely expected. But for what it is worth, here are my thoughts. As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chan…

"As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.)"

There's a difference between "giving them the chance to respond" and what happened here. Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society.

Re: Where’s _why?

#16

Post by brown9-2 »

asolove wrote: post #9
raganwald wrote: post #5

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…

Thank you for this review. It helped me decide not to read the article, both because it doesn't have content and because I have been deliberately avoiding knowing _why's "real" name.

I disagree that it doesn't have content. It's an article oriented to relating to non-programmers what it is like to learn to program, and for that audience I think it does it's job well.

edit: also I am curious how you can decide an article that you haven't read has no content.

Re: Where’s _why?

#17

Post by raganwald »

AnnieLowrey wrote: post #11
raganwald wrote: post #5

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…

Hi there, raganwald, Annie here. I think this is a completely valid criticism, and it's one I largely expected. But for what it is worth, here are my thoughts. As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chan…

As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him.

Your repeated emails and messages left for him obviously informed him. We’ll have to agree to disagree about what constitutes responsible journalism with respect to “trying to interview him.”

Once he’s aware that you want to interview him and chooses not to respond, I’d say you tried. Your actions seem to suggest that “responsible journalism” consists of going further and pressing yourself on people who have already made their feelings about the matter clear.

I don’t wish to single you out, so I will say the next thing in a general way. I have trouble with flinging the words “public figure” around. There was a man. He constructed a persona. That persona was public. The man was private. The man worked very hard to separate the two. Compare and contrast to hollywood stars of both sexes who practically invite the world into their bedrooms.

I think reporting about _why is fair game, _why was a public figure. I think hunting down the man who created _why is intrusive and is at the level of a paparazzo, invading the privacy of a person who from the outset was clear about separating the two.

I have a public persona, “raganwald.” I don’t try to hide the man Reg Braithwaite behind the persona. But I don’t think that blogging or speaking at conferences or commenting here somehow invites the world to call me at work if I don’t answer emails, or to hunt down my cellphone records or to waylay me in the street or to take pictures of my children. I am not a public figure in the way that a politician is a public figure.

I likewise believe that the man behind _why is not a public figure. _why? Public. Pictures of _why in character? Public. The man who walked away from creating and maintaining _why? Entitled to privacy and to not worrying about people calling him when he chooses to ignore their emails and entitled to have his friends and associates left alone.

p.s. As I noted, however, I liked almost everything I read in the article.

Re: Where’s _why?

#18

Post by raganwald »

tgrass wrote: post #8
raganwald wrote: post #5

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…

And yet...you were not so offended as to refuse to read it.

Note that I praised the parts I liked. I have a strict “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” policy. If a post or article has 99 things I dislike and one that I learn from, it’s a good thing to read, no?

Re: Where’s _why?

#19

Post by lubutu »

I think there's a kind of agreement amongst those of us who look up to _why — and we are not all Ruby programmers — that although it is quite easy to discover _why's true identity, we'd rather just think of him as why the lucky stiff. That said, when he disappeared I read chapter 6 of the Poignant Guide, and his blog, and I feared the worst. When I looked into it and discovered that he was still alive it made me feel a lot less worried. So I'm glad it's made clear that he's really okay.

I'm less sure about broadcasting his real name, but it's been done before and it'll be done again. To me he's just _why.

Re: Where’s _why?

#20

Post by mbreese »

raganwald wrote: post #5

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…

I think you're being a little too harsh. This story isn't for programmers. It's for everyone else that thinks the computer is a magic box.

For us, it gives us a story about someone who is trying to learn how to program and about programming culture. I think the author did a pretty good job of taking a month and exploring both the nuts an bolts of programming and the people behind it. Sure, she still couldn't do much at the end of the month, but at least she understood the process to some degree.

The sub-plot about _why is an interesting one. For those of us around during that time, it brings back memories of those frantic days. For the outside world, it is just an interesting story. The naming of _why at the end wasn't really necessary, but it didn't feel too out of place either. It's been long enough that it was conceivable that he may want to have some comment. She may have gone further than I would have to get a message to him, but she didn't cross the line. And it was clear from the article that he has a sufficient barrier around him to protect him from the public.

You're taking the throw-away line about showing up at his house too seriously. She's a journalist... that's what they do - try to get the story. Happily she decided that she didn't need to resort to that to finish the story. I think the line was just added to give a sense of just how deeply he had disappeared.

In our community, we respect _why's wishes and leave him alone. It isn't polite to discuss his private identity. But to the rest of the world, this just isn't a big deal. And I hardly think that he will now be bombarded by publicity. The people who cared about _why know better.

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