Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where’s _why?

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 191 posts

Re: Where’s _why?

#161

Post by droithomme »

davesims wrote: post #64
raganwald wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I opened my comment by praising the exact same things you’re praising, so let’s be sure that we both understand I was criticizing just one or two small things that I care deeply about.

I care deeply about _why and his contributions as well, and I still cringe thinking about how I felt the moment I realized he and his work and his wit were gone from the community forever. The Poignant Guide was my intro to Ruby and still sets the whimsical, slightly surreal tone in the back of my mind for how I think about coding to this day. But, raganwald, upon reading and re-reading it, I didn't take one bit of "…

_why is no longer a public figure. Publishing where he works and lives is not journalism, it's public gloating over her primitive stalking skills.

Re: Where’s _why?

#162

Post by flocial »

I think the main thing that scares me about this is how just being a prominent (in terms of garnering attention) open-source hacker seems to give people the right to pry into your privacy and reveal your personal information to the world.

It's ironic that in _why's quest to disappear he permanently implanted his real identity in web folklore instead of quietly fading away.

Re: Where’s _why?

#163

Post by droithomme »

redthrowaway wrote: post #120
thomaslangston wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was harsh enough. I think you're too forgiving of some really awful behavior. Writing a beautiful article or being motivated to get the story doesn't excuse it. The fact that most of the readers of the article won't care doesn't either. She did cross the line. I would be furious if someone I didn't want to talk to (and who knew it) did what she did. The fact she published his private information lead…

What you decry is standard journalistic fare. Tracking down a central figure in your article is a mark of investigative journalism. The individual's desires for privacy do not, by that fact alone, afford them the right to never have anyone try and contact them. We respect his privacy both because of his contributions, and because his feelings are clear. That does not mean everyone else on Earth is obliged to.

Trying to contact him is one thing. Publishing the current location and employer of a peaceful person who wishes to remain anonymous and private in an article, for no legitimate reason, is totally different. Surely you see the difference? Or do you.

Re: Where’s _why?

#164

Post by droithomme »

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…

Annie, please do not call yourself a journalist. That is an insult to real journalists. You are not one. You are a hack, and a irresponsible one. You crossed the line. _why is not a dangerous pedophile who changed his name and went into hiding while secretly working as a school teacher and/or pediatrician/youth minister. He is a private individual who clearly wishes to maintain anonymity and privacy, and you published his contact details in your stalking article. For shame. Your actions are why we need to enact privacy laws in the US, to criminalize what you have done here and ensure that justice can prevail.

Re: Where’s _why?

#165

Post by droithomme »

lrobb wrote: post #42
raganwald wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question here: Where do you draw the line? What makes someone a “public figure?" Does publishing open source make you a public figure? How about speaking at a conference? Playing in a band under a pseudonym? Playing in a band under your real name? Commenting under a pseudonym on Hacker News? How about commenting under an identifiable handle like rbraithwaite? I honestly don’t have a pat answer to this questio…

I think you could make a convincing argument that _why would fit the legal definition of a Limited-Purpose Public Figure. http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/proving-fault-actual-...

From that article:

> Individuals who are considered to be limited-purpose public figures remain so as long as the public has an "independent" interest in the underlying controversy.

I would argue that _why's retreat to privacy is no longer a "controversy" of interest to the general public, assuming it ever was.

Re: Where’s _why?

#166

Post by sutro »

tokenadult wrote: post #145
sutro wrote: post #53

The question that has nagged me more than "Where's _why?" is "Where's nickb?" Did anyone ever find out?

The question that has nagged me more than "Where's _why?" is "Where's nickb?" Did anyone ever find out? Work your way up this thread http://hackerne.ws/item?id=152388 from child comment to parent comment and see what you think. See also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152428 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=292858 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=249499 and other threads I found just by Googling the two use…

I had seen all those previous threads except for raganwald's "Worse is Better" link. I admit that link does make a decent case for the sock-puppet theory. However, I still think that nickb was a real person. I was an avid reader of New Mogul (great site, well done), and nickb's contributions there, as you know, were very extensive. The sheer volume of Nick's combined activity on both HN and NM casts doubt on the sock-puppet theory in my mind. Furthermore, in addition to finance, Nick seemed genuinely interested in B2B enterprise software sales strategy. I corresponded with him on email about that subject a few times. If you follow PG you know that is a subject that he takes no interest in and in fact encourages all the YC companies to eschew enterprise sales. Also I remember someone during one of the "where's nickb" discussions here or on NM around the time of his disappearance saying that he knew that Nick lived in Ottawa and was going to try to check up on him in person. The idea that Nick lived in Ottawa was corroborated by other comments that Nick or others had made in the past...I believe he might have been a professor there. Anyway my point is that there was so much effort behind nickb's contributions and enough detailed differentiation between him and PG that if he were indeed a sock-puppet the ruse would seem to go beyond being a joke and cross into the realm of split-personality, and for me that is a bridge too far. Then again I did always wonder why PG pulled him off of the leaders board after he disappeared:

http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

And as far as I remember PG never really commented on his disappearance. Either way, sock-puppet or no, I would very much like to know the rest of the story. Perhaps Ms Lowrey will one day solve the mystery for us.

Re: Where’s _why?

#167

Post by wyclif »

muyuu wrote: post #150
AnnieLowrey wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi thaumaturgy, Annie here. I'm completely receptive to the criticism of my treatment of the public persona / private person question -- as I wrote before, I expected it and appreciate everyone's insightful comments here. But I'd just like to push back on the idea that my reporting somehow constituted harassment, rather than straightforward reporting on a public figure – and one who had unfortunately already been out…

You outed him, there is no two ways about it. You can be appreciative of the comments, receptive to criticism blah-dee-blah but you outed him and you know why. As far as I'm concerned that defines you as a person above anything else.

Let's be clear about something: she did not out _why. Some other people did that years ago, and I've known his true identity for longer than that but the people who were his real fans never outed him even though they knew, too. _why was a little like Santa Claus in that way.

Re: Where’s _why?

#168

Post by sutro »

i386 wrote: post #127
sutro wrote: post #53

The question that has nagged me more than "Where's _why?" is "Where's nickb?" Did anyone ever find out?

Who was nickb?

An extremely active longtime contributor to this site who dropped off the map a few years ago.

Re: Where’s _why?

#169

Post by wyclif »

kragen wrote: post #155
AnnieLowrey wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't out him. That had already happened. The debate -- a debate about journalistic ethics I consider really interesting, by the way -- is about whether I should have publicized the outing, whether I overstepped boundaries in reporting, and whether I should have published additional details that were not common knowledge.

Although I'm peripherally connected to the Ruby world (I spent much of today programming in Ruby for money, occasionally go to the local Ruby user group, etc.), and I saw _why perform a punk rock song about the grammar of Ruby at OSCON one year, I didn't know his name until you outed him in this article.

Just because you didn't know about it, or didn't care to find out, doesn't mean that she outed him. In a similar manner, if a tree falls in the forest and you didn't hear it crashing down, that does not indicate that the tree is still standing. I find your logic problematic.

Re: Where’s _why?

#170

Post by jdpage »

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…

In a fit of distractedness, I actually read this comment before I reached the end of the article.

I stopped reading. I'm familiar with the story of _why, so I don't really feel the need to hear it again. But most of all, I don't want to know what his real-life name was. _why he was and _why he shall be.

Post reply on HN