211–220 of 618 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not convinced. Boeing doesn't want more attention, depositions are stressful, and whistleblowers are predisposed to martyrdom. If you're Boeing, this doesn't make the problem go away, it makes it worse .
> this doesn't make the problem go away what if they have bigger problems in the pipeline. It could estimated to be worth exacerbating this issue if it discourages the next.
"Self-inflicted wound"? Obviously the story is still developing but I'm immediately skeptical. EDIT: Also weird that BBC is already memory-holing that it was a gunshot wound. archive.is has the original. https://archive.is/wj0LE
UK => Suicide (Remember the iran nuclear inspector and the guy from mi6 found in a suitecase)
Netherlands/Other => Disappearance (Arjen Kamphuis)
Hm, this thread once again slid down the top page at an alarming rate, even though the safety of the environment surrounding engineers is a serious concern of engineers. Hacker News is surprisingly dismissive of user interests and votes. Note that even if it is a suicide, it is still a safety problem of the environment surrounding engineers. Since it is Boeing that pressured him until he committed suicide.
- Little of HN's moderation is done directly by moderators. Rather it's user actions (flags on stories, downvotes and flags on comments), and some automated mechanisms, most especially the "flamewar detector".
- HN detects flames where a story has > 40 comments and the ratio of comments to votes is greater than one. As I write this comment, the story has a ratio of 2.24:1, which is quite high. The average front-page story floats far closer to 0.55 to 0.60 (2021 & 2022, respectively, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36926236>, based on my own analysis of all HN front-page archives).
(At some point I'd looked at all the "spiciest" HN stories in the front-page archive, and though I don't have that handy, a 2.24 ratio is remarkably high by comparison.)
The flamewar detector isn't perfect, but it's often appropriate, and can take what seems to be an otherwise interesting story off HN's front page quite quickly. I've seen this happen to a number of my own submissions, and until I understood the mechansism and cause (and inquired to the mods via email) it could be quite discouraging. Note that mods do occasionally override the metric (as they have in this case, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39676385>).
Ironically, your best defence against the flamewar detector is to upvote the story and not comment on it.
- The story is of course possibly significant, but we've got very little information to go on presently. HN, as with other online discussion sites, has a tendency to go off half-cocked in such cases, often with regrettable results in terms of discussion accuracy or relevance. My suggestion is to absorb the report, keep it in mind, suspend judgement as to what you think may have happened, and look for further investigations or reports.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
if you are Boeing the company that would be stupid sure but what about some specific arbitrary high level figure from Boeing? One which if the person says certain things might lose their job because of this or which is afraid to lose more then their job (e.g. due to them knowingly acting in gross negligence for personal gains).
Which one is worse, lose your job or end up in prison?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
if you are Boeing the company that would be stupid sure but what about some specific arbitrary high level figure from Boeing? One which if the person says certain things might lose their job because of this or which is afraid to lose more then their job (e.g. due to them knowingly acting in gross negligence for personal gains).
Which one is worse, lose your job or end up in prison?
What a strange article. - whistleblower dies Blablabla - self inflicted wound Blablabla - he was bound to testify the next day Blablabla - he was found dead in his truck in a parking lot It sounds like the journalist thinks it was murder but can’t write it cause it’s illegal somehow. The result is a piece that almost reads like a satyrical piece from the Onion.
Can you imagine someone adding "this suspiciously looks like a murder" with nothing to back it? Even shitty tabloids don't do that.
Each single factor mention above can, and did, cause people to commit suicide. And instead of focusing on this, and the fact that a very courageous person with high ethnical standards, is dead (I know that I would not have the courage to come forward the way they did in all likelyhood, and if I did, or didn't, I would be in serious emotional and psychological trouble), the self-proclaimed smart HN crowd is thrwong stuff around like "that's what corporate securits is there for" or "it could have been a government agency".
Two things:
First, for fucks sake, start showing some compassion, not just here but also on other subjects were someone weaker or more vulnerable suffers. The lack of emotional intelligence is the world into a colder place that already is and has to be.
Second, stop this jumping to conclusion behaviour, whether it is concerning on-going investigation or stories like, it onpy leads to very wrong conclussions or out right conspiracy theories. Both are embarrassing and expose a lack of curiosity. And no, just because some of the BS theories being thrown around stick sometines, doesn't mean all do, or that this way of thinking is working. It just measn that if enough theories are thrown to the wall, by sheer volume, some will stick. Just luck. And we should hold ourselves to higher standards around here, especially in cases of human tragedies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure plenty of users will be happy to confirm to you that they can still read your comment and that it is therefore not deleted. I wonder if you're using a third-party app to read HN, because if you're using a web browser, you should not be seeing just [flagged]. I unkilled your comment when I posted my last reply.
When I logged out, last time it was replaced by flagged on Chrome and I couldn't read the text, but now I can, even though it's still flagged. Now there is a strange thing. Why are the other flagged comments still replaced with flagged? Your moderation is too variable. > I unkilled your comment when I posted my last reply. This?
If a reader does not have 'showdead' turned on in their profile, or is logged out, then the text of [dead] comments is not displayed. Instead it will show as either [flagged] or [dead]. This is what happened with your comment when it was in the [flagged][dead] state. Had you viewed it with 'showdead' turned on in your profile, you would have seen that the comment was still readable and not deleted.
Once I unkilled it, it went back from [flagged][dead] to just [flagged], and it went back to being visible to everyone whether they are logged in or not, or have 'showdead' turned on or not.
If you're logged in and seeing some comments that just say [flagged] instead of text, this is because you haven't yet turned on 'showdead' in your profile.