
My Public Apology - tdavis
I would like to take a moment to publicly apologize for what I said in the Justin.tv thread. If you've decided to hate me forever, haven't read it, or simply aren't of the opinion that it's a big deal you may stop reading now.<p>Upon returning home, I read a message from Dan (my co-founder) stating that, in hindsight, he felt it was a bad thing to say and, quote, "I feel sick to my stomach." I knew then that no matter how serious I felt the infraction was, I had try my damnedest to clear it up.<p>First off, I'd like to state that I take full responsibility for what I wrote. Even if it's a single person, I do not want anyone to think negatively of Dan, TS, YC, or anyone else they may feel was tangentially involved.<p>I realize that I essentially made two mistakes here,<p>1. Instead of expressing my view of the article in question properly, I instead made an inappropriate joke.<p>2. I did this without considering how someone's views of me could affect their views of those connected to me.<p>To those of you who were offended, I am sorry. I have a history of complaining about poor comments/submissions to HN and I have since made one that I should be complaining about. Not only did it contribute no meaningful dialogue to the discussion, it was not in the spirit of this community. I consider HN one of the last bastions of social news discussion and it was quite wrong of me to tarnish that.<p>In a frail attempt to justify my initial comment, I posted a follow-up. A couple of members got the point I <i>should</i> have made in the first place, but at that point I still considered myself in the right and I once again made a horrendous ass of myself. I should have realized by that point that I was obviously <i>not</i> in the right and an apology was in order. I wish I could apologize for my bullheaded nature, too, but I don't think I'll be fixing that anytime soon.<p>I hope that you do not feel negatively about our company; one that I work on each day because I want to make it better for our users. And, if nothing else, please do not think poorly of Dan, YC, or anyone else. If you want to hate someone, please simply let it be me; I'm much better adjusted to it. Seriously. If you want me to never contribute here again just say the word, if that will be sufficient for you to absolve everyone else.<p>P.S. I post this as a submission because it's slightly less likely to be destroyed instantly.<p>Reference: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=371255
======
gojomo
(1) Your comment was callous, yes.

(2) Your comment also had a grain of media meta-criticism truth. Falling
asleep to die is about the least webcam-friendly method of suicide imaginable.
This poor guy is sure to be outdone by a more telegenic webcam suicide, sooner
or later. Such is the often-grim nature of 'progress'.

(3) Your comment also had a grain of humor. Choosing to die in front of a
camera is inherently melodramatic, while falling asleep to die is inherently
anticlimactic. There's an ironic contrast. But as a dying man once noted,
"dying is easy, comedy is hard". And comedy about dying may be hardest of all.

(4) People do make callous jokes about death, among friends. They do this
especially about strangers and public figures. That's the honest truth. Death
is scary; jokes can help people cope.

(5) Other people observe -- and try to enforce in others -- a somber attitude.
Death is scary; a sense of solidarity in sympathy can help people cope.

So, is News.YC a gathering of friends, where we speak frankly even if it may
offend? Or a PR event for promoting our projects, where due sensitivity to all
potential listeners must be observed? I suppose it's somewhere in between.

I downvote one-liner grunts of agreement or disapproval as adding nothing to
the conversation. I downvote cheap formulaic jokes. I downvote insults, ad
hominem arguments, and snark directed at either News.YC participants or public
figures.

But your original comment was none of these things. It made light of a
tragedy, yes, but it was not content-free or gratuitously nasty. It would not
normally merit an upvote from me, but seeing the mob piling-on of downvotes, I
gave it an upvote. Honesty is far more valuable than sentimentality,
especially socially-enforced sentimentality.

 _Some_ of the critical responses to your comment were truly despicable: name-
calling and threats to boycott your business. That sort of browbeating --
directed against a living, present person -- is a greater threat to civil
discourse than insensitivity in the face of tragedy. Those disrespectful
comments, many still highly rated, deserve downvotes.

~~~
llimllib
I didn't downvote, but I didn't upvote either, for the simple fact that it
_wasn't funny_. To paraphrase the pythons, humor is not the automatic
gainsaying of the common sentiment.

~~~
plaggypig
I didn't downvote, I didn't upvote, I didn't vote sideways, and I didn't vote
for the down-up-vote, etc. because I just don't care. You're thinking: what a
jerk! Well, I care as much about this poor soul as I do about any of the other
thousands of people who died today. I am a compassionate person, but I have
some gripes, so please hear me out.

I live in the UK, and for the past several weeks we've had to suffer the media
being obsessed with itself over
[this](<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7741322.stm>) and
[this](<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7740926.stm>). They've each
consumed 4 or 5 days of consecutive news headlines at the top of the bill.
Politicians even get themselves involved - no doubt to disassociate themselves
from having to answer real questions about their calamatous mistakes! It's a
real circus, with destructive consequences, and this too is a circus, albeit a
smaller one.

Yesterday I clicked on a link regarding this whole saga; it was worded with
(fake) outrage over the Justin.tv CEO's notable lack of compassion from the
press release. Personally I always find that press releases are great vehicles
to show compassion! Anyway, right there in the middle of the screen was a very
prominent screencaptured image of that boy's dead corpse. Uh, yeah, thanks for
that er suicide porn. Very appropriate. Very well considered decision.

There is apparently good reason why established media don't go in to the
details and gratuitous imagery of suicide that it reports - studies show that
it can inspire further tragedies to take place, perhaps by indulging the
fantasies of those among us who may be contemplating taking our own lives.
With journalism, professional or amateur, online or offline, comes a great
responsibility granted to it by a free society that shouldn't be taken
lightly.

I fail to understand why tdavis felt the need to post a "public apology" over
this. I can just imagine him standing in front of a press pack, his humiliated
wife by his side, trying to worm his way out of some scandal to salvage a
career. It never seems credible to me when people retract something they've
said - why didn't you just say that you acknowledge that you have a dark and
twisted sense of humour and that you won't apologise for it?

I thought HN was supposed to be a community of tech oriented entrepeneurs
collecting relevent content, but judging by the cumulative editorial process
that I've witnessed lately it seems to be descending into becoming nothing
more than just another category of foxnews.com.

Now, you can release the hounds and I'll just stand here.

~~~
tdavis
_why didn't you just say that you acknowledge that you have a dark and twisted
sense of humour and that you won't apologise for it?_

I never apologized for my personality; to do so would have been disingenuous.
As some have noted, I never said my opinion on the matter had changed. It just
so happens that numerous other people have put that opinion far more
eloquently throughout this thread. For that I am thankful.

------
Ezra
I think that it also exposes some of the crazy group think going on here, so
maybe it wasn't all bad.

I mean, _You're an idiot_ isn't supposed to be a +5 comment on this site.

And reasoned discourse like _It doesn't really matter what the Justin.tv CEO
said. He pasted some boiler plate because there's nothing more to be said; the
deed had been done. What do you want? An apology for not finding the video?
For not policing the Internet? Prosecution of anybody "egging him on?" Come
on.

Someone broadcast their suicide. That fact doesn't make it any more tragic
than any other suicide. It also doesn't mean anybody more than usual was
responsible. There's really no story here which is why I chose to make a
comment that didn't acknowledge there was._ shouldn't be -12. At least not in
my mind.

Not to mention all the equally pithy and/or distasteful rejoinders that were
upvoted.

~~~
rantfoil
The rabid responses to Tom's post both shocked and surprised me as well. They
just seemed a little bit more spirited than I would expect. It was a little
schadenfreude-infused, to say the least.

~~~
greendestiny
So wait, we're shocked and horrified at downvoting, but suicide, hey happens
all the time. Do the upvotes in this thread represent anti-group think group
think?

~~~
trominos
We can do something about downvoting.

Being gratuitously shocked and horrified at some more-or-less random kid's
suicide is just obnoxious.

FWIW, tdavis, I wasn't offended by your comment, except to the extent that it
makes HN more reddit-like. But in that respect it was no worse than most of
the comments in that thread.

------
swombat
I voted up your original comment. I thought it was smart and witty.

I think people who voted you down probably regularly vote up witty remarks
about the Bush administration or the war in Iraq, and are guilty of extreme
hypocrisy.

Human beings make fun of everything, including death, pets being run over,
wars of occupation, rape, incest, ignorance, stupidy, disease, racism, the
holocaust... Perhaps the same crowd would have voted down Benigni's "Life is
Beautiful" because of the jokes about an event in which 6 million jews were
murdered.

Some jokes are less appropriate than others, but no subject is off limits. To
censor your ability to jest about something is to censor your ability to think
about it. I truly loathe people who impose their sensitivities on others as
censorship. Fuck them.

Stand up for your comment. Even in a minority of one, the truth is still the
truth. You're not alone in having the freedom of thought to find a humorous
angle in unlikely places. We're with you.

PS: For reference, my comment on that justin.tv thread was equally caustic:

"Idiots: also available on justin.tv."

~~~
divia
I guess I would agree with you that no subject is off limits, and I can
obviously only speak for myself, but there is a reason that I have a knee-jerk
negative and perhaps overly zealous reaction to suicide jokes that I don't
have to those about most other tragedies. Most people who end up committing
suicide talk about it before they do it and they often aren't taken seriously.
Because of this, I take a dim view of anything that makes light of suicide.

Wars are awful, but I doubt that many of them could have been prevented by
taking the people proposing them more seriously, and the same goes for most
other things.

As I said, it's entirely possible I take this view too far, but I figured I'd
explain my reason, since it doesn't seem like anyone else has brought up that
particular point.

------
mechanical_fish
If you've ever wondered why every society has so many carefully delineated,
formal rituals surrounding death -- the sending of flowers, the publishing of
obits, the ritualized expressions of sorrow, the formal funerals -- now you
know.

If you've ever wondered why, after every major tragedy that affects a public
gathering like a school, the local news reports that teams of grief counselors
are being dispatched to the scene -- well, now you know. Grief counselors are
trained to listen to people who are in shock. People in shock say strange
things. Half of them are oversensitive, the other half tries to whistle past
the graveyard, and if you put both halves in the same room and ask them to
counsel _each other_ the results can be really ugly, as we appear to have
discovered. (I didn't read the original thread myself, though. I see enough
pain in the course of life.)

All threads need moderators, but sometimes _real life_ also needs moderators,
and that's what grief counselors are for.

I recently had a friend-of-friends die suddenly in an accident. The range of
responses was interesting. Some of his friends dissolved into tears. Some took
pains to offer expressions of forgiveness and acceptance. Some raged against
the cause of the accident. Some raged against the _deceased_. Some switched
from one approach to another on a _sentence by sentence_ basis.

Shock. That's how it works.

Someone with a large amount of intestinal fortitude and an even larger amount
of malpractice insurance should start up an online grief counseling service.

------
mindslight
My only problem with your initial comment is that it does not add much to the
discussion; but neither do the comments that merely express sympathy. The
story itself is only of interest because any startup may have to deal with
similar situations, and hysterical public attention in general.

The real issue is how your unpopular comment immediately reflected back on
your business. There are several calls to boycott ticketstumbler for your
expressing an unpopular opinion - from a community that is _supposed_ to be
full of smart, rational people. How could the mass media ever have a chance at
putting stories in perspective when even HN fosters such a witch hunt?

~~~
olefoo
I find it interesting that a couple of people expressing distaste for tdavis'
statements and expressing the thought that they personally would not spend
money on ticketstumbler because of his demonstrated lack of judgment gets
turned into a witch hunt and call for boycott.

As a side note, I have to wonder about companies that I've only ever heard of
through reading HN. It makes me think that the founders are spending too much
time in their comfort zone telling their buddies how great they are. In order
to become truly great you have to go out into the wider world where people
will make snap judgments about you and your company based on what you do and
say.

~~~
fallentimes
Fair enough, but we've been launched less than 4 months.

Ticketnews, Boston Herald, ReadWriteWeb, BoyGeniusReport, Techcrunch and
MassHighTech have all written about us.

Hacker News isn't exactly our target audience, but they/you are our friends &
peers.

------
Herring
Coward. Your next submission should have been Maddox's "How to kill yourself
like a man."

[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=manly_suicid...](http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=manly_suicide)

~~~
tdavis
Something tells me that _might_ have exacerbated the issue ;)

------
palish
It seems like this public apology will actually do you more harm than good.
The best strategy is probably to say nothing (i.e. delete this) and wait for
it to blow over. In a week, nobody will care.

The problem is that apologizing like this will draw more attention to the
initial act. People are more likely to think "man, that really _was_ horrible"
than "well, that was horrible, but he apologized, so it's okay". Basically,
the less exposure, the better.

Also, don't worry about it. I've found that when I (frequently) mess up, it's
optimal to make a mental note of what I did wrong, adjust, and then not think
about it again. It would be a bad use of time to worry about every little
mistake.

Personally, I understood where you were coming from by making that joke. I
don't care about political correctness. If I kill myself, I really hope that
people joke and laugh about it. Being "all serious" about situations like that
is what makes people cry for reform, legal action, etc, and behavior like that
is almost always detrimental.

But most people's beliefs are aligned with the social norms (by definition),
so it will tarnish your reputation to publicly say alarming things. So again,
in this instance, it's probably best to not draw attention to it. (For
evidence of this, check out unalone's comment in this thread -- he hadn't seen
your initial comment until you posted this.)

~~~
drusenko
That reasoning is true until it isn't. If you sweep things under the rug, the
public eye generally moves on to the next thing quickly, and nobody cares or
realizes it happened a week later. If you apologize prematurely, then you draw
attention to it, and people remember. But if you don't apologize, and it
actually is a big deal, then people do remember _and_ you look like a horrible
person.

It's the same debate that centers around when you should write a blog post
about downtime. After 10 minutes? Probably not because you've draw attention
to the downtime, that wasn't really that severe. 1 hour? Maybe not, people
will probably forget about it, and the Internet will have no record that it
ever happened. But never post about downtime and users feel ignored, and
people get really, really mad at you...

~~~
palish
I agree to an extent. The problem is that it's not possible to determine
whether the "correct" course of action is to publicly apologize or to downplay
the initial act. But to make that decision, we can look at how each strategy
has worked out for other companies. Remember that hosting company that had
major downtime, then made a followup blog post that made jokes ("whoops! we
have butterfinters!") etc? The internet came down pretty hard on them. On the
flipside, we have Apple, who almost never makes public statements like that,
and it works out for them because it allows them to avoid the backlash from a
mistake, and it buys them time to objectively decide what to do about it.

~~~
drusenko
i think you have to play it by ear. you certainly don't want to over-apologize
or under-apologize. that hosting company apologized with the wrong apology. a
good, sincere apology explaining what happened and why it's not going to
happen again can go a long, long way to gaining devoted customers.

somewhere in marketing 101 we read this study that showed that customers of a
company that makes a mistake and handles it well are actually more loyal than
customers of a company that doesn't make any mistakes.

if that hosting company had made no apologies at all and ended up with a
techcrunch article about their downtime, with "no comments" from the company,
you bet they would be worse off than had they posted a quick status update and
then made a sincere apology with extended analysis after a certain threshold
had been met (say, 2 hours of downtime).

look at amazon and ec2 for an example of why silence isn't always the best
option.

~~~
palish
Yeah, that's valid. It seems like we're talking about two different issues
though. And you're completely right about having to play it by ear. This
situation is unique because Davis is a founder of a company and his comment
could possibly impact that company. It's not a case where the company has made
a mistake in its service. In other words, if someone decides to not use
Ticketstumbler over this, it's because they hated his comment, not because
Ticketstumbler failed them. So in this scenario, there's no reason to draw
attention to the initial act with a public apology because it's not likely to
happen again. Whereas if Amazon EC2 went down, that would (by definition) have
an impact on customers, and it might happen again in the future. So in that
case, it would be valuable to reassure the customers that it won't happen
again, to provide reasons why it won't, and to communicate the measures being
taken to prevent downtime in the future. So the situations seem similar, but
they're actually very different.

------
tlrobinson
If there's anything I hate more than petty semi-scandalous incidents on the
internets it's the meta discussions about such incidents...

~~~
ynomad
And the comments commenting on the meta discussions on the petty semi-
scandalous incidents on the internets.

And the comments commenting on the comments regarding the meta discussions on
the petty semi-scandalous incidents on the internets.

------
dangrover
Humor is often a healthy (if misunderstood) response to something bad
happening.

While I'm not defending the remark at all, there's always going to be a crowd
that reacts to any joke made in such a context with an automatic irrational
"You think $unfortunate_incident is FUNNY!?!"

~~~
dbrush
Is irrational actually the word you're looking for?

~~~
unalone
I suppose it's irrational because it's so easy to misinterpret, and because
it's not always necessary. It's overused in a lot of ways.

------
unalone
I didn't see your comment until you posted this up. I agree: it was pretty
immature and uncalled for.

Since I've been part of Hacker News, though, you've almost always been smart,
courteous, and you almost always add to the conversation rather than detract
from it. And it's easy to go wrong and say something stupid, and at least
you're owning up to it.

I hope people don't hold a grudge against what you said, and I'm glad that you
apologized for it - even if it wasn't excusable.

~~~
bluelu
The reactions are typical US behavior. People will rate you because of the one
thing you did wrong and not even take into account the years before, where you
did a perfect job. (Think about President Clinton and the Lewinski
affaire...).

~~~
Prrometheus
You bake one cake, and nobody calls you a baker.

You mix one drink, and nobody calls you a bartender.

But you fuck one sheep....

~~~
nostrademons
...and people think you're from New Zealand. ;-)

(Apologies to any Kiwi friends out there...I loved the semester I spent in
your country. And no, I didn't see any sheepfuckers. Lots of sheep, though.)

------
thomasmallen
Give me a break...an apology is wholly unnecessary. What you said may have
been "inappropriate," but it was dark humor. Of course people would be
offended.

~~~
unalone
I think it's useful. It gave us a forum to discuss how Hacker News acts in
regards to things like that, and that's a very important discussion to have.

~~~
thomasmallen
If your dark humor doesn't offend people, you're doing it wrong. But you're
right, this may show that HN _overreacts_.

~~~
unalone
Overreacts, yes. The outrage I saw was way over the line.

~~~
goldsmith
Yeah, really. It was a real bandwagon of righteous indignation.

------
tsally
Some might criticize you for not apologizing immediately; I for one think that
a longer apology which shows reflection is far more valuable than a quick one.

------
randfish
I've got a lot of empathy for you, Tom. We all say dumb stuff, and the web
makes it very easy to screw up without thinking through. Kudos to you for the
apology and the transparency. First time I'm checking out Ticketstumbler, BTW
- looks interesting.

------
petercooper
Now I'm intrigued whether you'll regain the 83 karma points you lost in that
thread with this post ;-) I think you might!

That aside, the egregious downvoting of your comments in that post showed a
real lack of HN voting standards (that is, not going crazily low unless the
comment is spam or totally irrelevant) by many users, no matter how misguided
your comments.

~~~
jcl
As it stands right now, he seems to have recovered all that and much more,
between the apology article, his voted-up comments on it, and people gradually
undoing the massive downmods on the original comments. The apology has been
modded higher than the original article.

From a strictly theoretic standpoint, it seems the karma system rewards
drama... and it also rewards posting controversial statements as separate
articles rather than as comments, because articles can't get downmodded.

As interesting as the whole incident has been, I'm hoping we don't see many
similar ones, since I don't think it really added much to the quality of
discussion.

------
ia
this is a community of smart _people_ , not _computers_. what this incident
did was demonstrate certain tendencies in our nature as humans--that is, the
collective is still susceptible to certain modes of groupthink and, as
rational and logical as we are/intend to be, we are still emotional beings.
what i take away from this incident is nothing negative about tdavis--as
swombat pointed out (and demonstrated), there were other comments that just as
easily could have become the focus of HN's ire. instead, i see this is a
reminder that no community is immune to the problems inherent in growth and
longevity. so, let's recognize that fact, and simply double-check our motives
before posting. i think it's necessary to take a step back in this case, as
opposed to moving in closer for a better look.

------
dejb
Obviously the root subject matter is very serious.

Neverless sadly there are many deaths and suicides in the world. So...

Please let us not turn this place into something like a reality TV series
where the participants become more important than the content.

------
mynameishere
I read his suicide note and it was pretty clear it was either suicide or an
unhappy life on xanax, followed by death by way of cancer/stroke/heart
disease.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICiFnQrHOrk>

There's always a period after death where people stop being shocked/sad and
start telling jokes. This thread is evidence of that. Oh well.

[http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/hanging/english/e_hang...](http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/hanging/english/e_hanging)

------
kylec
When I read the article I had the same thought. Of course, I didn't actually
say it, but I think that people were a little over-sensitive about this. You
shouldn't have to apologize.

------
altrego99
Sometimes it really becomes difficult to see what the full repercussions of
what we say can be. What might seem to be an interesting comment to make may
not seem as intelligent just afterwards. I bet anyone who has ever tried to to
dilute seriousness of an issue with humor has one incident to quote where
their effort had an opposite effect.

So although I cannot speak of everyone else, as for me if it is 'forgiveness'
you want, I forgive you.

Edit: After reading the comments, I realize this whole thing was a mock... and
as some people have already observed, an apology is totally unnecessary. As
for your friends, I am sure hardly anyone will have the time to look up and
make any mental notes about what to do if he meets them. As for your business,
if this episode has done anything, it would only popularize it. Why, if I
lived in US I'd probably start using the service you provide if I weren't
using it already :)

And on serious note, committing suicide on screen is a very stupid idea, and
over that if it is done by sleeping in front of the camera it does become a
little boring as well. I am not sure why you got down voted for pointing that
out, as your comment was definitely not more disappointing to me than the
actual news.

------
einarvollset
There are things in life that matter more than others.

Startups, money, reputation; all that shit is worthless once you need to deal
with the pain of someone dying.

Someone taking their own life is one of those things that should cause you to
stop and think of his family, friends and wonder what pushed him to this.

I dunno man, maybe you haven't experienced it, but once you do (and everyone
does), I hope you forgive yourself for the stupid shit you said today.

~~~
tdavis
I assure you I have seen much suffering and death in my life.

~~~
ErrantX
The question is. Do I upvote that and look like a dick for apparently
celebrating this fact. Or downvote it, look good, but add to the negative
karma!

Abstain :(

~~~
astine
Well, the thing is, no one knows what way you voted, so you could have your
cake and eat it too.

~~~
ErrantX
rumbled! :)

------
ivankirigin
I think the reaction to this issue is a bit beyond reasonable. People
shouldn't be so quick to get offended. I'm rather participate in a community
where the members don't care about shit that doesn't matter. So please don't
get in arguments about how offended you are about another comment.

Say interesting and insightful things, upmod others that do, and downmod
others that don't.

------
Jem
For what it's worth, after my brother killed himself (not on webcam,
thankfully) it was humour that got _me_ through.

I found your comment funny.

------
hackware
jeez...

the world at large will find fault with ANYTHING ANYBODY says...

if you felt that way... so b it...

every person on the planet has a few rough edges...

(i'm still in awe of your intellect, and i've worked most of my life around
geniuses)...

my vote is to accept rough edges for truth in facts, and forgive side
effects...

:-) :-) :-)

------
paul9290
Hacker news for the most part is a great community but some people I have seen
follow the mentality of those chatters.

Why ...continue to be mean-spirited towards someone else work you don't like,
when its unprovoked? If we wish to hold ourselves to a higher standard - a
civil community, don't continue your vinegar beyond Ask HN for feedback post.
It was not asked for beyond initial post!

------
run4yourlives
Well done. It takes a lot of guts to do something like this.

------
0xdefec8
meh. You had time to think about your op and already made a reply basically
repeating the original sentiment. You clearly don't feel any differently about
the op, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

But this just reeks of Jimmy Swaggart or Michael Richards. (On the bright
side, you've successfully pushed the hivemind to the opposing view, although I
don't think that was your goal)

------
fiaz
We are human and we make mistakes. Just don't get too self-absorbed and move
on...you've got important work to do.

------
petercooper
Well done, the 100+ upvotes you've got on this post have totally counteracted
the negative votes you got on the other post, and you end the day with a net
profit. Goes to show.. when it comes to social networking, any publicity is
good publicity!

~~~
unalone
I think there's more to his apology than that.

~~~
petercooper
Well sure, but it's mathematically amusing that an apology gets more social
credit than lost through the faux pas causing that apology, no?

------
icky
See, this is why I post pseudonymously.

------
syntax-case
-75 comment votes; +125 article points - you are a genius. As to your company, I'd never even heard of it before. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

~~~
fallentimes
This is not the type of publicity we want. This will be the first and last
time it's caused by something completely in our control.

------
junkbond
You are doing this because you don't want it to impact your business.

Shame on you!!

~~~
tsally
I for one don't think that a self serving apology is in line with his posting
history.

A unsubstantiated comment, on the other hand, is in line with yours.

~~~
junkbond
thats harsh

~~~
tsally
It was not meant to be harsh, simply a statement of fact. I certainly don't
share the "Life is [harsh]. Adapt." mentality. I do believe in judging
opinions based on how well they are substantiated. If you post an argument
that is backed up by some sort of reasoning or proof, I'll be upvoting you
whether I agree with you or not :-).

