
Dear Paul - barbs
http://zedshaw.com/2015/06/01/dear-paul/
======
ghshephard
I've read HN almost every day for the last 7 years. In that seven years, I
don't recall ever reading a post that said something particularly slanderous
about Zed. I _have_ seen post after post about his Learning XXX the hard way,
and, in fact, I've even purchased at least one as a result.

The one thing _different_ about HN is that if you even _slightly_ start to get
overly negative on a post, you are downvoted into oblivion, and nobody sees
what you've written.

So I'm really confused, Zed is upset that things that are negative are written
about him (and I can appreciate that, who _wouldn 't_ be upset when negative
things are written about them) - but the one place he criticizes, happens to
be the one place on the internet (that I'm familiar with), where slanderous,
objectionable, heck, off tone comments are censored by the community.

Because that's what I love about HN - the community keeps the tone civil,
reasonably polite, and holds commentators accountable for their contributions,
to the point of hell banning anybody who does draw too much ire.

I think Zed's criticism is a little off base this time.

~~~
richmarr
That all sounds great, but then why is he so upset? It's impossible to
reconcile your picture with his.

So either (a) he's imagining things, or (b) you're painting over the cracks or
can't see them, or (c) the real truth is somewhere inbetween.

~~~
scruple
I imagine that it was prompted by this post [1] which was on the front page a
couple of hours ago.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636605)

~~~
ghshephard
I just clicked on that - here was what the top comment had to say about Zed:

"Zed is known as one of the most prolific and capable software engineers
around and I have heard his C code for Mongrel 2 server
[https://github.com/zedshaw/mongrel2](https://github.com/zedshaw/mongrel2)
described as being amongst some of the best examples of C code to study, learn
and understand (trying to find the link that said that). I hold his work in
high regard."

------
thaumaturgy
Disappointing to see this at 139 points in under an hour (and still going...).
It's just a lot of bile.

I like Zed when he's talking about software development. I like tptacek when
he's talking about cryptography or money or cooking or any of the other
several subjects he's reasonably skilled in. I like pg when he's talking about
startups.

All of them are capable of getting their hackles up, getting in fights, saying
things they shouldn't, or talking with authority outside their expertise. It
happens.

But we shouldn't be feeding this kind of drama. pg isn't going to shut down HN
because it hurt zed's feelings, zed has just introduced me and probably a
bunch of other people to some video that I'd never heard about before (that
I'm not going to bother tracking down), and hopefully whenever whatever's
bothering zed now passes, he'll reconsider at least some of what he wrote.

Also, it's sort of odd that it was directed to pg, considering pg has made
exactly one comment on HN in the last year. (...which, to me, is pretty much
the severest possible indictment of the HN community, though maybe I'm reading
more into it than I should.)

I'm flagging this. I know we're not supposed to say when we're flagging
things, but I don't want zed getting the impression that it was pg that
suppressed this. No, it was little ol' me, and, hopefully, a few other folks
here.

~~~
enraged_camel
You should only flag things that are against the guidelines. In that regard, I
don't see anything about this particular post that is problematic. It has some
bile, sure, but the man makes some excellent points that we would benefit a
lot from openly discussing here.

The best communities are those that self-reflect. They don't sweep the
criticisms under the rug -- and I perceive your flagging as an attempt to do
just that.

~~~
hueving
How many little dick insults before you just consider the author to be
inflammatory and small-minded? If this weren't for someone with a big name, it
would have been dead on arrival.

~~~
pja
Unfortunately, the RoR “community” and Zed have a history when it comes to
penis-related insults. There was a time when you could add anyone you liked to
a github project & they couldn’t block you, so a bunch of developers thought
it would be funny to add Zed's github account to a project to draw ascii
penises. Every time he’d remove himself, they’d add him to another one & so
on.

Puerile? Yup. Also, possibly career sabotaging if a potential future employer
looks at your github project list.

See
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1306816425.html)
for some of the gory details. Github woke up, smelled the coffee & made it
possible for their users to block other users shortly after this little saga.

Yes, it’s easy for us to say “he should be the bigger person & not respond in
kind” but on the flip side, we haven’t been on the receiving end of this kind
of abusive behaviour.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Yes, it’s easy for us to say “he should be the bigger person & not respond
> in kind” but on the flip side, we haven’t been on the receiving end of this
> kind of abusive behaviour.

But he's not responding in kind, because the people he is attacking "in kind"
aren't the people who attacked him. And so, insofar as Zed's abuse is "in
kind" to the unrelated-to-the-issue-complained-about abuse he has previously
received, we (as in the HN community) _have_ , in fact, been on the receiving
end of that kind of abusive behavior _from Zed_.

Some people abusing you doesn't provide you license to abuse other people
while complaining about how you hate abusive people.

------
jkire
> 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 completely masking his point. He
obviously feels something is wrong with the way HN is moderated, but based
solely on his tone I'm in no way inclined to a) take his point seriously and
b) actually start a discussion about the way HN is moderated. If he hadn't
been swearing like a sailor, gave some example comments that support his
point, etc, then people would be way more inclined to actually get involved.

~~~
icebraining
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.

~~~
gear54rus
I feel you. Sadly, almost no one else here does. I am yet to determine as to
why, but everyone prefers smoothed-out shit to blunt truth. And the topics
discussed here are not even that emotional compared to other possible
alternatives.

This is also said in the context of the recent 'blabla no negativity' rule.

~~~
DanBC
"The rule is no gratuitous negativity. You can be negative, just try to at
least be constructive about it"

"The rule is no gratuitous negativity you stupid fuck. You can be negative,
just try to be constructive".

Which sentence do you think is goig to derail conversations and lead to
useless but heated argument?

~~~
gear54rus
If people are not obsessively looking for reasons to be offended (which kind
of might hint about subtle underlying psychological problems) - neither.

~~~
DanBC
Calling someone a stupid fuck is clearly corrosive and going to derail
threads. Do you really not see that?

And placing the blame for that on mental health problems? That's ignorant and
lazy.

~~~
gear54rus
Why is the premises here that everything to the last letter has to be taken
seriously? I'll be damned, but there's reddit? netsec and such places. They
seem to fare pretty well. Relevant rules?

\- Don't create unnecessary conflict.

\- Keep the discussion on topic.

\- Limit the use of jokes & memes.

Places a bit of trust in people's hands instead of slapping 'lel no this, lel
no that'.

I can't say I blame something or someone (well maybe people introducing those
rules), after all it barely affects me.

~~~
DanBC
You don't think that calling someone a stupid fuck is creating unnecessary
conflict?

~~~
gear54rus
> taken seriously

It absolutely does not always do that (although you've chosen a pretty harsh
phrase which has a high chance to be considered extreme).

------
josteink
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 figures,
warranted or not, receive slanderous comments everywhere across the internet
where internet egg-heads like ourselves can post comments.

Tough shit. It's a internet-wide problem. It's like a law of sorts. Should we
call it Zed's law? The problem is that nobody knows what the solution is.
Nope. None.

Blaming Paul for not making a special-case of you and comments written about
you on a site who is supposed to be as open and transparent as possible (or at
least likes to pretend so) doesn't make much sense. It honestly makes you look
like an entitled child wanting special treatment others cannot expect.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but if your beef is how your public figure
is reflected via HN, posts and drama like this is not likely to help.

Cheers.

\- Some random internet egg-head, but at least not a anon or throw-away. Hope
that makes you feel better.

~~~
thrillgore
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.

------
rtpg
The core point of this (people are jerks, especially on HN) has been a
recurring theme ever since the new mods have showed up on HN, trying to clean
up our act. Things seem a lot better than a year ago, and I try extremely hard
to assume good faith from people on the other side of the screen when replying
to comments (helps my mood a lot).

But this suffers from the same thing everything I read from Shaw: such strong
language. I can't comment for him (I think I've seen him post before, would be
interested), but my impression is that he's genuinely hurt by these people. Is
he trying to change anything, or just venting?

> I’d like to point out that one of the reasons most of your moronic baby
> penis followers hate me is because I wiped out epic amounts of Ruby on Rails
> with one blog post full of truth.

This doesn't make me want to agree at all. I like HN and don't give 2 shits
about RoR. I care deeply about making the internet slightly better by
convincing people to stop being assholes. But hey, this is pretty rude! I
won't quote the entire thing, but it's a lot of crass imagery.

Maybe this is satire, but I don't think so. I don't have a witty conclusion to
reading this, just a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach

~~~
scrollaway
It's very inconsistent. Replace "Paul Graham" by "John Doe", "Hacker News" by
"Kernel driver" and "Zed Shaw" by "Linus Torvalds" and the commentary becomes
"hihi oh my, that is some funnily crass imagery".

Language is just language. Crass language exaggerates a point, an emotion. If
the underlying point is poor in the first place, the only thing swearing does
is amplify how stupid the whole thing is.

~~~
rtpg
For the record, I think Linus' usage of crass language is just as pointless.
It's totally possible to show that you're pissed without demanding that
someone be shot or aborted.

Language is not "just" language, there's underlying nuance, history in usage
of an expression, and overall context. There are degrees, of course, but when
you start offending a large portion of your potential audience _solely_
because of the words you choose, it might be important to consider how you say
things.

Though that language usage might be part of one' objective, I think Linus'
objectives is furthering the development of Linux, not the advancement of
cutting-edge English language insults.

~~~
scrollaway
I think Linus' swearing is pointless as well, but people don't get turned off
from his posts because the underlying point he makes tends to be true, which
is what I'm trying to say here.

~~~
rtpg
having a hard time parsing your comment, and I don't want to do too much back
and forth, but:

If you go back to some HN posts linking to mailing list stuff with one of
Linus' rants, there's often more than one person saying "I do not want to work
on Linux because of how Linus talks".

This could be exaggeration, but it's turned off people and it turns me off.
Though I agree that Linus does gets brownie points due to his usual rightness
on the technical domain.

In the words of the Dude: not wrong, just an asshole.

------
bshimmin
Do people really think HN's denizens are abusive? I remember usenet from the
mid-nineties. It was really, really bad. People would routinely post very
graphic messages about killing other people (and worse), and sometimes there'd
be personally-identifiable information posted (like physical addresses), and
all manner of other intensely awful stuff would happen. This was usually
restricted to certain groups, but due to the nature of "cross-posting", it
would often spread all over the place - in fact, people would quite often
randomly add "nice" groups into a massive flamewar just to cause trouble.

Sometimes the police would be involved, too, but they never did anything -
from what I can remember - because usenet didn't have real-life celebrities on
it (apart from a few sci-fi and fantasy authors) and was fairly
incomprehensible in comparison with, say, Twitter or Facebook. Also, teenagers
didn't commit suicide very often from it so I suppose it was hard to turn it
into a political issue.

 _But_ , Usenet also had some really great discussion on it, and with a good
news client (like slrn) was vastly better than any web forum anyone has ever
come up with since... and with a suitably powerful client, you could actually
filter out a lot of the abuse too.

Against all of that, anyway, HN seems incredibly tame to me.

~~~
zimpenfish
> Against all of that, anyway, HN seems incredibly tame to me.

Comparitive badness of online forums is just a variant of Dawkin's "Dear
Muslima" nonsense.

~~~
eropple
Agreed in full--because X is really bad, Y should not get a pass for being
mostly bad. And if laundry's going to get aired, there's a _ton_ of virulently
racist, sexist, and anti-poor garbage that gets thrown around here, not even
by green accounts, that actually gets voted up.

HN has a problem. I've discussed it offline with people, including dang.
Nobody seems to have a solution for it, but a solution needs to exist. (I
mean, the real solution is to fix the incentives that turn tech people into
ravening shitweasels, but I think that's out of scope for a message board.)

~~~
zimpenfish
Given the popularity of my comparison, I think you've already lost that
battle.

~~~
eropple
I think you're right, and it makes me sad. The reflexive urge to downvote
cultural criticism is a pretty bad one--we as people (not "tech people", but
_people_ ) need to be forever vigilant against making the world a worse place.
We do it a lot. But that responsibility is not terribly fashionable.

------
abalone
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.
It's his ideas about security that kill."_ \- @tqbf [2]

So, not really a retraction of "slander", just a clarification that the guy's
ideas on security are terrible. Now I kind of want to see that video.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/7668904147](https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/7668904147)

~~~
stingraycharles
I tried to find the video, which used to be hosted at
[http://www.viddler.com/explore/rentzsch/videos/31/](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 and deRaadt, and that Zed Shaw is very sensitive to criticism.

~~~
PopeOfNope
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."

------
DanBC
I'd be interested to know how often that video got posted, and how many
upvotes it got each time, and how many flags etc it got.

And Zed uses circular reasoning: he uses himself as an example of a mean
poster who gets upvotes but then complains when HN downvotes or flags his
meanness.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2440939](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2440939)

> Over the years here and before I started commenting people called me a
> cocksucker, cock, asshole, douchebag, and every mean ass thing you can
> imagine. They do it to other people too, and I sure as hell don't see anyone
> getting flagged or kicked off. If you pick someone unpopular to insult
> you're totally allowed to be a dick here.

i'd love to see an example comment of someone calling someone sle one of those
names and not being downvoted or flagged for it (I guess with the exception of
powerful people where a certain amount of punching up is tolerated). More
specifically I'd like to see a post where someone made comments like that
about Zed Shaw.

Here's one from six years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=703219](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=703219)

And here's one from two years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6806864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6806864)

Searching for [zed shaw asshole] returns a bunch of people saying that he
isn't an asshole; or that he's only an asshole to people who attack him; or
that he's sometimes justifiably an asshole. It also returns a lot of zed shaw
calling other people assholes.

------
panic
What does Zed actually want to happen here? For HN moderators to remove
comments critical of him or his work? This entire post and the attitude behind
it seem really childish. I'm confused why anyone is voting it up.

~~~
zamalek
TLDR; "I don't care what people on HN think about me. I'm concerned that other
people are being treated the same was I was."

Although I haven't seen any of these supposed hate posts on HN recently
(likely due to the new mods) but knowing the internet I can be certain that,
from a historical standpoint, there is possibly credence to what he is saying.

------
jacquesm
Nothing anybody ever said about Zed did Zed as much damage as anything Zed
himself said. I'm flagging this because I don't think that Zed is doing
himself a favour with this post.

~~~
vixen99
His language and metaphors diminish him to an extent that he evidently does
not appreciate. It's an obsessive habit I guess he'll never drop. I think
that's something to regret.

------
hueving
>What if I started offering to advise new coders, the millions I teach a year
(yes, millions Paul) to avoid all of your company’s startups?

Talk about delusions of grandeur. Just because people read advise on
programming doesn't mean they will listen to political rants of yours. In
fact, that's usually the quickest way to kill off your audience. Good
programming insights will quickly be shadowed by talk of slobbering on Paul's
balls.

------
VeejayRampay
People can say what they want about Zed Shaw, in the end, he built things.
Things used by millions of people. And he does deserve respect for that.

~~~
jacquesm
Building things is nice and will get you respect for building things.
Attacking people and being abusive will typically undo some of that.

The tech community has a couple of other examples of people that built things
and that managed to lose a lot or even all of the respect they deserved for
that because of other things they did.

~~~
VeejayRampay
I would agree with that, definitely. But then I would expect both sides of the
story to be expressed in a more balanced manner in the articles criticizing
the contents of what has been produced. I've found that more often than not,
people tend to be blindsided and go for blood because it's better shock value
and helps create buzz and clicks.

Something akin to: "Zed Shaw took on a complicated task, one that hasn't been
fully mastered since K&R, but he still took a swing. The author knows what
he's talking about, having produced software X/Y/Z. Yet, teaching C, a
language that has known worldwide adoption in all layers of software for the
past 30 years or so, is such a divisive and complicated matter that I feel
that even a skilled programmer such as him somehow missed the mark. Here's my
opinion about the good aspects and somewhat less perfect bits of Learn C the
Hard Way, so that future readers will know where to exercise caution and where
to relax while unleashing C's potential".

This conveys the very same opinion, but in a way that is less polarizing and
recognizes that writing a book about C programming _is_ a touchy subject,
where opinions are aplenty and often strongly engrained in a long-established
mindset, making any potential author a target for criticism.

But really, I absolutely agree that "You built something" is never an excuse
for any behaviour, I would just like to think that it buys any person a wee
bit more of the benefit of the doubt.

~~~
threatofrain
I agree with your opinion, but I also add: being accomplished gives you a
microphone for both the insightful and the insulting things you have to say.
It's unfortunate that sometimes smart people don't realize that not everyone's
words are equally powerful.

------
kainolophobia
I randomly found this after clicking on that other C link today (Don't learn C
the wrong way or something), only to realize that I had no idea what I was
reading but to note that it had just been posted.

A quick overview made me realize this would reach the top of HN and that I no
longer cared about the argument within. As an industry of people at the
forefront of technology, why do we try to hurt each other?

~~~
aikah
I would be surprised if that news doesn't get flagged and killed(not by me I
have no stakes in this).

This an old a complicated story about people with ego being a jerks to one
another especially in the Rails world. Rails used to be the new shiny stuff
everybody wanted a piece of it because loads of $$$ so everybody started to be
mean and tried to kill other's consultancy for greed.

But the internet doesn't forget so , if you behave like an ass on the
internet, 7 years after people can certainly google you and stumble upon your
past deeds...

[http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-
ghetto](http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto)

~~~
_RPM
> I’ll add one more thing to the people reading this: I mean business when I
> say I’ll take anyone on who wants to fight me. You think you can take me,
> I’ll pay to rent a boxing ring and beat your fucking ass legally. Remember
> that I’ve studied enough martial arts to be deadly

------
hueving
>In fact, I had job offers from a YC startup and a non-YC startup and am
looking at the non-YC startup, just because of HN.

From the tone of this article, it sounds like YC startup would end up coming
out ahead in this deal. This guy sounds pretty immature and emotionally
unstable. I wouldn't want to work with someone like that.

------
qrendel
1) If every site shut down or removed commenting every time someone was
personally attacked, even repeatedly, there'd be no one left. I've sustained
my fair share of attacks in the past as well (not on HN), and had some
abrasive interactions here as well, but the vast majority of comments on HN
have nothing to do with the behaviors described. So claiming it's worthless
and only serves to facilitate personal attacks seems pretty unfounded, except
possibly for a few more well-known members who may be easy targets.

2) Posts like this basically show you've been worn down to a high degree of
vulnerability and will likely encourage more attacks in the future. Want to
see any of the involved parties hurt, or watch one side wage war on the other
just for the lulz? Now it's easy: start an anonymous smear campaign against
Shaw. (Though I'm not recommending this.)

My sympathies to anyone who experiences this kind of thing, but it seems a
pretty counterproductive thing to post.

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

------
ablation
This post is a prime example of why you should take a deep breath, count to
ten, and make sure you _really_ want to post that long rant in a public place
online.

------
NamTaf
I'm pretty sure I'm here for reasons other than to slander people and it's
working out pretty well for me so far, so I don't think the claim that this is
a place 'only' for slandering people really holds up. Drawing comparison
between HN and some abortion protestors is not really a good way to make a
point, either - that's just immature and insensitive.

The whole rambling post seems rather crazy and the OP probably needs some help
over the (I'm sure very real) issues he faced several years ago. This isn't a
healthy means of dealing with it at all.

~~~
scrollaway
Yeah... you'll find people being jerks everywhere. Most often, you'll find
people being jerks without knowing they're being jerks.

But if it happens to _you_ , then the source is "the cesspool of the
internet". I hope Zed knows he's being hyperbolic here, otherwise he's got
another thing coming.

~~~
pwoeir
"..he's got another thing coming."

I am curious about what you think this means?

~~~
ColinWright
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 atomic phrase, not to be understood by trying to
take it apart and examining the components. This is a common occurrence in
linguistics.

Annoys the hell outta me.

~~~
shabble
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn)

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

------
blfr
Does pg run HN or even YC at this point?

Either way, this post applies just as much to any website which allows user
content. There were Wordpress blogs calling for false police reports, tumblr
and twitter feuds where posters tried to get someone fired (and occasionally
succeeded), etc.

HN isn't even particularly bad in this regard or set to personally go after
Zed Shaw. He has an account here and is often upvoted through the roof when he
posts.

~~~
Shank
Nope. [http://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over-
hack...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/meet-the-people-taking-over-hacker-news)

------
adamnemecek
> Would I have to cost you millions before you decided it wasn’t worth it to
> run a shitty 1990s forum site just to listen to a bunch of grown men
> complain about another grown man’s choice of hobby while they jerk their
> tiny puds at fake tits MILF porn?

Funny that this is a sentence in a paragraph titled "So Mature, Right?".

------
dfischer
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 content is hard to
moderate, and gets harder to moderate with popularity.

The message behind the curtain, negativity, tone, and ego is good but probably
a fantasy. This is simply the world we live in.

I actually don't see too much insults on HN. They are usually voted out on to
the bottom, and 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). Through back and forth
some people own up to their comments as mistakes and it's pleasant to see that
maturation.

It's quite a marvelous thing to see what we have here. It's more of an example
of human nature than anything, and the contrast between HN and Reddit is an
interesting study of itself.

Is hacker news the problem or the way people choose to behave and communicate?

TL;DR Just be nice to people. Try not to let trolls get under your skin. Put
your ego aside.

~~~
eropple
_> 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.

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

------
lenocinor
I try not to use shortcuts like this, but I'm always very wary of vitriolic
posts that address the founder of a site with "Dear <first name>", thanks to
Something Awful: [http://www.somethingawful.com/news/annotated-dear-
richard/](http://www.somethingawful.com/news/annotated-dear-richard/) It's
happened so many times over there that it became cliche, as that post
indicates.

------
danmaz74
> I mean fuck man we all know HN “hackers” flat refuse to buy anything except
> porn, lube, and prosthetic dildos to compensate for their teeny tiny
> weenies.

I feel slandered. Should I write a post and threaten the OP to cause millions
of damages to him until he closes his blog?

------
yankoff
Judging from his previous rants, Zed tends to overreact to things and blow out
of proportion. Idiot commentors are everywhere, you don't just shutdown the
community because of that. Other than that seems like a great guy.

~~~
stock_toaster
Don't forget that celebrity can work both ways -- positive and negative. Just
saying it is hard to tell if someone is overreacting without more information.

------
hueving
Does this guy understand that HN is user-submitted content? It's like reading
complaints from an old-man the first time he uses the Internet and comes
across something offensive.

~~~
icebraining
Yes, I'm pretty sure that zedshaw, who has been an HN user for much longer
than you have, understands how it works. Now why don't you try reading the
piece under the assumption that he isn't a moron?

~~~
hueving
Well the other conclusion that you have to come to is that he thinks he should
not be allowed to be criticized on the Internet, which is pretty naive. The
same thing could happen on reddit, 4chan, etc.

~~~
krainboltgreene
Well as long as we're setting the bar so high...

------
SwellJoe
I worry about Zed. He's obviously a very bright guy, a very helpful guy, and a
very productive guy. But, he also seems to be dealing with a lot of pain.

It's true that the Internet hate machine focuses on Zed a lot more often than
many in his position (as he notes, he isn't powerful, he isn't wealthy, he is
merely nerd famous), and I'm uncomfortable with that and don't support that. I
like to see the hate machine directed exclusively at powerful, or at least
evil, people. Someone like Zed, as we can see from his response, can be
genuinely hurt by it. And, that's unfortunate. He doesn't deserve to
experience this pain, regardless of how angry or upset his tone or approach
can make some folks feel.

That said, Zed's not doing himself or anyone else any favors with public
meltdowns like this (this is not the first, though it may be the worst). I
don't believe HN is anywhere near the worst offender, with regard to personal
attacks and similar being tolerated. In fact, I can't think of a site that is
more pro-active about excising personal attacks. However, sometimes there is a
bit of a blind spot when personal attacks are directed at someone "famous". I
don't remember any of the negative posts Zed is talking about; and I've been
using HN since _very_ early, and far more regularly than is healthy. I don't
know what he's talking about; what he describes is a massive, orchestrated
effort to defame and insult Zed Shaw, with many participants.

I don't know how I could be so completely oblivious to something on such a
scale. So, one of us is imagining the scale of the problem. It is either
vanishingly small (compared to other sites with user content), as I see it, or
it is the predominant tone of the site, as Zed sees it. It really can't be
both. Since the reality of the site I see is so very different from the
reality of the site Zed sees, I find it hard to be sympathetic to his plea for
reform. I want to be sympathetic, and I don't want to deny Zed's lived
experience. But, reading what he's written and making that fit into my own
reality of HN just isn't working.

Finally, the tone of this rant is so far beyond acceptable that I'm even less
inclined to sympathy or empathy. What he accuses HN, and pg, of doing (that
I'm really finding hard to believe without references), he is _actively doing_
in this rant. This is an attack on every HN user, in addition to pg. I'm not
particularly bothered by it; I've been on the Internet a long time, and I
don't take any of this shit personally. And, I imagine pg is not terribly
bothered by it (and he can wipe any tears away with one of his hundreds of
millions of dollars). But, Zed _is_ definitely making it personal.

I have never wished Zed anything other than the best. But, this rant does make
me think maybe both he and I would be happier if he took a break from the
Internet for a while.

And, on that note, have I just completely missed seemingly years of sustained
and intense Zed hatred on HN or is Zed imagining that it is far more pervasive
than it really is?

------
madaxe_again
Something about penises?

Seriously, that's an impressive number of phallic references. Something on
your mind?

------
PaulRobinson
"Man who feels he is subject of slanderous ad hominem attack decides to
retaliate with baseless ad hominem attacks, more at 11..."

------
facepalm
I only know of Zed because of HN. I'm aware that there are controversies about
him, but overall I have a positive impression of him.

Just goes to show that other people probably don't think as much about oneself
as oneself is prone to think.

------
ratfacemcgee
wait, he's upset cause something got posted to HN? why is he upset with Paul?
That's like someone getting the shits with Gutenberg because a newspaper
printed something.

~~~
getsat
It's more like being mad at the owner of a particular newspaper for
allowing/turning a blind eye to/actively encouraging certain kinds of content
to be printed in said newspaper.

Your analogy would fit if Zed was directing his post at the creator of the
"online forum" in general.

~~~
ratfacemcgee
ahh good point.

------
subudeepak
I still don't understand HN's algo. The current 1st post has 301 points in 7
hrs while this post has 301 points in 3 hours but is in the second page ??

~~~
dang
Posts like this get massive upvotes but they also get massive flags. The
upvotes make the post go up and the flags make it go down. That's what
happened here.

------
HiroshiSan
Zed, after reading this (and reading a few of your other posts) I can't help
but be drawn to the honesty you put into your writing and the honesty you put
out into the world. I really value that in a person. Though conversely, I
can't help but feel that I'd take your advice with a grain of salt (which I
think is healthy for almost EVERY piece of advice...but more-so with yours).

------
necrodawg
Do things. Tell people. Ignore the hate.

I know it's hard. There are people out there who will make you regret ever
making/doing something and sharing it with the community.

Like my dawg Kanye West said, "...usually when you're the absolute best, you
get hated on the most.'

------
derefr
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,
anonymously. I would think they would continue to do this in a different
venue, if their ability to do it on HN were removed. (By stating this, I'm
trying to short-circuit all the talk of whether HN is a place that
incentivizes or disincentivizes such talk by banning people, etc. In the end,
it doesn't seem to matter if such talk is discouraged _on HN_ ; the talk will
still be generated somewhere else, and will percolate around the internet
until it reaches Mr. Shaw all the same.)

On the other hand, HN could help Zed figure out who is anonymously slandering
him. HN could put him in touch with these people. They would probably stop
after even a plain small-talk conversation, due to having generated even a
shred of empathy for the man.

But is this HN's responsibility? Maybe! Right now HN is just barely moderated
at all, and even that's a step up from when it was pg's hobby that he had no
time for.

HN would be a very different place if it was trying to behave in a "role
model" fashion toward the tech community. Maybe you'd have to tie your (long-
lived, active) Facebook/LinkedIn profile to your (thus forced-to-be-unique)
account, which the mods would then see even though you'd then get a choice of
pseudonym. Maybe "throwaway accounts" would only be a temporary privilege
granted by asking a mod to make one for you in an exceptional circumstance,
and only exist within one post-thread. Etc.

I can certainly see ways in which HN could be systematically less _tolerant_
of abusive behavior—trying to stop it at the source, rather than just making
it go somewhere else. But is this a fight YC wants to fight?

I could see this ending with HN being handed over to its own community under
some foundation, because YC doesn't want to take responsibility for
shepherding the tech community in the way I'm talking about. I could also see
YC think that doing exactly what I said above would be a great PR move. What I
can't see is HN being shut down: if it was, everyone here would just flock to
another place (Lobste.rs?) and continue to be the same community.

~~~
bootload
_" 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 realised there is _absolutely_ no way this will
happen. THe site has its origin in one person and translated into code where
the only metric is an UP or DOWN vote. What that vote means has drifted as the
site has added users over the years.

 _" What I can't see is HN being shut down"_

It will just become irrelevant.

~~~
PopeOfNope
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.

~~~
bootload
_" HN has an outsized influence on the startup culture in San Francisco and
the tech community across the world."_

Difficult to tease apart HN and YC. From the outside HN may look like YC but
isn't. Agree though. Didn't use to be like this. Nobody cared.

~~~
jacquesm
I'd argue that HN and YC used to be a lot more fused in the past than they are
today.

------
hedwall
Ever since he (Zed) was a complete asshole to Bagder (of cURL) I can't take
him serious. He is just an abusive asshole with some sort of superiority
complex. I would link to the conversation but it was on twitter (so probably
gone by now).

------
hoodoof
I think rather alot of people like Zed Shaw and step to his defence.

------
patrickwiseman
Might we be making the mistake of confusing neglect for malice?

------
bootload
_" I would notice that about once every 6 months this video would get posted,
and then the HN crowd would call me the worst shit ever."_

That's a problem.

 _" I hate abusive fucks, and right now HN is so abusive and out of control
that someone has to do something about it."_

also a problem.

 _" I keep a low profile professionally, and personally because of HN."_

Another problem.

 _" It’s now causing more damage than good, and a simple curated news site
without comments or with only YC companies commenting is a better option."_

Good solution.

HN really has been dropping in civility. The post quality seems ok and _new_
is broken and can be improved (contact Dan if you have any good ideas) [0]

As for me, when I read about @Zed, a prolific hacker who gives so much away,
being pissed-off enough to write this I think I'll spend less time here.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DanBC](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DanBC)

~~~
DanBC
Don't contact me! I have nothing to do with HN. I just post a lot. Contact the
other Dan, dang, who is a mod and can implement ideas.

------
pluma
ossreality, FYI you're hellbanned. All of your comments are dead.

~~~
DanBC
Did you read the comments? It's pretty obvious why.

------
jlgaddis
Who's Paul?

~~~
emsy
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.

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

------
Dewie3
I'm surprised he didn't get worked up to the point where he challenged any
particular HN poster to a fight, or just any _hater_ HN regular in general. He
got close on some occasions, but never all the way.

------
throwawaw2031
Lets look at some of Zed Shaw's comments.

 _I hate abusive fucks, and right now HN is so abusive and out of control that
someone has to do something about it._

I've just looked at his blog and it is full of insults and slurs about other
people.

He's a hypocrite.

 _Currently the most popular way to slander someone on HN is to create a
“throwaway” or “anon” account, say what you want, then slink off into the
shadows like a weak limp dicked little loser._

 _I mean fuck man we all know HN “hackers” flat refuse to buy anything except
porn, lube, and prosthetic dildos to compensate for their teeny tiny weenies._

 _Is it that your balls are so incredibly dirty that you periodically need to
have a bunch of grown men come slob away at your scrotum every demo day?_

 _Would I have to cost you millions before you decided it wasn’t worth it to
run a shitty 1990s forum site just to listen to a bunch of grown men complain
about another grown man’s choice of hobby while they jerk their tiny puds at
fake tits MILF porn?_

He loves to be macho and call people names.

 _You may be chuckling now, but I’d like to point out that one of the reasons
most of your moronic baby penis followers hate me is because I wiped out epic
amounts of Ruby on Rails with one blog post full of truth._

 _I also have two books that bring in more traffic in a month than probably
all the traffic your bottom 80% startups bring in during a whole year._

 _What if I started offering to advise new coders, the millions I teach a year
(yes, millions Paul) to avoid all of your company’s startups?_

He's a narcissist.

 _I’m not physically afraid of the idiots there. I bet most of them start
breathing hard when their fingers break 100WPM on their fancy “hacker” sticker
coated MacBooks._

From another post of his: _I’ll add one more thing to the people reading this:
I mean business when I say I’ll take anyone on who wants to fight me. You
think you can take me, I’ll pay to rent a boxing ring and beat your fucking
ass legally. Remember that I’ve studied enough martial arts to be deadly even
though I’m old, and I don’t give a fuck if I kick your mother fucking ass or
you kick mine. You don’t like what I’ve said, then write something in reply
but fuck you if you think you’re gonna talk to me like you can hurt me.

I’ll never be afraid of some pilsner fresh fat fuck who eats donut hamburgers
and only gets exercise when he plays World of Warcraft on a DDR pad._

He's a thug.

 _Because after 7 years of abuse I’ve had to adjust my life around the raving
fucking idiots on HN and the rampant abusive shit they say._

That would happen in any community he participated in.

.

I don't know why people like a person like this. He seems to be poison to most
people around him. A person who will beat you into disability if you say
anything that doesn't support him or you look at him the wrong way.

He may have written some things that are moderately popular, but still his
behavior is harmful. A murderer does not get excused because of the work they
do.

So I still don't get it. Why do people like him?

~~~
dang
This post actually does cross the line into being a personal attack. We don't
need character assassination attempts in this thread or any other.

------
horsesmouth
> Currently the most popular way to slander someone on HN is to _create a
> “throwaway” or “anon” account_ , say what you want, then slink off into the
> shadows like a _weak limp dicked little loser_

> undescended nerd testicles

> your balls are so incredibly dirty

> their tiny puds

> your moronic baby penis followers

> their teeny tiny weenies

> men with tiny little mosquito penises

Well, from the horse's mouth:
[http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zMZZPiJrBo0/maxresdefault.jpg](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zMZZPiJrBo0/maxresdefault.jpg)

------
las_cases
This article speaks at the heart of online bullying and how mediums such as HN
promote it even without being aware of it it seems.

I am quite saddened that persons such as jacquesm[1] who are otherwise
respectful individuals want to shove a fist in the mouth of persons who have
been victims of bullying (such as he does on this thread).

And this post has disappeared from the front page in less than an hour. I am
disappointed by the HN community reaction.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jacquesm](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jacquesm)

~~~
jacquesm
Since you feel the need to address me by name:

I think you're mistaken about my intent, besides, calling Zed the 'victim of
bullying' is in a way humorous given that Zed has personally driven a couple
of good contributors away from HN.

I don't think leaving this post up does Zed any favours, it shows him as
caustic, uncivil and downright hostile. For a professional that translates
into 'hiring risk', and that's something Zed probably does not need more of.

Feel free to be disappointed but my memory regarding Zed's interaction with
others on HN is definitely not lacking in resolution.

Zed is a fantastically productive programmer that is super sensitive to
criticism of any kind and will come out swinging with all manner of insults
whenever he perceives one of the conspiracies against him (for which I have
yet to see proof), and this blog post is a nice example of that. It's a pity
that Zed feels the need to periodically tear down the reputation he's building
for himself but that seems to be his nature, this is just a re-run.

------
corysama
Maybe I spent to much time on 4chan. As in, any time at all. But, I was more
than a bit moved when I heard moot claim "People deserve a place to be wrong."

I believe that arguing is a tremendously important and valuable activity. So
much so that I'd argue that even tired old arguments with idiots and assholes
are worth revisiting occasionally because sometimes, on rare and special
occasions, idiots/assholes have something to teach you. Not nearly as often as
they like to think. But, sometimes.

Usually they don't. Usually their arguments are ill-formed, confusing,
irritating, a bit scary, pretty-surely not worth the emotional investment
required to confront. But, if you don't occasionally perform a genuine check
on your assumption that the assholes are also idiots, you shouldn't continue
to confidently move forward acting on that assumption.

I think that HN is incredibly valuable. I think it still has a fine mixture of
inspirational and questionable criticism. Not a homogeneous, consistent,
reliable mix, but a fine mix nonetheless. But also, not a mix that is
effortlessly self-sustaining, certainly.

And so, even though I disagree with him, I'd like to thank Zed for making the
personal expenditure to call out HN on some of it's bullshit. He's on the
receiving end of more criticism than most. Whether that criticism is
inspirational or questionable is a good question... Either way, although
that's a downside that should be expected from his, let's say, 'unusual' and
highly public style, expected doesn't mean easy. I certainly have no idea.

So, thanks anyway Zed, you magnificent asshole, for checking your assumption.
Here's hoping you find it in you to continue checking until you learn
something.

