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"Shriek" has been in the jargon file since pre-ESR. See http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-1.5.0.dos.txt http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-1.5.0.dos.txt

• philh 11y ago
  Against my better judgment, I went through the archives to check for changes to the politics entry. As far as I can tell, this is the complete list of entries: First entry, 1991-01-03: http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-2.3.1.dos.txt http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-2.3.1.dos.txt > Vaguely left of center, except for the strong libertarian contingent which rejects conventional left-right politics entirely. The only safe generalization is that almost all hackers are anti-authoritarian, thus both conventional conservatism and "hard" leftism are rare. Hackers are far more likely than most non-hackers to either a) be aggressively apolitical, or b) entertain peculiar or idiosyncratic political ideas and actually try to live by them day-to-day. 1991-08-16: http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-2.9.6.dos.txt http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-2.9.6.dos.txt > Vaguely left of center, except for the strong libertarian contingent which rejects conventional left-right politics entirely. The only safe generalization is that hackers tend to be rather anti-authoritarian; thus, both conventional conservatism and `hard' leftism are rare. Hackers are far more likely than most non-hackers to either (a) be aggressively apolitical or (b) entertain peculiar or idiosyncratic political ideas and actually try to live by them day-to-day. (almost all -> tend to be) 1996-01-20: http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-3.3.0.dos.txt http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-3.3.0.dos.txt > Vaguely liberal-moderate, except for the strong libertarian contingent which rejects conventional left-right politics entirely. The only safe generalization is that hackers tend to be rather anti-authoritarian; thus, both conventional conservatism and `hard' leftism are rare. Hackers are far more likely than most non-hackers to either (a) be aggressively apolitical or (b) entertain peculiar or idiosyncratic political ideas and actually try to live by them day-to-day. (left of center -> liberal-moderate) 2003-05-10: http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-4.4.0.dos.txt http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-4.4.0.dos.txt > Formerly vaguely liberal-moderate, more recently moderate-to-neoconservative (hackers too were affected by the collapse of socialism). There is a strong libertarian contingent which rejects conventional left-right politics entirely. The only safe generalization is that hackers tend to be rather anti-authoritarian; thus, both paleoconservatism and `hard' leftism are rare. Hackers are far more likely than most non-hackers to either (a) be aggressively apolitical or (b) entertain peculiar or idiosyncratic political ideas and actually try to live by them day-to-day. (liberal-moderate -> moderate-to-neoconservative) In twelve years, he changed "vaguely left of center" to "liberal-moderate" to "recently moderate-to-neoconservative", none of which are positions that ESR identifies with. If this is the most egregious example of the problem you're describing, color me unconvinced.
  • kbenson 11y ago
    While not having an opinion on this, I think it would be entirely believable that if there was a shift in political views, it possible it may be more strongly expressed in examples and wordings of tangentially related topics rather than the specific description of political affiliation. For example, whether the change was intentional or not, the author noticing and self censuring their views in that entry (for whatever purpose) would be more likely than in others. In other words, that may be the least likely entry to see a specific change that follows the author's point of view because of it's very nature.
    • philh 11y ago
      I somewhat agree, but * There aren't many politically-related definitions (fisking and anti-idiotarianism are two), and the ones there are don't necessarily describe the political leanings of what the book describes as "hackers". * mwfunk said the process was not subtle. What you describe seems pretty subtle. * It's a meme I've heard several times, that ESR did this by updating the politics entry. See for example mwfunk's comment in the linked thread. So, I decline to give mwfunk the benefit of the doubt here. If it wasn't a subtle process, it should be easy to point at the problematic changes. When it comes to ESR, my advice is not to believe a word you hear about him unless you can verify it.
      • kbenson 11y ago
        > If it wasn't a subtle process, it should be easy to point at the problematic changes. Fair enough. > When it comes to ESR, my advice is not to believe a word you hear about him unless you can verify it. Probably sane advice for any polarizing public figure.