5 ms·

To be very fair, I love how honest and forthcoming Mike was with this news. That was hard and he could have covered it up. To all the deniers and Mike-haters ou

by kloncks 17y ago

To be very fair, I love how honest and forthcoming Mike was with this news. That was hard and he could have covered it up. To all the deniers and Mike-haters out there, I think this only goes to show the type of person he is. Also, I love how the identity of the intern wasn't disclosed. Not only does it allow him to make amends and learn from his mistakes, it also shows the level of professionalism that stems from TechCrunch.

vaksel 17y ago
screw that, unethical behavior like this needs to be exposed...if Mike won't say who it is, I will: if you want to know who it is go here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1102828 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1102828
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  We all make mistakes as a teenager, often involving a lack of ethics. He just happened to do it in a very public way. As Michael said, hopefully he will learn from this situation.
  - pvg 17y ago
    You're making it sound like it's some sort of minor slip-up that happened to get publicized. Say you make a habit of accepting expensive dinners from a source who is interested in you writing about them. Or embellishing a story a little. Or say you even take a MacBook Air from a source at their suggestion. Those are lapses in ethical judgment. Running around repeatedly asking for people to give you stuff so you write about them is just being an outright slimeball.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - plinkplonk 17y ago
      "You're making it sound like it's some sort of minor slip-up that happened to get publicized." I think his point was (EDIT: I am just clarifying what I think his point was, not endorsing it) not that it was a "minor slipup" but that the person who committed this is a kid and not an adult (17 is a bit borderline but still pretty young)and he is asking for some compassion and discretion. At least that is how I read it. fwiw, I have no position on the matter but I tend to a (purely subjective) viewpoint he has been punished enough.
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        There are two sides to this story. Let me ask this question, because it seems it needs asking: 1) has anybody here ever been approached by other 'writers' who will do a write-up in exchange for goodies ? 2) has anybody here been approached by writers to post links under their HN username ? The second has definitely happened to me, the first was so oblique that it might be my misunderstanding. But I'm fairly surprised, what's your call, should I out the publication ? The person doing the canvassing ? I've been wondering about what to do with this. As for the way this 'kid' (I'm putting that in quotes because if you are smart enough to ask for computers worth quite a bit of money you are smart enough to understand there are consequences if you get caught) has behaved, the other side to that story is those companies that did not get written about because they refused to play ball. We're not talking about an accident or an oversight here, but at a deliberate attempt at fraud, and not a one-off but part of a pattern. I don't see even being fired and having to return the goods to his employer who will presumably re-imburse the people that 'paid' for it is a punishment, that leaves him at '0'. TC is handling this as good as they can after the fact, but before you give someone access to the editorial process don't you at least read them the riot act as to what the consequences will be if they do something like this? Just like the 'real' newspapers companies like TC wield some power and it is important to make sure that everybody that is in on the process knows exactly where the line is. If TC did make it clear in advance what is permissible I'm sympathetic to naming the guy, if not then probably not. The key bit in Mikes post is this: > on at least one other occasion So, how often did that happen ? Once ? Twice ? More ?? If more then outing the guy looks reasonable, if it is once or twice then again, probably not. I'm sympathetic with vaksels gut reaction, but slow down a bit and let's get some more data before making that call. TC has their opinion, that's fine, we're all adults and reasonably smart cookies here, I'd like to be able to trust what I read is not coloured in any way and what Mike is doing is as much damage control on behalf of TC as it is an exercise in ethics after the fact. Let's hear him out on how he has posted guidelines about how his writers should behave. No policy -> TC bad, no matter how they spin it now, Yes policy -> kid gets outed, but only if this happened more than the 2 times that we're sure about. I think that's fairly reasonable.
    - dnsworks 17y ago
      Maybe it was just a joke. Every once and a while I get called up by an especially annoying PR hack asking me to write about their latest iphone cozy (macworld being next week I get 5-7 calls like that per day because I'm somehow on the press list). When they're overly persistent I tell them to give me a Pony and I'll write about them (I'll write that they gave me a pony!). Maybe "give me a pony" is just a lot easier to understand as sarcasm than "give me a macbook air, jerk"?
      - pmjoyce 17y ago
        Unless they're from London, in which case you asking for a pony could be interpreted as asking for £25... you're selling yourself short. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_slang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_slang
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- astrec 17y ago
  (Some) Stupid stuff I did as a 17 year old: -> Deleted /var on a production system I had no right touching at a Fortune 500. -> Drove my dad's car into a fence. Unlicensed. -> Stole the street sign for Cobain St. -> Plagiarised a philosophy essay (Hegel). -> etc. etc. etc. Seventeen year old kids mess up. Seventeen year old kids grow up. Go easy tiger.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    > -> Deleted /var on a production system I had no right touching at a Fortune 500. The 'you had no right touching' bit should have been 'you should have no possibility to touch'. Whoever administered that systems shares part of the blame, you have done it, but they should have never let you get within spitting distance of a terminal capable of doing that.
    - astrec 17y ago
      Too right. Production root passwords had a planetary theme - where planetary means one of the giants in our solar system - not hard for a nosey and curious kid to take a peek at any system they wanted.
aresant 17y ago
Deleting the guy's account and leading with "Our attorneys have advised us not to disclose the name . . ." indicates that keeping his identity secret was very low priority. Expect a public apology from the kid in the next 24hrs.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Exactly. It's actually written in Mike's piece as some kind of afterthought, the legal stuff came first.
  - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
    Mike used to be a lawyer, so that shouldn't be a surprise

by kloncks 17y ago

vaksel 17y ago

screw that, unethical behavior like this needs to be exposed...if Mike won't say who it is, I will: if you want to know who it is go here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1102828 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1102828

fuzzmeister 17y ago
We all make mistakes as a teenager, often involving a lack of ethics. He just happened to do it in a very public way. As Michael said, hopefully he will learn from this situation.
- pvg 17y ago
  You're making it sound like it's some sort of minor slip-up that happened to get publicized. Say you make a habit of accepting expensive dinners from a source who is interested in you writing about them. Or embellishing a story a little. Or say you even take a MacBook Air from a source at their suggestion. Those are lapses in ethical judgment. Running around repeatedly asking for people to give you stuff so you write about them is just being an outright slimeball.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    "You're making it sound like it's some sort of minor slip-up that happened to get publicized." I think his point was (EDIT: I am just clarifying what I think his point was, not endorsing it) not that it was a "minor slipup" but that the person who committed this is a kid and not an adult (17 is a bit borderline but still pretty young)and he is asking for some compassion and discretion. At least that is how I read it. fwiw, I have no position on the matter but I tend to a (purely subjective) viewpoint he has been punished enough.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      There are two sides to this story. Let me ask this question, because it seems it needs asking: 1) has anybody here ever been approached by other 'writers' who will do a write-up in exchange for goodies ? 2) has anybody here been approached by writers to post links under their HN username ? The second has definitely happened to me, the first was so oblique that it might be my misunderstanding. But I'm fairly surprised, what's your call, should I out the publication ? The person doing the canvassing ? I've been wondering about what to do with this. As for the way this 'kid' (I'm putting that in quotes because if you are smart enough to ask for computers worth quite a bit of money you are smart enough to understand there are consequences if you get caught) has behaved, the other side to that story is those companies that did not get written about because they refused to play ball. We're not talking about an accident or an oversight here, but at a deliberate attempt at fraud, and not a one-off but part of a pattern. I don't see even being fired and having to return the goods to his employer who will presumably re-imburse the people that 'paid' for it is a punishment, that leaves him at '0'. TC is handling this as good as they can after the fact, but before you give someone access to the editorial process don't you at least read them the riot act as to what the consequences will be if they do something like this? Just like the 'real' newspapers companies like TC wield some power and it is important to make sure that everybody that is in on the process knows exactly where the line is. If TC did make it clear in advance what is permissible I'm sympathetic to naming the guy, if not then probably not. The key bit in Mikes post is this: > on at least one other occasion So, how often did that happen ? Once ? Twice ? More ?? If more then outing the guy looks reasonable, if it is once or twice then again, probably not. I'm sympathetic with vaksels gut reaction, but slow down a bit and let's get some more data before making that call. TC has their opinion, that's fine, we're all adults and reasonably smart cookies here, I'd like to be able to trust what I read is not coloured in any way and what Mike is doing is as much damage control on behalf of TC as it is an exercise in ethics after the fact. Let's hear him out on how he has posted guidelines about how his writers should behave. No policy -> TC bad, no matter how they spin it now, Yes policy -> kid gets outed, but only if this happened more than the 2 times that we're sure about. I think that's fairly reasonable.
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    Maybe it was just a joke. Every once and a while I get called up by an especially annoying PR hack asking me to write about their latest iphone cozy (macworld being next week I get 5-7 calls like that per day because I'm somehow on the press list). When they're overly persistent I tell them to give me a Pony and I'll write about them (I'll write that they gave me a pony!). Maybe "give me a pony" is just a lot easier to understand as sarcasm than "give me a macbook air, jerk"?
    - pmjoyce 17y ago
      Unless they're from London, in which case you asking for a pony could be interpreted as asking for £25... you're selling yourself short. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_slang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_slang
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
astrec 17y ago
(Some) Stupid stuff I did as a 17 year old: -> Deleted /var on a production system I had no right touching at a Fortune 500. -> Drove my dad's car into a fence. Unlicensed. -> Stole the street sign for Cobain St. -> Plagiarised a philosophy essay (Hegel). -> etc. etc. etc. Seventeen year old kids mess up. Seventeen year old kids grow up. Go easy tiger.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  > -> Deleted /var on a production system I had no right touching at a Fortune 500. The 'you had no right touching' bit should have been 'you should have no possibility to touch'. Whoever administered that systems shares part of the blame, you have done it, but they should have never let you get within spitting distance of a terminal capable of doing that.
  - astrec 17y ago
    Too right. Production root passwords had a planetary theme - where planetary means one of the giants in our solar system - not hard for a nosey and curious kid to take a peek at any system they wanted.

aresant 17y ago

Deleting the guy's account and leading with "Our attorneys have advised us not to disclose the name . . ." indicates that keeping his identity secret was very low priority. Expect a public apology from the kid in the next 24hrs.

jacquesm 17y ago
Exactly. It's actually written in Mike's piece as some kind of afterthought, the legal stuff came first.
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  Mike used to be a lawyer, so that shouldn't be a surprise