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An interesting titbit Aston leaves out about his early days is that he was actually cofounder of AutoAdmit.com[0], a law school admissions forum, semi-notorious
by pensive_returns 10y ago
An interesting titbit Aston leaves out about his early days is that he was actually cofounder of AutoAdmit.com[0], a law school admissions forum, semi-notorious for its defamation lawsuits and being an incubator for troll, Michael O. Church[1] (banned on Quora, Wikipedia, and Hacker News for being a thorn in Paul Graham and Dan G, sides) that formed after the great Princeton Review Discussion Board exodus and has persisted with an active user base for almost 13 years now. I wonder if he's ashamed of that history since he fails to mention it (despite it being on his early resume!).
[0] http://www.autoadmit.com/ http://www.autoadmit.com/
[1] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/
- idlewords 10y agoWhat is the connection between AutoAdmit and Church? I don't understand how he's relevant here.
- pensive_returns 10y agoChurch is from autoadmit and probably well known to Aston (since they were both part of the PR community).
- saintzozo 10y agoYes, this is very puzzling.
- hopethathelps 10y agoChurch used to post obsessively on AutoAdmit under the name "pensive" and have lengthy conversations with sockpuppet accounts. Draw your own conclusions.
- ones_and_zeros 10y agoMichael O. Church a troll? Please. The guy had an odd view of himself but I always found he provided excellent well thought out analysis and arguments. I'm not saying he is always right, but he wasn't a troll.
- oh_sigh 10y agoThanks Michael.
- tptacek 10y agoAre we sure "pensive_returns" isn't Michael O. Church? Serious question: commenters on HN that write in an idiosyncratic fashion about Church have turned out to be him before. Every time I read a comment about Church, I find myself asking, "is this how a normal person would write about someone best known for commenting on message boards?"
- ones_and_zeros 10y agoCould be, kinda weird he got banned from all of those places, though I'm not familiar with Quora or autoadmit.
- jpatokal 10y agoHe certainly appears to have joined Hacker News for the sole purpose of sharing this pearl of wisdom with us: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pensive_returns https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pensive_returns
- gadders 10y agoI think they should let him back in. He was an entertaining read.
- ones_and_zeros 10y agoThis was actually news to me that he got banned. Can't imagine what he did to deserve that.
- wglb 10y agoIt was this thread that finally did it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10017538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10017538
- saintzozo 10y agosup pensive