4 ms·
Why not quit quietly?
by lwhi 16y ago
Why not quit quietly?
- bkj123 16y agoOne reason is that his reasons might resonate with others and add value. It did with me.
- drawkbox 16y agoI think it shows how addicting it is. People wouldn't feel the need to broadcast if it wasn't an addiction. I respect trying to get more time out of your day (RescueTime helps). But it seems here Matt has found an issue (TSA backlash) that is helping him go cold turkey. Since it is public resignation, it may help him regain some of his productive time. If noone knows you quit, you can come back on Monday with no consequence.
- davidw 16y agoPerhaps PG will change his mind about allowing political articles (TSA)?
- devmonk 16y agoHow is the TSA political?
- davidw 16y agoSmells like politics to me. It's all over the place here: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/ http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/ If you feel a need to discuss it, perhaps that would be a more appropriate forum? Not to mention featuring on sites like cnn.com. It's a pretty big issue that is certainly not "startups" or "tech". Yeah, there's tech involved, but the issue is how does society believe it should be used: politics.
- lwhi 16y agoSo how do you decide if an article is 'political'?
- davidw 16y agoWhether you like them or not, you really can't tell? To me it's pretty obvious what goes where, with a few things that are on the edge, like politics that are really important for tech and startups, like net neutrality. The TSA articles aren't tech or startups at all. I think the "pro-politics" people would still vote them up if there were no scanners and it was only about being groped by the goons.
- bballbackus 16y agoSomething occupying /r/politics adds no merit to its political status.
- gloob 16y agoThe TSA isn't. The TSA articles are. They have almost nothing to do with startups, and even less to do with tech. They are the antithesis of intellectually interesting.
- rbancroft 16y agoThe site is currently called Hacker News, not Startup or Tech news. Even though the site is heavily associated with the ycombinator brand, for a lot of people, the hacker identity has a lot to do with personal freedom, even more so than technology. So if this site is really only about startups and tech then it is poorly named. Startups can be very hacker-oriented, however forming a startup to sell out to a large corp. in the end is very anti-hacker in my opinion. But you don't see people complaining about every startup article on the site. The reality seems to be that the site attracts a cross section of visitors. Resisting unjust searches and ridiculous security theatre procedures is hacking. The fact that it is also political is irrelevant. I have a hard time understanding a mentality where these issues are not considered interesting or important as they affect our most basic rights. Is your startup or your tech really worth anything without freedom?
- pohl 16y agoBecause the erosion of the constitutional protection against unreasonable search & seizure is implicit in every article about the TSA, and some people would rather we trade essential liberties for an immeasurably small increase in safety in silence. And, thank you sir, may I have another[1]. This makes it political. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ
- nkurz 16y agoI believe they are being filtered. I'm not sure how dead auto-killed articles appear from the submitter's point of view, but I submitted an article yesterday that included the TSA acronym and it appeared to me without a comment box. This, and the absence articles on the front page, makes me think that filtering is in place. I'm not complaining --- this is probably a fine policy. But it does complicate how one reads Matt's post. I think that HN actually does a lot behind the scenes to promote a better community, which is what keeps it as good as it is.
- jdp23 16y agoi'm pretty sure this happened to me as well. EDIT: pg's comment at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367 describes the reason why -- they're being autotagged as "political" and a penalty applies
- wyclif 16y agoClassifying TSA stories as "political" is just one way of looking at them, and I think it's a bit myopic. I suspect the reason we've seen a lot of TSA stories here is because they have to do with personal liberty to most folks, and this is a legit theme on a forum like HN-- there is a thematic overlap between stories like these and stories about Open Source, &c.
- davidw 16y ago"Personal liberty" is a huge, and very political topic, because it's very connected with where one's freedom stops, what the rights and responsabilities of communities are, who should exercise power, and a whole host of other very political subjects that, while they may be fascinating, are generally toxic for internet forums, and are certainly not about tech or startups. Open source is open source. It is not gun rights/free speech/right to privacy/any number of other things that are important, but are not open source. Also, "myopic" presumes that I am not interested in politics. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, I dearly wish to keep it out of this site.
- wyclif 16y agoShall we then ban stories on HN about the latest vim plugin, or that cool Emacs macro someone wrote? Those are fiery political topics, you know--maybe even "religious" topics for some users. I agree that all this is hugely political, but to me that only strengthens the point I was making. You can't avoid politics on forums like HN (in the broad, generalised sense in which we are discussing it here).
- davidw 16y agoAside from having fun debating - you honestly can't tell the difference?
- PakG1 16y agoWell, there is the fact that it's link bait.... ;)
- j_baker 16y agoQuitting quietly wouldn't get any more traffic to his blog...
- BrandonM 16y agoQuitting loudly helps to burn the bridge. Presumably he is removing any temptation to return.