4 ms·

Is this a character assassination post? It really feels like it. Rossmann opensourced his repair manuals and has detailed videos of how to repair equipment, yo

Is this a character assassination post? It really feels like it. Rossmann opensourced his repair manuals and has detailed videos of how to repair equipment, you can literally start your own repair business of that. If that is not being for right to repair I don't know what is. Reading your post again it is a character assassination post. Shifting goalpost and attacking personal characteristics instead of the point.

CPUstring 5y ago
A character assassination would be something like "He does something morally reprehensible (cheating, selling ads to three year olds, etc". The above post is more like "He harps on multiple things he maybe shouldn't, and has an outraged user-base he keeps stoked, so that should be taken into account." If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable.
- camehere3saydis 5y ago
  A sizable portion of the audience here considers selling ads morally reprehensible in itself. This, on the other hand: >The guy is monetizing a certain base. Probably doing pretty well out of it. OP does say it as if there's something wrong with it.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    How does that quote remotely imply there is something "wrong" with it (aside from it obviously factoring into credibility)? Another person took the exact same quote and declared that it betrayed jealousy. This borders on parody.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      If that doesn't "remotely" imply anything to you, have you considered whether you're perhaps just a little less sensitive to linguistic nuance than others? And that this doesn't necessarily mean that it is they who are overly sensitive?
- me_me_me 5y ago
  > If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable. If you were in court for an act you didn't commit and the prosecutor said: "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" What would you said to this? This commenthas noting to do with anything. Its a pointless opinion nothing to do with given case. And its a vague ad-hominem attack.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable. Then you're not reading what some folks are writing. To some people here he seems to be a "bad person". e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27257657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27257657
have_faith 5y ago
OP seemed quite open that he sees his right to repair work as important and is simply commenting on the direction his YouTube channel is taking. Not sure what goal posts are being shifted exactly and I can't see what "personal characteristics" are being attacked in any way in what reads as a simple personal opinion.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  The line "it has undermined his credibility" changes it from just a comment on personal opinion to an attack.
  - have_faith 5y ago
    That's a pretty low bar.
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      "I didn't say you are in fact an asshole. I said--in my opinion--you act like an asshole. So you can't call that an attack." I grew up seeing plenty of this kind of passive-aggressive language lawyering. It doesn't change anything.
bogwog 5y ago
Strange how it's still the top comment in this thread, even though it's a personal attack that has nothing to do with the actual topic, or make any attempt to discuss his arguments. Seems like the type of tactic you'd see from those lobbyist groups that pay money to release commercials claiming right to repair will lead to rape: https://youtu.be/EozPi1qmH44?t=59 https://youtu.be/EozPi1qmH44?t=59
- judge2020 5y ago
  The article is “One Man’s Fight for the Right to Repair”, so it indeed is focusing squarely on Rossman and his involvement in R2R. If it were just an article about R2R that briefly mentioned Rossman, your comment would be true.
- defaultname 5y ago
  Personal attack, character assassination, apparently it's astroturfing (something something rape), another guy saying it's "NSA tactics". Amazing. Pretty rabid fanbase. Anything other than adulation must have nefarious origins. It certainly can't be organic. I think it was upvoted (after a lot of downvotes) because a lot of people have experienced the same thing. Rossmann started as a Mac/Apple repair guy elbowing to try to keep his business going, which no one can contest and was admirable and sympathetic. He had a credible argument about right to repair. Somewhere along the way -- maybe after Apple had customs block some of his imports, or maybe after he started getting those fat YouTube checks -- he turned from an Apple repair guy to an anti-Apple advocate in virtually every dimension. He has a whole plethora of anti-Apple opinions, and he seems to be a cult of personality not for repair people, but rather for people who still harbor a grudge that their Lumia prophecies didn't come true. So I just said what I thought, and clearly a lot of people have the same impression, which was that once I'd see his name and think credible repair arguments, and now I see his name and just click past because it's going to be some new anti-Apple screed appealing to a base. Eh.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    Agreed, it's a bit weird to see the replies here. If anything I'd have expected that the very... glorifying? title of the article would get more comments like yours that would put things into perspective. Rossman is good at repairing electronics and his channel can be very useful, but it's very obvious he also likes the big audience that he gets from going full on anti-Apple. I'm not sure why people think Rossman would be immune to incentives. And FWIW I've rarely seen outright accusations of character assassination on here, even against wildly cynical comments, insults or when wild allegations are made. So again it's weird that your pretty moderate/balanced take on a guy directly relevant to the article is getting so many of those.

CPUstring 5y ago

A character assassination would be something like "He does something morally reprehensible (cheating, selling ads to three year olds, etc". The above post is more like "He harps on multiple things he maybe shouldn't, and has an outraged user-base he keeps stoked, so that should be taken into account." If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable.

camehere3saydis 5y ago
A sizable portion of the audience here considers selling ads morally reprehensible in itself. This, on the other hand: >The guy is monetizing a certain base. Probably doing pretty well out of it. OP does say it as if there's something wrong with it.
- defaultname 5y ago
  How does that quote remotely imply there is something "wrong" with it (aside from it obviously factoring into credibility)? Another person took the exact same quote and declared that it betrayed jealousy. This borders on parody.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    If that doesn't "remotely" imply anything to you, have you considered whether you're perhaps just a little less sensitive to linguistic nuance than others? And that this doesn't necessarily mean that it is they who are overly sensitive?
me_me_me 5y ago
> If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable. If you were in court for an act you didn't commit and the prosecutor said: "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" What would you said to this? This commenthas noting to do with anything. Its a pointless opinion nothing to do with given case. And its a vague ad-hominem attack.
dataflow 5y ago
> If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable. Then you're not reading what some folks are writing. To some people here he seems to be a "bad person". e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27257657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27257657

have_faith 5y ago

OP seemed quite open that he sees his right to repair work as important and is simply commenting on the direction his YouTube channel is taking. Not sure what goal posts are being shifted exactly and I can't see what "personal characteristics" are being attacked in any way in what reads as a simple personal opinion.

moron4hire 5y ago
The line "it has undermined his credibility" changes it from just a comment on personal opinion to an attack.
- have_faith 5y ago
  That's a pretty low bar.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    "I didn't say you are in fact an asshole. I said--in my opinion--you act like an asshole. So you can't call that an attack." I grew up seeing plenty of this kind of passive-aggressive language lawyering. It doesn't change anything.

bogwog 5y ago

Strange how it's still the top comment in this thread, even though it's a personal attack that has nothing to do with the actual topic, or make any attempt to discuss his arguments. Seems like the type of tactic you'd see from those lobbyist groups that pay money to release commercials claiming right to repair will lead to rape: https://youtu.be/EozPi1qmH44?t=59 https://youtu.be/EozPi1qmH44?t=59

judge2020 5y ago
The article is “One Man’s Fight for the Right to Repair”, so it indeed is focusing squarely on Rossman and his involvement in R2R. If it were just an article about R2R that briefly mentioned Rossman, your comment would be true.
defaultname 5y ago
Personal attack, character assassination, apparently it's astroturfing (something something rape), another guy saying it's "NSA tactics". Amazing. Pretty rabid fanbase. Anything other than adulation must have nefarious origins. It certainly can't be organic. I think it was upvoted (after a lot of downvotes) because a lot of people have experienced the same thing. Rossmann started as a Mac/Apple repair guy elbowing to try to keep his business going, which no one can contest and was admirable and sympathetic. He had a credible argument about right to repair. Somewhere along the way -- maybe after Apple had customs block some of his imports, or maybe after he started getting those fat YouTube checks -- he turned from an Apple repair guy to an anti-Apple advocate in virtually every dimension. He has a whole plethora of anti-Apple opinions, and he seems to be a cult of personality not for repair people, but rather for people who still harbor a grudge that their Lumia prophecies didn't come true. So I just said what I thought, and clearly a lot of people have the same impression, which was that once I'd see his name and think credible repair arguments, and now I see his name and just click past because it's going to be some new anti-Apple screed appealing to a base. Eh.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Agreed, it's a bit weird to see the replies here. If anything I'd have expected that the very... glorifying? title of the article would get more comments like yours that would put things into perspective. Rossman is good at repairing electronics and his channel can be very useful, but it's very obvious he also likes the big audience that he gets from going full on anti-Apple. I'm not sure why people think Rossman would be immune to incentives. And FWIW I've rarely seen outright accusations of character assassination on here, even against wildly cynical comments, insults or when wild allegations are made. So again it's weird that your pretty moderate/balanced take on a guy directly relevant to the article is getting so many of those.