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Bluescat response is the posterboy for not letting community support reign supreme. My goodness.

tyingq 5y ago
I browsed some of his other responses, and he seems to be under some delusion that he works for Google. I guess he sort of does, since he's the only support many customers will encounter.
- techrat 5y ago
  The worst part is that he's allowed to recommend his own answers above others, inflating his own stats... regardless of how much of an unhelpful arse he is in his own replies.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    Yes, that flabbergasted me the most in this whole affair. Shouldn't we assume that he achieved his Diamond status by steadily upvoting himself all this time? Good god.
- silisili 5y ago
  They are a diamond platinum supreme member, doesn't that count for something? Sadly, he/she's paid as much as the asker. In seriousness, I recognize that name from past Google searches. They've been doing 'support' for a long time.
t-writescode 5y ago
If he reads HackerNews and is looking at our responses, I hope he sees mine. He needs a vacation. Right now. Like, no computer, somewhere elsewhere. That’s the kind of response I’ve seen at work when covid is getting everyone angry and hateful. There’s nothing helpful in it, it’s attacking, and frankly, he needs to go read it later and think about what he’s said from another person’s perspective, especially a person with any sort of disability. He claims “30 years IT experience” and yet seems to have never worked with a 70 year old and a computer. Even their mouse movement is shaken.
- ylee 5y ago
  >He claims “30 years IT experience” I've written here before about what killed Usenet (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27636397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27636397>). Quoting myself: >That said, there are server- and client-side anti-spam tools of varying effectiveness. A related but bigger problem for Usenet is people of the type this post discusses, those with actual mental illness; think "50 year olds with undiagnosed autism". Usenet is such a niche network nowadays that there has to be meaningful motivation to participate, and if the motivation is not a sincere interest in the subject it's, in my experience, going to be people with very troubled personal lives which their online behavior reflects. Again, as overall traffic declined, their relative contribution and visibility grew. This, not spam, is what has mostly killed Usenet. Serving as volunteer "help" for a Google product on a Google Groups forum also counts as a niche network, with similar unfortunate results when not enough sane people participate to outweigh the weirdos.

I browsed some of his other responses, and he seems to be under some delusion that he works for Google. I guess he sort of does, since he's the only support many customers will encounter.

techrat 5y ago
The worst part is that he's allowed to recommend his own answers above others, inflating his own stats... regardless of how much of an unhelpful arse he is in his own replies.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  Yes, that flabbergasted me the most in this whole affair. Shouldn't we assume that he achieved his Diamond status by steadily upvoting himself all this time? Good god.
silisili 5y ago
They are a diamond platinum supreme member, doesn't that count for something? Sadly, he/she's paid as much as the asker. In seriousness, I recognize that name from past Google searches. They've been doing 'support' for a long time.

t-writescode 5y ago

If he reads HackerNews and is looking at our responses, I hope he sees mine. He needs a vacation. Right now. Like, no computer, somewhere elsewhere. That’s the kind of response I’ve seen at work when covid is getting everyone angry and hateful. There’s nothing helpful in it, it’s attacking, and frankly, he needs to go read it later and think about what he’s said from another person’s perspective, especially a person with any sort of disability. He claims “30 years IT experience” and yet seems to have never worked with a 70 year old and a computer. Even their mouse movement is shaken.

ylee 5y ago
>He claims “30 years IT experience” I've written here before about what killed Usenet (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27636397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27636397>). Quoting myself: >That said, there are server- and client-side anti-spam tools of varying effectiveness. A related but bigger problem for Usenet is people of the type this post discusses, those with actual mental illness; think "50 year olds with undiagnosed autism". Usenet is such a niche network nowadays that there has to be meaningful motivation to participate, and if the motivation is not a sincere interest in the subject it's, in my experience, going to be people with very troubled personal lives which their online behavior reflects. Again, as overall traffic declined, their relative contribution and visibility grew. This, not spam, is what has mostly killed Usenet. Serving as volunteer "help" for a Google product on a Google Groups forum also counts as a niche network, with similar unfortunate results when not enough sane people participate to outweigh the weirdos.