7 ms·

didn't they get doxxed at some point? I don't think they're actually dead. this is kind of crossing a line (i'm not an expert so I can't say exactly what line i

by riffic 5y ago

didn't they get doxxed at some point? I don't think they're actually dead. this is kind of crossing a line (i'm not an expert so I can't say exactly what line is being crossed, but I don't think it's fair to the person who originally created this work). edit: yep, wikipedia lists his name. I think "he just wants to be left alone" is a fair statement to make.

lilyball 5y ago
They committed identity suicide. For all intents and purposes _why is dead, regardless of the state of the human who used to operate that identity.
- wpietri 5y ago
  I'm uncomfortable with this sort of confounding a character with the person behind it. If an author says they're not writing any more books about X, that doesn't mean that suicide (or murder) has taken place. It just means we won't see anything more from that author using that character unless they change their mind. My concern is for the person behind it. I hope they're well and are doing something they find more satisfying and less stressful!
  - Volundr 5y ago
    I'm not sure how I feel about the suicide metaphor, but what _why did what more than just saying he's not going to write more books about X. He actively worked to tear down the character and creations he built, rather than simply opting not to make more. He put enough effort into it that I'm not sure how I feel about this stuff still being hosted, I mean I know it's legal and all, but given his actions I'm not at all sure it aligns with his wishes. It really does feel like he tried to kill "something".
    - andybak 5y ago
      Great work should be preserved even if the author wants it gone. I feel quite strongly about this.
      - riffic 5y ago
        this isn't your intellectual property to preserve.
        vidarh 5y ago
        IP rights are granted by society to encourage creation to enrich the commons in the first place. If you seek to prevent published work from eventually entering the commons you're not holding up your end of the bargain.
        andybak 5y ago
        I agree and I would propose that the concept of intellectual "property" is the thing that needs to be modified here.
        spacechild1 5y ago
        Franz Kafka asked his friend Max Brod in a written testament to destroy his entire work after his death. Max Brod didn't obey. Do you think he was wrong?
        copperx 5y ago
        Yes.
        kibwen 5y ago
        Terry Pratchett asked Neil Gaiman to destroy his unpublished works after his death. Gaiman obliged. Do you think he was wrong? I'm no fan of IP, and we all know it's a boondoggle to take something that's public and try to erase every last instance of it (as _why seemed to want to do), but the prerogative that people do have is whether or not to publish something in the first place. Privacy is a human right, and that includes the freedom not to have your private thoughts published against your will.
    - pailey 5y ago
      I like to think he addressed this when he reappeared a few years later: "Now I want to make it perfectly clear that these papers and all my other works in life belong to the general public. In fact, I also would like to turn myself over to all of you as well. This was actually done several years ago, but in an embarrassingly disorganized manner." - https://github.com/steveklabnik/CLOSURE/blob/master/PDF/DISCLAIMER.pdf https://github.com/steveklabnik/CLOSURE/blob/master/PDF/DISC...
dsizzle 5y ago
It also has his picture, and he kinda looks like Jack Black.
- lilyball 5y ago
  His picture is public knowledge. IIRC it's from a conference he spoke at, but which did not use his real name.
pygy_ 5y ago
His real name was revealed, and at that point he deleted his whole Web presence. He was later tracked by a journalist who revealed quite a bit of additional personal info about him and his family, in a disparaging article (he "wasn’t a great coder"). She ended up finding his current employer and one of his colleagues told her to leave him alone, that’s where the Wikipedia line comes from. He "wasn’t a great coder" because people had a hard time making sense of his abandoned repos which were all personal projects, underdocumented for collaboration purposes (since none was intended), but the breadth and quality of his output speaks for itself though... Selected examples: - a cross-platform (Cairo/Win32/Cocoa) GUI toolkit for ruby - a chiptune synth - a rails-like Web framework golfed down to 4kb - a markup generation API not unlike JSX, but working an an embedded DSL in plain ruby (at a time where libs with similar goals had heavy OO APIs full of method calls, not unlike the browser DOM API) The list goes on, as per the article linked. All of these were wonderfully documented for users, and were often breaking ground from a code ergonomie standpoint.
- marttt 5y ago
  > He was later tracked by a journalist who revealed quite a bit of additional personal info about him and his family, in a disparaging article (he "wasn’t a great coder"). She ended up finding his current employer and one of his colleagues told her to leave him alone, that’s where the Wikipedia line comes from. Having been trained and worked as a journalist, I nonetheless always wonder what's the purpose of revelations like this. He wasn't a public figure, his anonymity didn't cause the society (nor the community of Ruby programmers?) any harm. Seems like there was actually no real public interest to justify publishing those details about his persona. EDIT: Also interesting: excerpts from _why's literary mashup "Closure" where he describes the kafkaesque motives behind his decisions: https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit/ https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit...
  - pygy_ 5y ago
    AFAICT she was just pushing her own career by doing a high profile piece. I challenged her on Twitter and asked her to remove the piece. She replied that he was famous and thus fair game.

by riffic 5y ago

lilyball 5y ago

They committed identity suicide. For all intents and purposes _why is dead, regardless of the state of the human who used to operate that identity.

wpietri 5y ago
I'm uncomfortable with this sort of confounding a character with the person behind it. If an author says they're not writing any more books about X, that doesn't mean that suicide (or murder) has taken place. It just means we won't see anything more from that author using that character unless they change their mind. My concern is for the person behind it. I hope they're well and are doing something they find more satisfying and less stressful!
- Volundr 5y ago
  I'm not sure how I feel about the suicide metaphor, but what _why did what more than just saying he's not going to write more books about X. He actively worked to tear down the character and creations he built, rather than simply opting not to make more. He put enough effort into it that I'm not sure how I feel about this stuff still being hosted, I mean I know it's legal and all, but given his actions I'm not at all sure it aligns with his wishes. It really does feel like he tried to kill "something".
  - andybak 5y ago
    Great work should be preserved even if the author wants it gone. I feel quite strongly about this.
    - riffic 5y ago
      this isn't your intellectual property to preserve.
      - vidarh 5y ago
        IP rights are granted by society to encourage creation to enrich the commons in the first place. If you seek to prevent published work from eventually entering the commons you're not holding up your end of the bargain.
      - andybak 5y ago
        I agree and I would propose that the concept of intellectual "property" is the thing that needs to be modified here.
      - spacechild1 5y ago
        Franz Kafka asked his friend Max Brod in a written testament to destroy his entire work after his death. Max Brod didn't obey. Do you think he was wrong?
        copperx 5y ago
        Yes.
        kibwen 5y ago
        Terry Pratchett asked Neil Gaiman to destroy his unpublished works after his death. Gaiman obliged. Do you think he was wrong? I'm no fan of IP, and we all know it's a boondoggle to take something that's public and try to erase every last instance of it (as _why seemed to want to do), but the prerogative that people do have is whether or not to publish something in the first place. Privacy is a human right, and that includes the freedom not to have your private thoughts published against your will.
  - pailey 5y ago
    I like to think he addressed this when he reappeared a few years later: "Now I want to make it perfectly clear that these papers and all my other works in life belong to the general public. In fact, I also would like to turn myself over to all of you as well. This was actually done several years ago, but in an embarrassingly disorganized manner." - https://github.com/steveklabnik/CLOSURE/blob/master/PDF/DISCLAIMER.pdf https://github.com/steveklabnik/CLOSURE/blob/master/PDF/DISC...

dsizzle 5y ago

It also has his picture, and he kinda looks like Jack Black.

lilyball 5y ago
His picture is public knowledge. IIRC it's from a conference he spoke at, but which did not use his real name.

pygy_ 5y ago

His real name was revealed, and at that point he deleted his whole Web presence. He was later tracked by a journalist who revealed quite a bit of additional personal info about him and his family, in a disparaging article (he "wasn’t a great coder"). She ended up finding his current employer and one of his colleagues told her to leave him alone, that’s where the Wikipedia line comes from. He "wasn’t a great coder" because people had a hard time making sense of his abandoned repos which were all personal projects, underdocumented for collaboration purposes (since none was intended), but the breadth and quality of his output speaks for itself though... Selected examples: - a cross-platform (Cairo/Win32/Cocoa) GUI toolkit for ruby - a chiptune synth - a rails-like Web framework golfed down to 4kb - a markup generation API not unlike JSX, but working an an embedded DSL in plain ruby (at a time where libs with similar goals had heavy OO APIs full of method calls, not unlike the browser DOM API) The list goes on, as per the article linked. All of these were wonderfully documented for users, and were often breaking ground from a code ergonomie standpoint.

marttt 5y ago
> He was later tracked by a journalist who revealed quite a bit of additional personal info about him and his family, in a disparaging article (he "wasn’t a great coder"). She ended up finding his current employer and one of his colleagues told her to leave him alone, that’s where the Wikipedia line comes from. Having been trained and worked as a journalist, I nonetheless always wonder what's the purpose of revelations like this. He wasn't a public figure, his anonymity didn't cause the society (nor the community of Ruby programmers?) any harm. Seems like there was actually no real public interest to justify publishing those details about his persona. EDIT: Also interesting: excerpts from _why's literary mashup "Closure" where he describes the kafkaesque motives behind his decisions: https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit/ https://kev.town/2013/04/30/why-did-why-the-lucky-stiff-quit...
- pygy_ 5y ago
  AFAICT she was just pushing her own career by doing a high profile piece. I challenged her on Twitter and asked her to remove the piece. She replied that he was famous and thus fair game.