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Archived on Archive.today [1] [1] https://archive.fo/dAj0T https://archive.fo/dAj0T

sillysaurusx 5y ago
Unpopular opinion, but I think it would be better to respect the author’s decision to retract their words from a very front-and-center experience with their colleagues’ colleagues. I’ve made a few nutty comments myself, and it took years of training to break the habit of saying whatever comes to mind online. And I still fail occasionally. The delete button is a merciful respite when you come to your senses, and I empathize with the author’s desire to be forgotten. That said, I can’t convince you to remove the link, and even if you did, I guess someone else would post it. I just can’t remember any time in HN history that this has happened (though I’m sure it has), and we might want to weigh accordingly whether it’s worth going against a community member’s wishes. After all, they are as much a member of this community as you or I. EDIT: I admit, though, I read the article out of curiosity. It seems fine. Maybe they retracted it because the top comment was calling out the author’s history in a very personal way. But whatever the reason, it’s still their decision.
- neelc 5y ago
  +1 I'll admit: I have a bad habit of whenever I'm angry just rant online. I deleted the article since I didn't want to put any more bad press against CenturyLink or myself. I could just lie that "I turned off my Tor relay" and do nothing. About the other CenturyLink issue, it turned out it's an issue with the ONT, not the DoS protection, but a hard limit on the Broadcom Packet Flow Cache which is none of CL's issues. I'm buying another ONT off eBay to hope to fix it.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    A word of advice: the key to breaking this habit is to force yourself to put the community’s interests above your own. That’s what worked for me. For example, changing the title to a foreign language (in an effort to get the mods to wipe it off the front page?) only damages the community. HN needs to stay interesting to survive, and changing your title like that is both confusing and disappointing for the average HN user. (Normally, exotic titles that get upvoted to the front page turn out to be highly interesting.) I say this not to criticize, but to help you long-term. Firstly, relax. None of this is going to matter to you in a month. Secondly, focus on writing substantive content “from the heart.” Try to write out of curiosity, and make sure that any time you write out of anger, alarm bells are going off in your head. “Warning: this isn’t intellectual curiosity that I’m feeling.” Another solution in a case like this is to email the mods at hn@ycombinator.com and ask them to do whatever you wanted to do. I haven’t emailed in years, but when Scott was around, the return time on emails was sometimes less than one minute. (It was astonishing.) I urge you to try emailing, partly as a sign of good faith. As it stands now, it would be risky to let future articles from your domain sit on the front page, unless everyone understands this was a unique one-off situation. You clearly have a lot to offer, and I hope to see you around long-term. Best of luck. And remember: no stress, friend.

Unpopular opinion, but I think it would be better to respect the author’s decision to retract their words from a very front-and-center experience with their colleagues’ colleagues. I’ve made a few nutty comments myself, and it took years of training to break the habit of saying whatever comes to mind online. And I still fail occasionally. The delete button is a merciful respite when you come to your senses, and I empathize with the author’s desire to be forgotten. That said, I can’t convince you to remove the link, and even if you did, I guess someone else would post it. I just can’t remember any time in HN history that this has happened (though I’m sure it has), and we might want to weigh accordingly whether it’s worth going against a community member’s wishes. After all, they are as much a member of this community as you or I. EDIT: I admit, though, I read the article out of curiosity. It seems fine. Maybe they retracted it because the top comment was calling out the author’s history in a very personal way. But whatever the reason, it’s still their decision.

neelc 5y ago
+1 I'll admit: I have a bad habit of whenever I'm angry just rant online. I deleted the article since I didn't want to put any more bad press against CenturyLink or myself. I could just lie that "I turned off my Tor relay" and do nothing. About the other CenturyLink issue, it turned out it's an issue with the ONT, not the DoS protection, but a hard limit on the Broadcom Packet Flow Cache which is none of CL's issues. I'm buying another ONT off eBay to hope to fix it.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  A word of advice: the key to breaking this habit is to force yourself to put the community’s interests above your own. That’s what worked for me. For example, changing the title to a foreign language (in an effort to get the mods to wipe it off the front page?) only damages the community. HN needs to stay interesting to survive, and changing your title like that is both confusing and disappointing for the average HN user. (Normally, exotic titles that get upvoted to the front page turn out to be highly interesting.) I say this not to criticize, but to help you long-term. Firstly, relax. None of this is going to matter to you in a month. Secondly, focus on writing substantive content “from the heart.” Try to write out of curiosity, and make sure that any time you write out of anger, alarm bells are going off in your head. “Warning: this isn’t intellectual curiosity that I’m feeling.” Another solution in a case like this is to email the mods at hn@ycombinator.com and ask them to do whatever you wanted to do. I haven’t emailed in years, but when Scott was around, the return time on emails was sometimes less than one minute. (It was astonishing.) I urge you to try emailing, partly as a sign of good faith. As it stands now, it would be risky to let future articles from your domain sit on the front page, unless everyone understands this was a unique one-off situation. You clearly have a lot to offer, and I hope to see you around long-term. Best of luck. And remember: no stress, friend.