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Sigh. Reminder that Terry being hellbanned on this website was cited by those who tracked him down in person towards the end as very not good for his mental st

by s5300 3y ago

Sigh. Reminder that Terry being hellbanned on this website was cited by those who tracked him down in person towards the end as very not good for his mental state/part of reason for his extreme decline towards the end. Whether that’s true, no clue. But I like to think he deserved better.

pengaru 3y ago
> Reminder that Terry being hellbanned on this website was cited by those who tracked him down in person towards the end as very not good for his mental state/part of reason for his extreme decline towards the end. Yikes. That's some serious deflection from the 4chan crowd, where the trolls came from who made it their mission to completely destroy this vulnerable person's life via the internet.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  But did Terry fell that 4chan were his own people? He probably felt that the HN crowd was, and therefore being ostracized from them could have hit just as hard as the 4chan trolling.
  - pengaru 3y ago
    They're totally orthogonal, the trolls weren't going to leave Terry alone regardless of his HN status. HN had nothing to do with assholes "gifting" Terry a drum knowing it would completely disrupt his elderly parent's home he shared, and was subsequently forced to leave for living out of a minivan. Then they preyed on his internet crushes discovered through his livestreams, watching those same livestreams as he read spoofed emails they sent from said crushes. Ultimately what really ruined everything for Terry IMHO was live-streaming. You can't have vulnerable people live-streaming like that. It's when everything went off a cliff for him. There was realtime live video feedback for everything the trolls were doing anonymously to him. Instant gratification and optimization for their end.
kstrauser 3y ago
That's sad and I feel for anyone whose mental illness drives wedges between them and society. I can't imagine many things more horrifying than to be a sentient mind trapped in a brain determined to play tricks on it. That said, you can't just let someone with those issues spew awfulness even if it's caused by a medical condition. That's a rough situation for the person being banned but I'm not sure what the less bad alternative would be.
- williamcotton 3y ago
  Sure you can, you just recognize that the person saying it is a very different kind of person. Who was actually offended by Terry’s schizophrenic ramblings? Is the n word really that disturbing when used by someone without a firm grasp on reality and in the midst of a word salad? Is it racist or just nonsense? “Rule are rules”… well, people in wheelchairs get a different set of rules and I’m perfectly fine sacrificing some of my own personal comfort to make accommodations. Why isn’t this the same with mental illness?
  - progrus 3y ago
    Too many people are still dealing with their own mental illnesses, to be able to see this…
  - nrb 3y ago
    I don’t think it’s remotely the same thing. What comfort are you sacrificing for the disabled in the real world? On the pseudo anonymous internet it’s impossible to tell whether you’re dealing with a very different type of person or just a troll hellbent on sabotaging your community. When the quality of discourse is in the dumps, who caused it or why won’t matter when folks have lost interest in engaging with that community any longer.
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      It was very, very easy to tell that Terry was a “very different type of person” and not just a troll hellbent on sabotage. Nearly any post from him had a particular word salad (or a link to such word salad on his TempleOS page) that was readily recognizable as a sign of mental illness, and I’ve never in my decades of following news-for-nerds sites seen a troll emulate it.
akerl_ 3y ago
It's not viable for a community that wants to maintain quality discourse to allow continued posting by somebody who reliably mixes in slurs and bigotry. I feel bad for Terry, because by all indications those posts were driven by mental health issues rather than intentional bigotry, but the effect of allowing them in the community is the same.
- arp242 3y ago
  And while you or I might be willing to put up with that as we're aware of the person and circumstances, there are many more people who don't know who he is and his circumstances and merely see the profanity-laden ramblings, and will simply leave. Keeping Terry on HN was untenable.
29athrowaway 3y ago
The turning point was when he was kicked out of his house. That's when he became homeless and started living in a van. That affected him in many ways, and it was noticeable. Before, he was always shaved and clean. After becoming homeless that changed. Someone sent him a drum set and the noise annoyed his parents. He also annoyed them in other ways. Trolls were entertained by stressing the relationship between Terry and his family. It was all the work of glowposting trolls. A reminder that we should not hesitate to drive into the glow.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  > A reminder that we should not hesitate to drive into the glow you're advocating joining the CIA?
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    stop glowing please
philwelch 3y ago
I don’t have a good answer for the question of hellbanning Terry. Spamming every HN thread with irrelevant nonsense and long stretches of randomly generated text is naturally going to get anyone hellbanned. Would it have been merciful to try and make an exception for Terry personally? I don’t know. The thing is, it never stopped him from posting, nor did it stop those of us with “showdead” enabled from seeing his comments. For me at least, Terry was a fixture of the old HN. Every story on the front page would have that one dead, greyed out comment at the bottom that didn’t make very much sense to anyone but him. I miss seeing those comments.
jszymborski 3y ago
4chan killed Terry Davis. It was a concerted effort over many years to get him run out of his home and society. HN banning him was not the cause of this, it was a symptom. I think of Terry often, and he most certainly deserved better.
- subsistence234 3y ago
  >4chan killed Terry Davis. weird. they seem to like him
  - krapp 3y ago
    They liked Chris Chan too, and look at what happened. 4chan "likes" vulnerable people in much the way that psychopaths "like" small animals. Hacker News had a weird fetishistic fascination with him too.
    - DANmode 3y ago
      > Hacker News had a weird fetishistic fascination with him too. Unfortunately, that can be blamed on "lack of great hackers to observe".
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    there is an important distinction between laughing with, and laughing at. there was likely a bit of both.

by s5300 3y ago

pengaru 3y ago

> Reminder that Terry being hellbanned on this website was cited by those who tracked him down in person towards the end as very not good for his mental state/part of reason for his extreme decline towards the end. Yikes. That's some serious deflection from the 4chan crowd, where the trolls came from who made it their mission to completely destroy this vulnerable person's life via the internet.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
But did Terry fell that 4chan were his own people? He probably felt that the HN crowd was, and therefore being ostracized from them could have hit just as hard as the 4chan trolling.
- pengaru 3y ago
  They're totally orthogonal, the trolls weren't going to leave Terry alone regardless of his HN status. HN had nothing to do with assholes "gifting" Terry a drum knowing it would completely disrupt his elderly parent's home he shared, and was subsequently forced to leave for living out of a minivan. Then they preyed on his internet crushes discovered through his livestreams, watching those same livestreams as he read spoofed emails they sent from said crushes. Ultimately what really ruined everything for Terry IMHO was live-streaming. You can't have vulnerable people live-streaming like that. It's when everything went off a cliff for him. There was realtime live video feedback for everything the trolls were doing anonymously to him. Instant gratification and optimization for their end.

kstrauser 3y ago

That's sad and I feel for anyone whose mental illness drives wedges between them and society. I can't imagine many things more horrifying than to be a sentient mind trapped in a brain determined to play tricks on it. That said, you can't just let someone with those issues spew awfulness even if it's caused by a medical condition. That's a rough situation for the person being banned but I'm not sure what the less bad alternative would be.

williamcotton 3y ago
Sure you can, you just recognize that the person saying it is a very different kind of person. Who was actually offended by Terry’s schizophrenic ramblings? Is the n word really that disturbing when used by someone without a firm grasp on reality and in the midst of a word salad? Is it racist or just nonsense? “Rule are rules”… well, people in wheelchairs get a different set of rules and I’m perfectly fine sacrificing some of my own personal comfort to make accommodations. Why isn’t this the same with mental illness?
- progrus 3y ago
  Too many people are still dealing with their own mental illnesses, to be able to see this…
- nrb 3y ago
  I don’t think it’s remotely the same thing. What comfort are you sacrificing for the disabled in the real world? On the pseudo anonymous internet it’s impossible to tell whether you’re dealing with a very different type of person or just a troll hellbent on sabotaging your community. When the quality of discourse is in the dumps, who caused it or why won’t matter when folks have lost interest in engaging with that community any longer.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    It was very, very easy to tell that Terry was a “very different type of person” and not just a troll hellbent on sabotage. Nearly any post from him had a particular word salad (or a link to such word salad on his TempleOS page) that was readily recognizable as a sign of mental illness, and I’ve never in my decades of following news-for-nerds sites seen a troll emulate it.

akerl_ 3y ago

It's not viable for a community that wants to maintain quality discourse to allow continued posting by somebody who reliably mixes in slurs and bigotry. I feel bad for Terry, because by all indications those posts were driven by mental health issues rather than intentional bigotry, but the effect of allowing them in the community is the same.

arp242 3y ago
And while you or I might be willing to put up with that as we're aware of the person and circumstances, there are many more people who don't know who he is and his circumstances and merely see the profanity-laden ramblings, and will simply leave. Keeping Terry on HN was untenable.

29athrowaway 3y ago

The turning point was when he was kicked out of his house. That's when he became homeless and started living in a van. That affected him in many ways, and it was noticeable. Before, he was always shaved and clean. After becoming homeless that changed. Someone sent him a drum set and the noise annoyed his parents. He also annoyed them in other ways. Trolls were entertained by stressing the relationship between Terry and his family. It was all the work of glowposting trolls. A reminder that we should not hesitate to drive into the glow.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
> A reminder that we should not hesitate to drive into the glow you're advocating joining the CIA?
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  stop glowing please

philwelch 3y ago

I don’t have a good answer for the question of hellbanning Terry. Spamming every HN thread with irrelevant nonsense and long stretches of randomly generated text is naturally going to get anyone hellbanned. Would it have been merciful to try and make an exception for Terry personally? I don’t know. The thing is, it never stopped him from posting, nor did it stop those of us with “showdead” enabled from seeing his comments. For me at least, Terry was a fixture of the old HN. Every story on the front page would have that one dead, greyed out comment at the bottom that didn’t make very much sense to anyone but him. I miss seeing those comments.

jszymborski 3y ago

4chan killed Terry Davis. It was a concerted effort over many years to get him run out of his home and society. HN banning him was not the cause of this, it was a symptom. I think of Terry often, and he most certainly deserved better.

subsistence234 3y ago
>4chan killed Terry Davis. weird. they seem to like him
- krapp 3y ago
  They liked Chris Chan too, and look at what happened. 4chan "likes" vulnerable people in much the way that psychopaths "like" small animals. Hacker News had a weird fetishistic fascination with him too.
  - DANmode 3y ago
    > Hacker News had a weird fetishistic fascination with him too. Unfortunately, that can be blamed on "lack of great hackers to observe".
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  there is an important distinction between laughing with, and laughing at. there was likely a bit of both.