12 ms·

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire f

Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Send an email or two, fine, but after sending emails and leaving messages that were all unreturned, after leaving messages with people who know the man behind the pseudonym which were ignored, this journalist still had to track him down to where is is now working and try to get through to talk to him. Being a journalist does not give you a right to stalk people. You have no special immunity to care and consideration for other people’s feelings. This man is not some sort of villain on the run from the law, he’s a private citizen who wishes to be be left alone, and this “journalist” admits to flirting with the idea of showing up at his house after being repeatedly refused contact. I strongly disapprove of this conduct, it smacks of hubris to think that some fleeting bit of text, written for the business purpose of getting eyeballs to look at advertisements, is worth huntimg a man down and cornering him when he does not want to be interviewed. p.s. And regardless of how well the name of the man behind _why is or isn’t known, I also disapprove of repeating it in the article, it was not necessary to the story at all.

tgrass 15y ago
And yet...you were not so offended as to refuse to read it.
- raganwald 15y ago
  Note that I praised the parts I liked. I have a strict “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” policy. If a post or article has 99 things I dislike and one that I learn from, it’s a good thing to read, no?
asolove 15y ago
Thank you for this review. It helped me decide not to read the article, both because it doesn't have content and because I have been deliberately avoiding knowing _why's "real" name.
- brown9-2 15y ago
  I disagree that it doesn't have content. It's an article oriented to relating to non-programmers what it is like to learn to program, and for that audience I think it does it's job well. edit: also I am curious how you can decide an article that you haven't read has no content.
  - phillmv 15y ago
    When are we EVER covered in the media, other than to talk about how much money is flowing through our companies? This is amazing.
  - bh42222 15y ago
    It's an article oriented to relating to non-programmers what it is like to learn to program I am not sure that is true. I think it is one very non-technical person's experience with self-thought Ruby. And as such it is very much what you'd expect, hard and full of frustration. Beyond that it's a pleasant read, right until the end where she actually tracks down _why and prints that information! Journalistic duty my ass. Journalistic duty would be hounding the administration over the whole "due process is not judicial process" when it comes to killing Americans. Stalking some guy because he was Internet famous for a while is not it.
mechanical_fish 15y ago
Sounds like the article does a fine job of explaining – by example! – why _why decided to retire from the scene. (I don't know for sure, though, because I'm not going to read it. Thanks for the summary.)
AnnieLowrey 15y ago
Hi there, raganwald, Annie here. I think this is a completely valid criticism, and it's one I largely expected. But for what it is worth, here are my thoughts. As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.) I didn't expect him to get back to me, and certainly did not stalk him. And my hope is that the article approaches the infosuicide in the most humane way possible.
- SoftwarePatent 15y ago
  "As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.)" There's a difference between "giving them the chance to respond" and what happened here. Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society.
  - goatforce5 15y ago
    "Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society." I thought we expected journalists to dig a bit deeper and not just take things at face value? Sometimes that means poking around when people might prefer you not to be.
    - icebraining 15y ago
      I think that's valid when there's a suspicion of a crime, or of an hypocrisy by a politician, because that's a damage to society and it's fair to have the person punished by it. Doing the same to a person because she did someone good is essentially punishing good deeds.
      - goatforce5 15y ago
        "Doing the same to a person because she did someone good is essentially punishing good deeds." I'm not sure a journalist trying to get in touch with you amounts to a punishment. The hypocritical politician probably doesn't find it much fun, but they're being given a chance to present their side of the story. Note that, for example, in Australia the very first point of the Code of Ethics that Journalists sign up to says: "1. Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis. Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply." Doing your utmost means not leaving one voicemail and hoping for the best. What if _why did have something to say, but his phone number had changed? I imagine that a reputable publication like Salon would have stopped trying to get in touch if he'd given a simple 'no comment' to any of their approaches. (Also, define 'good'. Did a protestor who stopped the logging company from cutting down some trees do good for saving the environment, or was it bad he cost some jobs?)
mbreese 15y ago
I think you're being a little too harsh. This story isn't for programmers. It's for everyone else that thinks the computer is a magic box. For us, it gives us a story about someone who is trying to learn how to program and about programming culture. I think the author did a pretty good job of taking a month and exploring both the nuts an bolts of programming and the people behind it. Sure, she still couldn't do much at the end of the month, but at least she understood the process to some degree. The sub-plot about _why is an interesting one. For those of us around during that time, it brings back memories of those frantic days. For the outside world, it is just an interesting story. The naming of _why at the end wasn't really necessary, but it didn't feel too out of place either. It's been long enough that it was conceivable that he may want to have some comment. She may have gone further than I would have to get a message to him, but she didn't cross the line. And it was clear from the article that he has a sufficient barrier around him to protect him from the public. You're taking the throw-away line about showing up at his house too seriously. She's a journalist... that's what they do - try to get the story. Happily she decided that she didn't need to resort to that to finish the story. I think the line was just added to give a sense of just how deeply he had disappeared. In our community, we respect _why's wishes and leave him alone. It isn't polite to discuss his private identity. But to the rest of the world, this just isn't a big deal. And I hardly think that he will now be bombarded by publicity. The people who cared about _why know better.
- raganwald 15y ago
  I opened my comment by praising the exact same things you’re praising, so let’s be sure that we both understand I was criticizing just one or two small things that I care deeply about.
  - mbreese 15y ago
    I think we agree about most things here... in my initial reading of your comment it seemed to paint the entire article negatively. You just criticized one particular aspect... a lot and perhaps that how I got that initial impression. I wanted to express that talking about _why's identity wasn't the central part of the story. Anyone just reading your comment might get that impression. I really just don't think the naming of names at this point is that big of a deal. Anyone who really wanted to know his name could have found him. Anyone who was in the public eye and who has decided to leave it has had to deal with the same issues. And while we don't discuss his name, out of courtesy and respect, I don't think she crossed the line.
telemachos 15y ago
In college, I went through a Thomas Pynchon phase. I read everything of his I could get my hands on, and I tried to learn everything I could about him. Like Salinger and _why, he doesn't want you to do that. No photos, no interviews, etc. I tracked down stories he had written but banned from being reprinted (elusive photocopies that I still love), I read books written by his friends (?!), I wandered around the library in NYC where he wrote a lot of his first novel, I subscribed to a journal devoted solely to his writings (and struck up a friendship with the journal's editor), I even went so far as to phone his then publisher and try to get an interview (lying and claiming I wrote for a college paper). Everything beyond "reading his books" was silly, and some of what I did was invasive (if not very inventively so). So what is my point? There's something powerfully magnetic about certain people - despite their telling us to stay away, and maybe even more so because they tell us to stay away. I'm not sure that I really disagree with what you're saying, but I think there's almost a degree of inevitability about people wanting to know more in such a case. It's how many of us are made.
- gruseom 15y ago
  A few months ago I ran across this: http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/gaddis/whoswho.html http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/gaddis/whoswho.html, which (marginally) involves Pynchon. Quite the story.
  - telemachos 15y ago
    Very cool - thanks. The muted trumpet image[1] that the site uses for a mailto link is an allusion to The Crying of Lot 49 (a Pynchon novel). [1]: http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/av/trumpet.gif http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/av/trumpet.gif
wpietri 15y ago
It's not so clear to me that a person has the right to intentionally become a public figure and then vanish at the moment of their choosing. _Why has a perfect right not to answer questions, but having raised those questions in the most dramatic way possible, I don't think he has a right for people not to ask.
lkozma 15y ago
Well said, it reminds slightly of how Perelman, the mathematician was treated by the press. Even if the article is quite good otherwise.
rdl 15y ago
Publishing his name and especially the name of his employer didn't advance the story, screwed him over in google results forever, and is basically just doxing to show she can dox him. At best, a douchebag thing to do. It doesn't matter how great the rest of the article was.
Steko 15y ago
"And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him... Being a journalist does not give you a right to stalk people. " Nobody got stalked here, who upvotes this bullshit? You can disapprove all you want but flat out accusing someone of "stalking" which has a legal definition borders on libel.
a15i 15y ago
fuck the hype. grow the fuck up people.
droithomme 15y ago
I agree. It's outrageous and irresponsible to not only stalk down his current location and place of employment, but then to announce it to the world, even though it serves absolutely no purpose. This is not a journalist, it's a hack. The publisher, in publishing this crap can no longer be taken seriously. It's tabloid journalism at its worse. Article would have been fine without the "I found him nyah nyah nyah and here's where you can find him and harass him too!" stuff. How would the journalist like people to post her personal details on the internet and encourage people to contact her in her private life.
jdpage 15y ago
In a fit of distractedness, I actually read this comment before I reached the end of the article. I stopped reading. I'm familiar with the story of _why, so I don't really feel the need to hear it again. But most of all, I don't want to know what his real-life name was. _why he was and _why he shall be.
avdi 15y ago
I dunno reg, it struck me as ordinary journalistic due diligence. Showing up at his doorstep might have been a bit much (although we praise reporters for doing that in cases with just slightly more scandal than this one). But she didn't do that. Overall, I thought it was one of the best-written pieces of of mass-market journalism about our community that I've read in... well, years actually. Stuff like this should be encouraged.

tgrass 15y ago

And yet...you were not so offended as to refuse to read it.

raganwald 15y ago
Note that I praised the parts I liked. I have a strict “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” policy. If a post or article has 99 things I dislike and one that I learn from, it’s a good thing to read, no?

asolove 15y ago

Thank you for this review. It helped me decide not to read the article, both because it doesn't have content and because I have been deliberately avoiding knowing _why's "real" name.

brown9-2 15y ago
I disagree that it doesn't have content. It's an article oriented to relating to non-programmers what it is like to learn to program, and for that audience I think it does it's job well. edit: also I am curious how you can decide an article that you haven't read has no content.
- phillmv 15y ago
  When are we EVER covered in the media, other than to talk about how much money is flowing through our companies? This is amazing.
- bh42222 15y ago
  It's an article oriented to relating to non-programmers what it is like to learn to program I am not sure that is true. I think it is one very non-technical person's experience with self-thought Ruby. And as such it is very much what you'd expect, hard and full of frustration. Beyond that it's a pleasant read, right until the end where she actually tracks down _why and prints that information! Journalistic duty my ass. Journalistic duty would be hounding the administration over the whole "due process is not judicial process" when it comes to killing Americans. Stalking some guy because he was Internet famous for a while is not it.

mechanical_fish 15y ago

Sounds like the article does a fine job of explaining – by example! – why _why decided to retire from the scene. (I don't know for sure, though, because I'm not going to read it. Thanks for the summary.)

AnnieLowrey 15y ago

Hi there, raganwald, Annie here. I think this is a completely valid criticism, and it's one I largely expected. But for what it is worth, here are my thoughts. As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.) I didn't expect him to get back to me, and certainly did not stalk him. And my hope is that the article approaches the infosuicide in the most humane way possible.

SoftwarePatent 15y ago
"As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.)" There's a difference between "giving them the chance to respond" and what happened here. Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society.
- goatforce5 15y ago
  "Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society." I thought we expected journalists to dig a bit deeper and not just take things at face value? Sometimes that means poking around when people might prefer you not to be.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    I think that's valid when there's a suspicion of a crime, or of an hypocrisy by a politician, because that's a damage to society and it's fair to have the person punished by it. Doing the same to a person because she did someone good is essentially punishing good deeds.
    - goatforce5 15y ago
      "Doing the same to a person because she did someone good is essentially punishing good deeds." I'm not sure a journalist trying to get in touch with you amounts to a punishment. The hypocritical politician probably doesn't find it much fun, but they're being given a chance to present their side of the story. Note that, for example, in Australia the very first point of the Code of Ethics that Journalists sign up to says: "1. Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis. Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply." Doing your utmost means not leaving one voicemail and hoping for the best. What if _why did have something to say, but his phone number had changed? I imagine that a reputable publication like Salon would have stopped trying to get in touch if he'd given a simple 'no comment' to any of their approaches. (Also, define 'good'. Did a protestor who stopped the logging company from cutting down some trees do good for saving the environment, or was it bad he cost some jobs?)

mbreese 15y ago

I think you're being a little too harsh. This story isn't for programmers. It's for everyone else that thinks the computer is a magic box. For us, it gives us a story about someone who is trying to learn how to program and about programming culture. I think the author did a pretty good job of taking a month and exploring both the nuts an bolts of programming and the people behind it. Sure, she still couldn't do much at the end of the month, but at least she understood the process to some degree. The sub-plot about _why is an interesting one. For those of us around during that time, it brings back memories of those frantic days. For the outside world, it is just an interesting story. The naming of _why at the end wasn't really necessary, but it didn't feel too out of place either. It's been long enough that it was conceivable that he may want to have some comment. She may have gone further than I would have to get a message to him, but she didn't cross the line. And it was clear from the article that he has a sufficient barrier around him to protect him from the public. You're taking the throw-away line about showing up at his house too seriously. She's a journalist... that's what they do - try to get the story. Happily she decided that she didn't need to resort to that to finish the story. I think the line was just added to give a sense of just how deeply he had disappeared. In our community, we respect _why's wishes and leave him alone. It isn't polite to discuss his private identity. But to the rest of the world, this just isn't a big deal. And I hardly think that he will now be bombarded by publicity. The people who cared about _why know better.

raganwald 15y ago
I opened my comment by praising the exact same things you’re praising, so let’s be sure that we both understand I was criticizing just one or two small things that I care deeply about.
- mbreese 15y ago
  I think we agree about most things here... in my initial reading of your comment it seemed to paint the entire article negatively. You just criticized one particular aspect... a lot and perhaps that how I got that initial impression. I wanted to express that talking about _why's identity wasn't the central part of the story. Anyone just reading your comment might get that impression. I really just don't think the naming of names at this point is that big of a deal. Anyone who really wanted to know his name could have found him. Anyone who was in the public eye and who has decided to leave it has had to deal with the same issues. And while we don't discuss his name, out of courtesy and respect, I don't think she crossed the line.

telemachos 15y ago

In college, I went through a Thomas Pynchon phase. I read everything of his I could get my hands on, and I tried to learn everything I could about him. Like Salinger and _why, he doesn't want you to do that. No photos, no interviews, etc. I tracked down stories he had written but banned from being reprinted (elusive photocopies that I still love), I read books written by his friends (?!), I wandered around the library in NYC where he wrote a lot of his first novel, I subscribed to a journal devoted solely to his writings (and struck up a friendship with the journal's editor), I even went so far as to phone his then publisher and try to get an interview (lying and claiming I wrote for a college paper). Everything beyond "reading his books" was silly, and some of what I did was invasive (if not very inventively so). So what is my point? There's something powerfully magnetic about certain people - despite their telling us to stay away, and maybe even more so because they tell us to stay away. I'm not sure that I really disagree with what you're saying, but I think there's almost a degree of inevitability about people wanting to know more in such a case. It's how many of us are made.

gruseom 15y ago
A few months ago I ran across this: http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/gaddis/whoswho.html http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/gaddis/whoswho.html, which (marginally) involves Pynchon. Quite the story.
- telemachos 15y ago
  Very cool - thanks. The muted trumpet image[1] that the site uses for a mailto link is an allusion to The Crying of Lot 49 (a Pynchon novel). [1]: http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/av/trumpet.gif http://www.nyx.org/~awestrop/av/trumpet.gif

wpietri 15y ago

It's not so clear to me that a person has the right to intentionally become a public figure and then vanish at the moment of their choosing. _Why has a perfect right not to answer questions, but having raised those questions in the most dramatic way possible, I don't think he has a right for people not to ask.

lkozma 15y ago

Well said, it reminds slightly of how Perelman, the mathematician was treated by the press. Even if the article is quite good otherwise.

rdl 15y ago

Publishing his name and especially the name of his employer didn't advance the story, screwed him over in google results forever, and is basically just doxing to show she can dox him. At best, a douchebag thing to do. It doesn't matter how great the rest of the article was.

Steko 15y ago

"And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him... Being a journalist does not give you a right to stalk people. " Nobody got stalked here, who upvotes this bullshit? You can disapprove all you want but flat out accusing someone of "stalking" which has a legal definition borders on libel.

a15i 15y ago

fuck the hype. grow the fuck up people.

droithomme 15y ago

I agree. It's outrageous and irresponsible to not only stalk down his current location and place of employment, but then to announce it to the world, even though it serves absolutely no purpose. This is not a journalist, it's a hack. The publisher, in publishing this crap can no longer be taken seriously. It's tabloid journalism at its worse. Article would have been fine without the "I found him nyah nyah nyah and here's where you can find him and harass him too!" stuff. How would the journalist like people to post her personal details on the internet and encourage people to contact her in her private life.

jdpage 15y ago

In a fit of distractedness, I actually read this comment before I reached the end of the article. I stopped reading. I'm familiar with the story of _why, so I don't really feel the need to hear it again. But most of all, I don't want to know what his real-life name was. _why he was and _why he shall be.

avdi 15y ago

I dunno reg, it struck me as ordinary journalistic due diligence. Showing up at his doorstep might have been a bit much (although we praise reporters for doing that in cases with just slightly more scandal than this one). But she didn't do that. Overall, I thought it was one of the best-written pieces of of mass-market journalism about our community that I've read in... well, years actually. Stuff like this should be encouraged.