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Steve Jobs passed away one year ago - HN Frontpage
- zsherman 14y agoWow, literally every single post.
- huhtenberg 14y agoThat's when I had my flag option taken away by mods, because I flagged all of these except for the top one.
- dfc 14y agoThey are not even the same story? A lot of them are different takes on one event. Sure some of them are repeats, but its not like the stories are all links to 15 aggregators that point back to the same story. I guess I always thought flagging was for inappropriate material, scams and obviously false things. Do most people use flagging as a downvote substitute for stories?
- rplnt 14y agoMost of them are (the same story) though.
- tripzilch 14y agoThey really were mostly the same story, or repeats of the same handful of "takes" on it. There were a number of more original posts (that often still repeated the same obituary data as everyone else), but they did not feature on the front page. It'd have been really nice if the HN votes would have caused one or two generic stories and otherwise the really unique takes on it to rise to the top, but the HN voting system + crowd isn't capable of making such a selection. Indeed you'd need a downvote button, or at least some way of flagging what you consider to be near-duplicates. Reddit does this very well (both because of their system and their crowd), none of the programming/tech subreddits (that I saw) were dominated to exclusion of nearly any other news topic to the extent HN was, that day. > I guess I always thought flagging was for inappropriate material, scams and obviously false things. Do most people use flagging as a downvote substitute for stories? That's a bit of a false dichotomy, IMO. What is a downvote for? You downvote inappropriate material, scams, obviously false things, duplicates and low-quality content. Preferably you do not downvote things just for disagreeing with them (just like nobody upvotes things just for agreeing with them, right?). So in this case, the guy considered all those stories about the same topic (with really minor variations in their "take" on it), to be near-duplicates and flagged them. Now, we don't know what happens to flagged posts really, so at this point anything could have happened: Maybe it flooded some sort of for-manual-review moderation queue which annoyed the mods, or maybe they did understand the reason for the flagging but decided that "NO. HN needs to mourn and the front page will be our shrine!" and bumped up some more Steve stories. The latter is not completely unlikely (even though it probably just were normal user votes), we all have seen stories that appeared or disappeared from the front page that couldn't have been caused by regular votes. So yes, the moderators could have er, moderated things a bit so we'd see one or two generic news stories from quality sources about Steve's death (rightly featuring at the very top), but bumped all other stories that did not offer a significantly different take on the news to the second page, in favour of more original content (which might have also been about Steve, if that really was the only thing people could write and think of that day, as long as it was something worth clicking).
- swombat 14y agoThank you mods! Though I suspect that was an automatic script detecting your egregious over-flagging.
- davidw 14y agoMaybe, maybe not. They got rid of my 'flag' button when I wrote that I flag global warming stories as being off topic, a position I still maintain: very few people here know much about the actual science, so it mostly ends up being a debate ranging between people convinced that it's all a communist plot to interfere with the Free Market to those who'd like to shut down all industrial activity, and everything between; argued mostly out of people's beliefs and ideology, and changing no one's opinions.
- tripzilch 14y ago> argued mostly out of people's beliefs and ideology, and changing no one's opinions. With that criterion, we should also flag posts about Apple's patent lawsuits and appstore exclusion disputes :) Nah, but I get your point. I'm really not interested in the average HNer's position on the global warming debate either. Mostly because the few people that actually are very knowledgeable on the topic (there must be a few) won't get the spotlight they deserve (again, criticism of HN's voting system, but it really sucks for cases like these). And of course it's not really a typical "core" topic for HN. But actually quite many posts are not "typical" in the way you'd expect, as long as they provide ground for a fruitful and interesting discussion. Which global warming discussions indeed often do not.
- tatsuke95 14y ago>"very few people here know much about the actual science" It's the same scenario with finance and economics, in every corner of the internet, including here. It can be incredibly frustrating.
- davidw 14y agoGreat reason to mostly avoid those subjects as well.
- jamesaguilar 14y agoSounds like the correct decision. I'm sure the mods noticed that the front was covered with Steve Jobs stories and would have taken action without your spam if they had a problem with it.
- kyro 14y agoAnd rightly so. If your reaction to his death here was to go into flag-mode and just not let the front page be filled for one day with a story that so clearly affected the community, then I've got no problems with your flag rights being taken away. It's an odd reaction that's honestly somewhat puzzling.
- zeru 14y agoSo every time someone important in the tech world dies its ok that the front page is filled with the same story but different from sources? I don't see why one can't be enough and still have some other topics. There are many stories that clearly affect the community, but you don't see them take up all 30 spots. It's not like the story wouldn't be #1 or go unnoticed. Though the mass flagging was of course unnecessary, it's not like mods didn't see that every single post was the same thing.
- benologist 14y agoIt could be because 99% of the stories were just spammy little tech rags like TechCrunch and the rest of AOL's content farm spewing out as much as they could to cash in on it.
- prodigal_erik 14y agoJobs wasn't a hacker; I don't think he ever saw or portrayed himself as one of us. The appliances he was best known for were (and are) more and more actively hostile to hackers. I don't revel in his absence but it did dial back the biggest current threat to the independence of our profession. I don't understand why we're saddled with a few hundred people who conspired to kick this community in the nuts for a day and a night as some kind of self-flagellating tribute, but I don't consider them my peers. If I were pg for a day I'd stop counting votes from anyone who upvoted three dozen clones of the same wire story with almost no accompanying discussion.
- stevenj 14y agoWhen news broke about his passing, I started putting together a small archive of stories about him. I continue to update it when I come across new stuff. http://www.hausmag.com/steve-jobs.html http://www.hausmag.com/steve-jobs.html Miss you, Steve.
- vjk2005 14y agoMy friend's done the same thing over at http://idiari.es http://idiari.es. Going over the posts there reminded me how vast his range was — from architecture to tech to HR, he had insights in almost every area.
- sachitgupta 14y agoGot the same here: http://pinboard.in/u:sachitgupta/t:stevejobs http://pinboard.in/u:sachitgupta/t:stevejobs 90+ articles bookmarked if anyone wants to check them out.
- plainOldText 14y agoI keep listening to this audio of a talk Steve Jobs gave to an audience in Aspen back in 1983 and I believe everything he said in that talk was exactly what Apple became years later. I can't help but wonder how he nailed it so perfectly (well except for the time frame which was a bit longer, 20+ instead of 10-15 years, but still). Link to audio: http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/62010118/download?client_id=0f8fdbbaa21a9bd18210986a7dc2d72c http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/62010118/download?client_id... From where you're watching Steve, thanks.
- kleiba 14y agoOh, please. Indiana... let it go.
- redthrowaway 14y agoSomeone could have proven P=NP, and we wouldn't have noticed.
- chrislloyd 14y agoMinefold (YC W12) launched 3 hours before Steve Jobs died and got, uh, 23 upvotes[1] before disappearing into oblivion. [1] http://cl.ly/image/371P0B3j3g3H http://cl.ly/image/371P0B3j3g3H
- tlrobinson 14y agoShould have just relaunched a week later, no one would have noticed you "launched" twice!
- taybenlor 14y agoHaha, I remember this. Worst launch day ever.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoMy favourite is the novelist Chris Cleave had his first book "Incendiary" (about a terrorist bomb attack on London) released on the same day as the 7/7 London bombings. The publisher pulled all advertising and all copies were hidden at the back of book shops as a mark of respect / so as not to be seen to be trying to profit from such an event / out of general decency. Pretty much killed it.
- gadders 14y agoSee also the film "Gone Baby Gone" [1], a really good film (and book) that had its release delayed due to the search for Madeleine McCann [2] [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452623/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452623/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCa...
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- googlengine 14y agoWho cares anymore
- taytus 14y agoI wrote a post about this (Spanish only for now): http://taytus.com/2012/10/el-steve-que-extrano/ http://taytus.com/2012/10/el-steve-que-extrano/
- singular 14y agoIt's funny to see this as I (and I suspect probably many others) felt compelled to take a screenshot when this happened, because it was so bizarre to see the front page consist of a single story - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/140966/hn_jobs.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/140966/hn_jobs.png I also did the same when Dennis Ritchie died, though not every story was about that - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/140966/hn_ritchie.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/140966/hn_ritchie.png RIP to both of them.
- angersock 14y agoThat's so unfortunate. I'm kind of bummed that (at least in your sample) the HN community seems to spam more about a businessman than an engineer. I'm curious what will happen when Woz passes.
- lachyg 14y agoCmon, man. Why should a businessman be respected any less than an engineer?
- nsmartt 14y agoIn this case, the reason would be that the work of Ritchie is the foundation for pretty much every mobile operating system, OS X, and Linux.
- mkramlich 14y agoJobs wasn't just "a businessman". It's unfortunate you haven't recognized what was so special about him.
- jjordan 14y agoWow, has it really been a year?! It feels like it happened a few months ago, tops.
- andrewljohnson 14y agoMy mom sometimes talks about how she felt when John Lennon died, and I always sort of scoffed at the notion of being overwhelmed by the death of a celebrity stranger. I understood what she meant when Steve Jobs died - I was really overwhelmed, I think because I derived such a big part of my life, livelihood, and identity from iOS over the last 3-4 years.
- mseepgood 14y ago> I derived such a big part of my [...] identity from iOS Get a life.
- masklinn 14y agoYou have no idea why he says that, why must you be a complete asshole? He might be some sort of evangelist, or a guy who got some claim to fame through iOS or spends 10h/days working with or on it (the case seems to be the later). If what you do is part of your identity, the ecosystem you do it on also is.
- seldo 14y agoDon't be mean.
- gluegeorge 14y agoGet some empathy. Many of us get livelihoods from what Steve and Apple built.
- tripzilch 14y agoI had the exact same thought when I read that, won't lie about it. But that doesn't mean you need to say it out loud. Substitute anything for "iOS/Apple" in that line, even something really dumb (say, um, "4Chan"), and it's still a dick thing to say. I said I had the same thought, but in this particular case, that's my problem for opening a thread about Steve Jobs died a year ago, what'd you expect if not people sharing how big of an influence on their lives that man has been?
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- Cbasedlifeform 14y agoHe was some kind of a man.
- mansoor-s 14y agowhat kind
- mansoor-s 14y agoI felt nothing.
- jyap 14y ago2 troll comments in the same post. Man, I wish PG or someone would just ban some people.
- mansoor-s 14y agonot a troll. I seriously don't feel anything for him more than any other human.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- czr80 14y agoBut then why do you feel the need to post that? Do you often randomly walk up to groups of people and tell them you don't care about what they are discussing?
- ta12121 14y agoSo comment threads on HN are now private discussions one has to be invited to? Like the original commenter I am also tired of the celebrity worship that goes on here (and pretty much everywhere else). Yes, the man died. So do millions of others every day.
- mariusz79 14y agoSame here. But maybe that's just because I'm not a member of this cult.
- CoachRufus87 14y agoRIP to one of the greatest innovators of our time.
- Tomis02 14y agoI agree. RIP Steve Irwin.
- npguy 14y agoA year already? Time flies, agreed.
- nprasanna87 14y agoIt's scary too. No matter how we spend our time, every single second is marching us towards our death, maybe even sooner (56?). The only consolation we can have is if we ever did something that we are proud of. That's why my greatest regrets come from wasting time.
- cefarix 14y agoIt feels like it was just a few months ago... well, it was, but a year?!
- pixxa 14y agoHas there ever been another story (besides Jobs's death) that took over the front page of HN?
- ableal 14y agoThere was the all Erlang front page, a few years ago, if memory serves. (HN got airplay somewhere, it was a scare-away-the-newbs prank.)
- veermishra0803 14y agoi genuinely believe that the efforts and work that Late Steve Jobs did, brought a revolution in that industry and touched the hearts of millions and millions of people. and i believe this is the reason y we all cant ignore the fact of his greatness
- bajsejohannes 14y agoHere's a screenshot I took of the Apple home page as well: http://i.imgur.com/xrO47.png http://i.imgur.com/xrO47.png And from Amazon: http://imgur.com/eJ77c http://imgur.com/eJ77c (upper right corner)
- dakrisht 14y agoWow. Time certainly does fly. I remember browsing Twitter that afternoon, outside my office, having a smoke. All of the sudden, I just see Steve Jobs everywhere in my timeline. Texts starting coming in. It was a sad moment. Like him or hate him, he gave himself to the craft, sought perfection, never gave up. RIP to one of the greatest innovators of our time.
- Heliosmaster 14y agoAnd also Dennis Ritchie died almost one year ago. RIP
- rbanffy 14y agoWe'll get to him next week.
- pixxa 14y agoTo get a sense of clarity of his vision, read Jobs's 1985 Playboy Interview where he predicts the future before setting out to spend the rest of his life to invent it. http://www.txtpost.com/playboy-interview-steven-jobs/ http://www.txtpost.com/playboy-interview-steven-jobs/ RIP Steve Jobs
- revelation 14y agoSoo.. can some of the older people around here tell me why this interview by a freelance writer for the Playboy is better and more comprehensive than everything I've read in a month? Just what exactly happened to journalism?
- DanBC 14y agoHN has many links to various forms of blogs. Some of those pretend to be journalistic, and might even have real trained experienced journalists doing the writing. But they use page views and clicks as metrics, and so link bait reigns. They want comments, and they use controversialist hyperbole to get those comments. This is another reason I want micro-payments for any article I read - content producers will realise that I value good journalism enough to actually pay for it. Longform is an excellent source of better journalism.
- graeme 14y agoPlayboy actually was serious about good writing, back in the day (so I hear, I'm not old enough to know from experience). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playboy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playboy See the intro for a description of the short stories and interviews included in Playboy.
- nollidge 14y agoYou're using one cherry-picked article from 1985 as representative of all journalism of that era. Nothing's happened to journalism, there's just lots more of it, so you have to do some work to get your filters in place.
- elorant 14y agoFirst of all Playboy been as controversial as it was invested a lot in interviews just to show that it wasn’t another porn magazine. They managed to take interviews from people who are generally considered inaccessible. Second although Jobs was known to be whim back in 1985 he wasn’t as successful as it was when he died so my guess is that the interviewer wouldn’t have any problem to push him a bit and make the best out of an interview. Years later people seemed to be frightened of the idea asking him the wrong question. Lastly, in 1985 Jobs was like thirty years younger than when he died. He would be burning to express his thoughts and his vision of the future. Plus he was still the underdog back then, there were some huge corporations around and Apple compared to them was nothing.
- ger_phpmagazin 14y agoThe took our jobs!
- elorant 14y agoAlthough I generally dislike Apple I felt sad that day. Jobs was by any measure a giant of our industry. Even if you didn't like him as a person, and many don't, his passion inspired a whole generation.
- desaiguddu 14y agoHello if you like Apple.com new video you will certainly like our tribute as well - http://tmblr.co/Zpw4yxUgp9Mi http://tmblr.co/Zpw4yxUgp9Mi
- sampsonjs 14y agoWorth a read: www.gawker.com/5847338/steve-jobs-was-not-god