9 ms·
Let's black bar HN
Even though he may not be as notable as some of the others, Aaron Swartz's legacy is a very big part of HN in every way.
- ig1 14y agoI imagine it'll get black barred in the morning (california time). Apart from everything else Aaron Schwartz was also a YC alumni from YC's very first class in summer 2005.
- OafTobark 14y agoDoes anyone know the full background story on this? Every time I hear the story, it was mostly Alexis and Steve including the retelling of how they pitched PG. Where did Aaron fit in and how does that story go?
- p4bl0 14y agoThere are more than one version of this story. Aaron's version is there: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/reddit https://aaronsw.jottit.com/reddit, here is Alexis' version: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AlexisOhanian/posts/HJz9Vd58Wtb https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AlexisOhanian/posts/HJz9Vd58Wtb and here is what Wikipedia says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit#History.
- ashraful 14y agoI believe he was a part of Infogami (also funded by YC) and only later on joined reddit.
- shrikant 14y agoPG himself clarifies the situation here: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_discusses_how_he/c1okmc http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof... (Not a 100% sure if that's the real Paul Graham though..)
- acangiano 14y agoHe founded Infogami. The company was very ambitious but sadly went nowhere. He also authored web.py, a python web framework. Meanwhile Reddit switched from using Lisp to web.py. PG wanted to help Aaron out, so he suggested having him join Reddit. Reddit sold for a few million dollars shortly after. Aaron cashed in along with the founders for an undisclosed, but substantial, amount of money.
- ashraful 14y agoI'm sure the black bar isn't there because PG happens to be asleep. Its unfortunate that he'll wake up to such bad news.
- lispython 14y agoYou don't have to wait PG to wake up, I already set my "topcolor" to black.
- rdl 14y agoAny relative lack of notability vs. the others HN has black-barred was because he died so young. Think of all the things he likely would have done over the next 60 years if he slowed down even 50%.
- shrikant 14y agoHe co-authored the RSS 1.0 spec at the age of 14. The mind boggles at what the tech world has lost out on.
- neilk 14y agoActually that's not the most amazing part. They didn't want to let him onto the RDF working group, so Aaron hacked the W3C process at the age of 14. > The rules said that while they could reject any requests to join from an individual, if an organization that was an official member of the W3C asked to put someone on the working group, they couldn't say no. So I looked down the list of W3C member organizations, found the one that seemed friendliest, and asked them to put me on the Working Group. They did. - https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget
- kami8845 14y agomeh. That's just circumventing bureaucracy. Actually having the technical chops to be involved in such a notable standards process is far more impressive. Especially at 14.
- artmageddon 14y agoWhile I agree, most teens who are rebellious do things like stay out way too late or get involved with that bad person that their parents warned them about, rather than not taking "no" for an answer and going on to create great things. It's still pretty commendable.
- laurent123456 14y agoIn which way was he involved in the RSS 1.0 spec? There's nothing (so far) about him on the Wikipedia RSS article.
- FredericJ 14y agoCan't agree more.
- baritalia 14y agoI, for one, don't care. It was his personal decision to end it this way. Also I'd like to know how many of you will think of his 'legacy' on a daily basis in 6 months time.
- ashraful 14y agoThat's a very narrow minded way to look at it. It's difficult to comprehend what he was going through to take such a drastic step. I understand that he was facing a unreasonably long prison sentence for downloading academic papers. As someone points out in another thread, that basically meant he didn't have the freedom to really move forward with his life, even before being sentenced he had lost his freedom. Thats a horrible life to lead. Perhaps he finally lost hope... His legacy will live on as long as people use Reddit or RSS (or perhaps even anything derived from it), you don't necessarily need to "think" of him. I'm sure a lot of people will be using RSS and Reddit in 6 months.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 14y ago> it would be the first time that someone who committed suicide had a black bar on HN to mourn them. You are wrong.
- mikedmiked 14y ago> I, for one, don't care Goddamnit, have some sensitivity, he only just died and many people on here know him personally. If this is a troll then why don't you go reevaluate your priorities in life? Take some magic mushrooms and think about how your actions alter the world.
- mcdowall 14y agoThey may not 'think' about it as you refer, but will likely be using RSS in some form, or reading a link via reddit or some other interesting achievement. Have some bloody respect.
- 14y ago
- Techasura 14y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw Aaron will be remembered for ever.
- brador 14y agoIt would be nice if an online site existed where we could dump all a persons writings, images and video for anyone to view at a later date. Really get a feel for what the guy was all about. Like a wiki-style crowd sourced memorial site.
- rdl 14y ago1000memories (http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/life-everlasting-1000memories-126082 http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/life-everlasting...) used to do that, but I think they pivoted somewhat into lifetime photo archives.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- shock 14y agoIs Aaron's death any less regrettable because it was a suicide rather than a car accident? I don't think so. The black bar signifies sadness for the loss of someone, it's not a political statement. I, for one, would like HN to be black barred for Aaron simply because the world is a worse place without him in it.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- shock 14y agoIn that vain of thought, one could argue that many actions should not be done because of possible, unintended, consequences. Perhaps some software should not be written? Perhaps even code you wrote will have unintended consequences? Where does this line of thought stop?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- ieze 14y agoIt is more regrettable. I don't see suicide as a shame thing. Just very very sad.
- thomasz 14y agoThe news and eulogies are all over the net, so I don't see how denying him a black bar would prevent possible copycat suicides. The stigmatization against suicides as something dishonorable has to end. He was a great hacker and distinguished activist, and through I don't know him personally, I'm pretty sure he was a great guy overall. He deserves a black bar. He died from depression. Others die from other diseases, car accidents, smoking, drugs, heart attacks, strokes and what not.
- pajju 14y agoAaron Swartz's presence in various networks: In HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw Pinboard: https://pinboard.in/u:aaronsw https://pinboard.in/u:aaronsw His last tweet was on Jan 9th, https://twitter.com/aaronsw https://twitter.com/aaronsw In reddit: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/reddit https://aaronsw.jottit.com/reddit Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PGTlB14AAAAJ http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PGTlB14AAAAJ Writings: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/writings https://aaronsw.jottit.com/writings ---------------------------------------------- Things he has made https://www.jottit.com/ https://www.jottit.com/ http://openlibrary.org/ http://openlibrary.org/ http://watchdog.net/ http://watchdog.net/ http://reddit.com/ http://reddit.com/ http://webpy.org/ http://webpy.org/ HN will miss your contributions. Rest in Peace. Love.
- exodust 14y agoHis tweets don't seem suicidal. In other words no sign of stress, isolation, fatigue, burn-out. Mentally unfit people on the edge aren't usually writing about re-booting democracy and the importance of future peer-to-peer research. Concern for the future, holding politicians accountable, even warning politicians about their replacement! That is bold. So the bold activist kills himself. Something seems odd about this, but I guess it was suicide if they say it was. Meanwhile I'll keep reading his stuff.
- Tichy 14y agoI must admit I find this and other variations of "let's use the death of a person to force other people to do things" very offensive. Black out your own web site. Mourning is a personal thing. If PG decides he wants to black bar HN, he will do it. If not, he won't. What's it to you?
- pbateman 14y agoCalling a gentle suggestion from the HN community to make a minor change to mourn one of our members "very offensive" is a bizarre overreaction.
- Tichy 14y agoSure, as long as it's gentle. I just don't want a discussion on why it is wrong to not make the bar black or what not. And as I said, I see this in a long tradition of making people do stuff because somebody died, which I don't like. It's all peachy as long as people comply, but if they don't, suddenly they might be labeled as cold hearted, sociopathic or whatever. Why not just let it be an individual thing? As somebody else pointed out, PG is probably still asleep and will probably black the bar anyway. I don't think he needs a reminder. Also, I know nothing about his personal feelings towards Aaron.
- pbateman 14y ago1) It pretty obviously is gentle. In the most extreme scenario pg is bullied into briefly making a minor change to the CSS. 2) HN is a community site, which exists and thrives largely because of the community. I can't see anything wrong with members of said community making suggestions on occasion, particularly on occasions like this. 3) People are far too quick to take offence these days, particularly on the internet. IMHO the world would be a better place if these people were instructed to get over it rather than pandered to. 4) Finally PG is free to say no and I for one will not judge him ill for it.
- Tichy 14y agoI didn't take offense in the sense of "if you do this I'll find you and beat you up". It was just my lack of English skills. What I mean is I don't like it. Obviously nobody will notice if I join in demonstrative mourning or not over the internet, so no real harm is done. I also don't mind a black bar on HN - I find this event very sad myself.
- donretag 14y agoVery sad to see someone so young end their own life. To me it does not sound like his current legal situation was the reason so, but it was his overall mental state. But I must admit, I never heard of this guy. Not once. I have never used reddit and skip over all the non-technical/startupy articles here on HN.
- esalman 14y agoIn fact this is the first time after Steve Jobs that the front page is so dominated by one person.
- philhippus 14y agoIt's up to the HN owners what colour scheme they put on their website and why. I don't mean to sound callous at all, but if HN black barred every deserving death, it would be a permanent black bar. I had never heard of Aaron Swartz until he is now dead. Why can't we honour the living?
- playhard 14y agoThanks PG for doing this