Comment by jasonmcalacanis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasonmcalacanis | Hacker News Reader

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jasonmcalacanis

1. I did forward the note to Loren, but I didn't think Loren would use it this way.

2. Loren shouldn't have and that was not cool.

3. Daniel has problems and needs to get help. I feel bad for him because doing something so extreme at a young age so publicly is, well, not good.

4. Good on the company who turned Daniel in and who confessed--that's brave. It was also really stupid and desperate to even consider, let alone promise, giving a laptop in return for a blog post. Honestly, if you're company doesn't get attention don't get desperate... just keep trying!

5. Bad on me for sending this to Loren. I honestly didn't even read the whole thing... I was like "oh here is an email from the dude who got extorted cool... " I actually didn't think it was that big of deal.

6. If you can do a story about Open Angel Forum on Thursday and get it to the top slot on HN I will gladly give you an Apple Tablet.

Anyway, I've got more important things to attend to at 1AM than Daniel extortion plot fall out.

peace and love,

jcal

Peace and love?

http://twitter.com/Jason/status/9866153749 http://twitter.com/Jason/status/9866120496

Bullshit.

I also think it's amusing that you call Sam a loser for dithering when asked to give a bribe, but here you are trying to bribe your way onto Hacker News.

it's a loser move to even considering bribing your way into coverage.

that being said, he is a hero for coming out about his mistake!

peace and love... peace and love... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAU0l7325w0

You gotta kill the spiders to save the butterflies.

Noblesse Oblige ... look it up. It's a sad reflection on your personality that you would go after a little guy like this and still defend yourself.

I have a hard time reconciling your desire to be "the most sought-after, and value-added, angel investor in the world" and the huge shit you just took on Sam's head -- in public, no less.

This AFTER you forwarded a confidential email to a third-party who used it to threaten Sam.

but here you are trying to bribe your way onto Hacker News.

Satire dude. Satire.

The last comment here got me downvoted; not sure why.

When I read it I was 50/50 as to whether he was being sarcastic or not. I guess I came down on the wrong side. :)

If you wanted to sway me into disagreeing with parent's post, then you pretty much failed. Your post came across as pretty insincere. Sorry to say.

And this: If you can do a story about Open Angel Forum on Thursday and get it to the top slot on HN I will gladly give you an Apple Tablet.

Always an agenda, eh. Even if the event is news-worthy (and organization good), together with the rest of your post it certainly made me sneer.

get a sense of humor.... really. this isn't that big of deal.

also, i get noting out of doing Open Angel Forum other than pleasure (and maybe the ability to cherry pick a couple of amazing investments from time to time if the startups will have me!). it's a pure labor of love....

... don't hate.

Obviously it's a more of a "big deal" to a lot of people on this site, considering it got 200 votes overnight.

Pretending it's not a big deal makes you sound ignorant. If and when mahalo fails, and you end up having to sell your tesla, no ones going to be around to support you.

"I have thrown my life into Divvyshot for the last year. I've personally invested close to $100,000 into the company. I would probably give anything I have to see it succeed. Other than a happy and fulfilling relationship with my girlfriend, there's nothing I want more."

Sounds like a big deal to me. Not good when good men like Sam have to deal with men of dubious morals and ethics and for the kicker we get to hear that the issue is that our sense [of] humor is lacking.

Peace and love.

Why do people downmod Jason's post? Disagreeing is not a reason for downmodding. I was interested in his response, whatever it might be. I want to judge for myself.

I think people judged with their votes.

Because the post is positively oozing insincerity, and most of us here value honesty?

Irrelevant. That's not what voting is for. I've upvoted every one of Jason's posts, not because I agree with them, but because downvoting is for something else.

What do you consider grounds for a down-vote then ? (this is sincere question)

Two possibilities:

1) In the case of obvious trolling or idiocy, e.g. "lol your mom sucks" or "ur dumb", downvoting below zero is warranted because those comments are stuff that we don't want to see at all.

2) In the case of everything else, downvoting is warranted, imho, only when something has been upvoted beyond where it should be. For example, if Jason's posts were at 50 upvotes, I would downvote them, because that's totally unwarranted. In this case, I'd downvote them even at 10 points... they're relevant because of who he is and how he's connected to this, but not that insightful.

Basically, for all non-troll posts, you should upvote/downvote based on whether you feel the post has the points it deserves, and generally never downvote below zero.

In this case, Jason, although controversial, is not an obvious stupid troll - he's responding to points that people are making. I would like to see his posts somewhere between 1 and 5 points, rather than at -4.

Thanks for the explanation of how you decide.

I guess since there are no explicit references in the HN guidelines it's up to each user to make his or her mind up themselves.

I look at HN voting in the same way. If you upvote what you agree with and downvote what you don't, you end up with Reddit, where "lolz your mom" gets +12 and reasoned disagreement ends up -30.

I actually end up upvoting a lot of <1 point comments, even ones I disagree with. If the comment is reasonably coherent and not trolling, it usually shouldn't be below 1.

It's not for you to decide what down-voting is for.

Some people don't like lies, other people don't like off-topic posts, other people don't like fallacies, and other people just don't have time to write a disagreement post ... especially if the assertions made in the down-voted comment aren't worth bothering with.

And if down-voting should have a purpose ... then it should definitely be for filtering out people not in HN's demographic.

And if down-voting should have a purpose ... then it should definitely be for filtering out people not in HN's demographic.

That might be true for people who want to use HN to talk about politics or religion, but Jason is definitely in our demographic. He's a web startup founder, whether or not his startup sucks.

Except his posts all get a reflexive down-vote to -4. I don't see the point, obviously the discussion here is better for his defending himself.

Give the guy some credit for showing up in front of the firing squad and trying to defend himself.

Or we can turn this into a complete echo chamber where we can all bad-mouth Jason in absentia.

I guess people feel like he doesn't deserve credit.

because they are Jason Haters.... Jayters.

there are a group of them who down vote everything i post... doesn't matter how insightful... TEN DOWN VOTES!!

it's kind of funny.

"Hey! There is nothing wrong with what I do or what I say! It's those bad haters!"

I did not downvote your comment even though your comment sounded insincere and provocative. I did not down-vote because it was already low on points. I think most HN-ers hate downvoting.

there are a group of them who down vote everything i post... doesn't matter how insightful...

I don't have much experience in the industry other than reading a few blogs and even I could not spot any insights in most of your past comments in HN (especially the ones from the SEOmoz debate).

Anyway, I've got more important things to attend to at 1AM than Daniel extortion plot fall out.

Really? This is enough to piss off anyone who read it. As far as I can understand you forwarded a private email. You have more important things to do than attending to things you screwed up? I can't understand what is so insightful in that.

(Good that you apologized to Daniel. Kudos)

http://bit.ly/peacenlove

"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

All the downvoting actually makes finding and reading your comments in a post a lot easier. Just look for the faded blocks of text in the sea of dark letters.

I'm not sure that's it. I've down voted some of your comments because they just seem to ooze insensibility and really have you coming across like an almighty bell-end. I don't know you apart from a few comments of yours I've seen here on HN.

Just a simple apology would probably have been your best bet. Everyone makes mistakes. Best not to lash out at the people you've already harmed.

http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jasonmcalacanis

If you look at your comment history, this is not true. Some people are down voting you extensively in this thread, this is not true for the whole community or even for your comments outside this thread.

I just had a 40 minute bike shed moment thanks to this question.

How else would you indicate strong disagreement with a comment given the HN culture of well thought out replies and a zero cost binary device for weighing in on an issue, when you have nothing else to contribute other than "I disagree"/"I do not like your post"?

Upvote the commenter who makes the point you wanted to make. If no one else says it, you say it.

For instance, I upvoted Calcanis' comment (to rescue it from negative number territory) and upvoted the people who pointed out the insincerity / inconsistency. Both kinds of posts advanced the general knowledge.

I didn't have to upvote the more personal attacks on Calcanis. But it did feel pretty good. ;)

Agreed, regardless of whether you disagree with him or not, his post is quite topical to this article.

I was also interested in his replies, but it seems he has a different answer ready for the HN crowd and different one for the world as pointed by his tweets linked by jfarmer.

For me, changing a statement like this is pretty close to lying and is probably worse than trolling.

Then you should judge and upvote his post. Please do not tell people how to vote -- that itself is judging. Users are given the ability to upvote or downvote and the community should see that through. Its always interesting to me how many people jump in and try to establish rules on upvoting and downvoting. I'm sorry but every member of this community should upvote and downvote as they please.

Bad on me for sending this to Loren. I honestly didn't even read the whole thing... I was like "oh here is an email from the dude who got extorted cool... " I actually didn't think it was that big of deal.

Never email something you're not comfortable with sharing with the world. Aside from the security concerns, your email is not going to be read in a clean room and you never know what distraction, mood or state's caught the recipient.

uhhhh..... correct!

it would have been kept confidential if it said confidential in the subject line or first line. i get 400-500 emails a day... i scan most.

If he was so concerned about keeping it private why did he e-mail you in the first place? Did the e-mail specifically ask you not to share? If not it's a valuable lesson in how the exchange of information works in the real world. Talk to your good friends about private issues in a private setting. Don't start sending e-mails to strangers(?) and expect them to understand the implied privacy concerns without an explicit privacy request attached.

If you read, jason's comments in the original post, he has said that the email asked to be kept confidential. Jason said he didn't read the whole thing and forwarded it for fun and berated sam for not mentioning confidentiality in the subject !! Stay away from calcanis.

Ah well that's just sloppy or shady. No excuse for that.

Re: 3. ... 'so publicly '.. You make it sound the problem is the publicity rather the act itself :) Actually it may be better in the long run for him it happened so publicly, or he may have reached new lows later on encouraged by early success. Being caught can be a blessing in disguise.

good point

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