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Comment by latchkey | Hacker News Reader

Here is a Dave story...

I once wrote an early web server using his Frontier Scripting platform which ended up serving up a large corporate website that my company built. Crazy early days of the web. So, I got to 'know' Dave a bit online.

One time I was at a bar (that no longer exists) in San Francisco at some MacWorld event in the 90's and Dave showed up. He and I had previously had some emails back and forth that were not necessarily pleasant, probably some silly flame war of some sort that I can't remember. I was definitely young and stupid and this was the .com 90's!

When he was near me, I jokingly said: 'Hey Dave, bite me!" and a bunch of my friends started laughing. Mostly because they knew his reputation for flame wars. He immediately got over the top furious with me, said 'Never say that to me again!', walked away and we never spoke again.

Anyway, I just want to apologize, I shouldn't have said that.

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I like this in your profile --

"Important: If you are looking at this profile because you thought something I posted was wrong, dismissive, disrespectful, douchebaggish, what have you, I would really like to hear from you so that I could understand how you got that impression. I won't get mad, I won't "retaliate" I just want to hear what you have to say. It is important to me to communicate clearly and if something I said struck you that way then I failed and I would like to correct it. (Borrowed from another profile)"

Yes I feel you are being all that in this post. At the end you apologize, that's nice, but before that you said some insulting personal things about me, that I'm sure aren't true. Take responsibility for what you did and said and leave it at that. Apologizing for nasty behavior and then saying yeah but the guy was a dick, that isn't apologizing.

Anyway this is par for the course of Hacker News. The troll post always is highest ranked.

The person isn't trolling, though. It's a fun anecdote that makes you both seem more human, and you didn't come across as a dick in it.

EDIT: For the record, most of us probably revere your blog.

Here's how this works. Imagine you don't recall this event. And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that. How would you feel?

You're only telling me how you feel. But you're forgetting that I am not you. And I got a lot of that kind of childish BS. You wouldn't believe how people project on you.

One time at a party in Menlo Park, I had to go take a leak. So I walked to the bathroom, relieved myself and went back to talking with my friends. Sounds pretty ordinary right?

The next day this guy blogged about how I WALKED RIGHT BY HIM without even looking at him. He got all kinds of empathy. I had no idea who he was. I guessed that I mustve walked by him on the way to piss.

It got to the point where people would video me in parties, conversing with me with a camera in their pocket. Or when I went to a meeting at Blogger, and they video'd that, live. We were there talking business. And I got visitors at my house, that was fun. Knocking on the door wanting to know if I lived there, saying shit like this guy was saying.

As a result I pulled back and traded my influence for a bit more normal life.

I haven't even told you the worst of it. It was pretty fucked up.

So this little story here is a reminder of how fucked up people are. His memory of me, a guy who he says created software that he used and liked, is the time he treated me like an object. Sad for him, and also sad for me. And sad for the world that there are limits on how much you can do before they start hurting you for it.

I read a good post on this subject: https://medium.com/@soatok/friendship-and-the-furry-fandom-4...

People who are well-known are people a lot of people want to get to know, but they remain human with human limitations and human priorities.

I've found the best way to get in touch with well-known people is to have a genuine interest in talking to them about mutual interests.

And talk to them like they were human beings, which they are. ;-)

I'm really sorry, but I upvoted your comments, and his, because I thought they were interesting. And wow, Dave Winer is commenting, and a guy who has a story about you from the 90's.

And that pushes his comment to the top, and yeah, here we are.

But a lot of us are very happy about your 25 years. And we know you aren't a bad person, but a human who had a human reaction to an asshole comment in a bar.

> And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that.

Dude, that is definitely a common reaction on your part. You're famous for flipping out at people. Anyone who read your blog for any length of time saw it happen online a few times; anyone in the tech scene in the 2000s had you flip out at one or more of our friends in person. I'm sure you often don't react like that, but you do react like that enough for it to be very notable.

Moreover, your offended and condescending response makes it clear to anyone reading the thread that—unless there was some major provocation edited out of the original comment above, the way you used to do with your blog—you’re at least sometimes hypersensitive and prone to overreacting.

Spot on.

That's messed up. Nobody should have to put up with that. The only thing I knew about you before this was your history of outliners http://davewiner.userland.com/outlinersProgramming It was more interesting than it should have been.

My story wasn't projecting at all. It was simply a story for background and an apology. But you seem to have turned it into more than that. Treating you like an object, what? I also used your software, I didn't say I liked it.

Wow.

latchkey's story presents himself as being in the wrong, and presents you as overreacting. Then he closes with an apology.

Your response makes it pretty clear that you do indeed match the description of you provided in latchkey's post.

> Anyway this is par for the course of Hacker News. The troll post always is highest ranked.

:( HN is the platform on the net where you will read "RSS should be used more" and "Thanks Dave Winer for this great tech" most often. And here you have a comment of someone with no history of trolling (according to his most recent posts at least) who made himself very small ("I was an idiot") and apologized to you, and you insult not only him, but the whole platform.

Dave, you don't know me, but a lot of people here read you. And so many of the developers here build software with technology you like (i.e. I implemented a RSS feed for my blog software, a feed reader [with opml import!], a rss polling and pushing infrastructure, and a RSS focused SaaS pipes revival site) and share some of your ideals. Is it really necessary to be antagonistic to all of us? How is this a winning strategy?

And assume for a moment latchkeys story is genuine. You don't remember it, but so what, it was 25 years ago and you said yourself you had lots of bad interactions at that time. I'd be very surprised if some idiot kid acting badly is something you would remember. Your reaction now to his public apology would be devastating.

From your second comment:

> His memory of me, a guy who he says created software that he used and liked, is the time he treated me like an object.

To me it reads like he treated you like one of his friends, which obviously was a bad idea if you have a different age and cultural background, besides not sharing this strange feeling of knowing someone because you read his blogs for years, who of course never realized you exist.

Spot on, except the devastating part. I am not surprised by his response and I'm old enough now to just shrug it off.

My story was absolutely genuine and is in response to his request for stories...

"I wonder what it looked like from the other side of the net connection."

That's good to hear :)

I stopped coming here a long time ago because trolls dominate. These days we understand why and how that happens, and HN is wide open to that kind of abuse, with no moderation tools.

So what changed, if it's true that now it's a place where people are respectful of other people? And where are those comments in this thread (spoiler: they're at the bottom of the list).

Anyway PLEASE let me know when the tech I have participated in is discussed here and if there's some way I can help.

For example, I'm getting a new version of the XML-RPC website ready, based on a new JavaScript implementation. A lot of people still use XML-RPC, after scripting.com it's my most popular site.

My email address is dave@scripting.com.

I'm always shipping new projects on GitHub. I have a new one I'm working on that I'm really excited about. ;-)

https://github.com/scripting?tab=repositories

If Hacker News is a good venue then I want to participate. I'm skeptical but will try to keep an open mind.

Oh, but there is not no moderation. There is a moderator team, a system for shadowbanning is in place, and posts get downvoted or flagged. We just still seem to disagree whether the comment here was disrespectful or not.

XML-RPC is indeed something used in the wild, and something I have contact with via blog software. In my case for remote editors and pingbacks basically.

For the discussions, I'm gonna send you a mail :)

There is this famous scene from Howard Stern's movie Private Parts -

Howard: In a way that I gotta figure out what I'm gonna be. I mean, I don't want to be one of these disc jockeys that runs around the country, you know, looking for work all the time. I don't want to end up like that. It's so sad. It's so apparent to me now what I should be doing. I should be talking about my personal life. I've got to get intimate. And every time I feel like I shouldn't say something, maybe I should just say it, just blurt it out, you know? I just got to let things fly. I got to go all the way.

Alison: You didn't go all the way before?

Howard: No. I mean...No. A lot of times, I'm just holding back.

Alison: Then I guess you should go all the way.

When blogging first came about, lot's of people had the same realization. Because it works, in terms of connecting with people.

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