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Comment by pstack | Hacker News Reader

From the site: Where interesting people say: "Ask me anything."

You know the author is interesting, because there's a giant photo of them in a dress cut down to their navel, right above the questions about interviewing dozens of attempted suicides.

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Please do enlighten us: what is the correct clothing to wear on a website when you discuss attempted suicides? Should we make sure to stick to earth tones so that we respect the solemnity of the topic, or do we want to add some bright colors in to make sure no gets even sadder? This is one area where I sure wouldn't want to make a misstep. What's your opinion vis a vis a pipe for added gravitas? I think it might go too far. Maybe when you're done with suicide-related topics, you could compose a manual for other scenarios, so that we can be sure to never again offend your sense of fashion.

tl;dr, cut the fucking body policing, jackass.

Maybe he was just making a joke/being funny? If indeed then probably should make that clear since we all come from different cultures and sometimes jokes are misunderstood.

I think the "serious answer" would be "you don't put a photo of yourself, or, in fact, anything related to yourself that could be misconstrued as egocentric or status-serving, in an article related to suicide; you just let it speak for itself." However, that sort of goes against the whole point of the site's format, which is, basically, to status-affiliate [through social learning] with people who have done things that have made them high-status in one way or another.

I think the "serious answer" to that would be "then they shouldn't have done the interview" (or "they should have made some special exception to their normal site formatting," which through interview prioritization basically amounts to the same thing) which has interesting implications for the ethics of free speech.

I could understand if it were just a little user icon off in the corner, but to have a huge 200x300 photo in the article is a little obnoxious, though probably not intentionally crude. If it's an automated function of the site that puts it there for, then maybe a more tasteful choice of photo is called for when one posts several articles about working with suicide patients.

I should edit this to add that the author being an attractive young women is irrelevant and that a similar photo with a male author would be as unfortunately distasteful. And as the other poster mentioned, they thoughtfully changed their photo. Maybe it's just a cruddy way the site automates the use of people's photos in a sort of template?

I have to admit when I clicked on the page I thought about it, but I was a nice surprise. Btw she changed the picture.

  > what is the correct clothing to wear on a
  > website when you discuss attempted suicides?

You're missing the point: What value does the photo even add to the focus of the discussion? There's already a icon/avatar photo of her in the top right corner with her twitter account. Why are we blasted with a huge photo of her (regardless of what she's wearing)? Personally, I would find a huge photo of a guy with a beard toting a sweater vest and smoking a pipe just as jarring.

We ask for a relevant photo when you create an AMA. I think a photo of the person answering questions is more relevant than some sort of suicide-related stock photo.

You're misunderstanding. I'm advocating no photo.

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