it hit the top of the front page, and people complained about my use of the word "purchased" (including freenode staff now that seem to be extremely upset...): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14102030
needless to say the title was edited...
Corporate press releases are sort of a special case: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... I sometimes say they're an exception to HN's title rule, but that's not really true. The rule is "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait", and the euphemistic, one-sided language of CPRs tends to be misleading (and sometimes is intentionally so).
It was a different atmosphere back then; far more "grifty" a time perhaps. I need not make appeals to some Hegelian universal history for us all to see now the owl of Minerva has flown. You were duped and spread disinformation -- that's okay -- apologetics can save you.
Since you are in a position of authority and trust, ironically, just like the subjects of this very story, there is one thing you can do: Apologize.
Just apologize, and keep doing your thing. History will judge all of us far better than our downvotes.
Congrats on spotting the danger early. Still, I support editing the title back to the original. Avoiding editorialised titles is important, it means that opinions are shared in comments and it's easier to have a neutral discussion.
Back then you were right about the purchase but it seems that you weren't able to get your point across to the others; I wish people listened more and I also wish you talked more.
As someone with only a passing interest in freenode which I used to use but no longer do, learning they were bought is much more relevant than the implication they formed a partnership. I understand that there is grey area over whether they were “bought”, but a partnership doesn’t seem to cover what went down in any way.
True, but we only know that in hindsight. At the time the claim about acquisition was disputed [1] [2]. If somebody replied with information about voting rights [3] then perhaps the "joining forces" title would have been treated as misleading and replaced with "purchased by".
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14102301
Shows Mr Lee aquired >50% voting rights in 2017.
(via https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...)
What has become clear to us in the last few days is that we were lied to,
by both Andrew and christel. Contrary to public and private statements, the
sale included the network as a whole, something christel should not have
had the ability to relinquish, as most of the infrastructure is not owned
by her or any of us. However, Andrew has more money than us, and so we
cannot fight this.Some resignations letters say that it seems to say this.
They will sell their last airliner, but will still cling on to stuff like Roosevelt hotel, and such.