Hacker News Reader

Comment by ugh | Hacker News Reader

Can we please stop this?

You are not making a valid argument, not in any way, shape or form. It’s pure, irrelevant bullshit.

It’s possible to be completely unable to color grade yet still notice trends and write that you think they are horrible.

But you are not even talking about the author’s ability to color grade, you are talking about fucking web design which is a tenuously related field at best. It just makes no sense at all.

Critics do not have to be good at what they criticize in order to be good critics. Would Roger Ebert be a good director?

It’s astonishing really, a complete non-sequitur.

View on HN

He's not talking about "web design", he's talking about the color scheme that this particular blogger has chosen for his site.

It's not a "complete non-sequitur" to connect the color selection criticism skills of the author to his own color selections.

Colors, not "web design".

Are they the same? No. Are they wholly unrelated? No.

Readability and typography is not something someone who color grades deals with. It’s unrelated. It’s a non-sequitur.

Inverted text is fine for any application in movies since there is so little of it. Inverted text becomes only a problem if the texts get longer. (And even then inverted text is certainly not a completely wrong but merely a debatable choice.)

You are making no sense.

The author is a colorist.

The point he's making is that work, art and design done by the author doesn't have anything to do with the arguments he puts forward in the article/blogpost. If the arguments he uses are wrong, point that out and explain why they are wrong.

And? Was I suggesting the author isn’t or what? Criticizing the author’s web design skills just makes no sense whatsoever. It just doesn’t. There is no connection.

I was also trying to make a larger point: Even if you think the author’s work sucks you can’t just dismiss everything that is said.

Even if you think the author’s work sucks you can’t just dismiss everything that is said.

Yes. We can. Some ppl may not like it, but we certainly can.

The reason that "some ppl [sic] may not like it" is because it's logically unsound. Dismissing a point of view based on the party, rather than on the position, is the definition of a tu quoque fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

P.S. I agree the author's web design isn't exactly "web 2.0" but it clearly does not diminish the author's credibility to comment on film colorization. They are completely separate.

> Dismissing a point of view based on the party, rather than on the position, is the definition of a tu quoque fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Except that the original poster's comment was not a tu quoque fallacy. Note from your source:

   This form of the argument is as follows:

       A makes criticism P.
       A is also guilty of P.
       Therefore, P is dismissed.

In this instance "P" is "Hollywood color choices". The original poster did not dismiss P (i.e., a dismissal of P would be that Hollywood color choices are perfectly fine). The original poster dismissed the blog authors reputation to assert an opinion regarding Hollywood color choices because the blog author, by virtue of having made awful color choices in his blog, had presented evidence of lack of knowledgeable sufficient to assert an educated opinion about P (Hollywood color choices). Whether Hollywood color choices (P) are bad or good remains an open question, P was not dismissed.

Note further in your own citation:

   Legitimate use

   The legitimate form of the argument is as follows:

       A makes criticism P.
       A is also guilty of P.
       Therefore, A is dismissed (from his/her role as a model of the principle that motivates criticism P).

   The difference from the illegitimate form is that the latter would try to dismiss P along with A. It is illegitimate to conflate the logically separate questions of whether P is a valid criticism and whether A is a good role model.

Which is exactly the use made by the original ironic/priceless comment. "A" (blog author) criticized "P" (poor color choices). "A" is also guilty of "P" (poor color choices). "A" was dismissed.

It’s unrelated. Color choice is not color choice and color choice for good readability has nothing to do with color choice in movies. It’s a bullshit argument.

1. As another poster already said, "Readability and typography is not something someone who color grades deals with." EVEN IF I were to accept that this is not a tu quoque argument, the two skills are completely different. I am personally a web designer, and I have no basis or knowledge to comment on color grading in films. None.

Nevertheless, it's a moot point because...

2. I believe the original poster's comment, "physician, heal thyself" is a reference to a person (in this case, the author), and not to a position.

Can I make this any plainer?

> I believe the original poster's comment, "physician, heal thyself" is a reference to a person (in this case, the author), and not to a position.

That would therefore be an incorrect assumption:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physician,_heal_thyself

"The moral of the proverb is counsel to attend to one's own defects rather than criticizing defects in others, ..."

Or, in other words, before criticizing movie color defects, attend to his own web color defects.

> I am personally a web designer, and I have no basis or knowledge to comment on color grading in films.

Granted. But, would you say that your experience in web design and color selection would allow you sufficient knowledge to identify an absolutely awful movie color scheme? I would posit yes. The converse would also be true. Someone with movie color grading expertise should have sufficient knowledge of colors to at least make a reasonably passing effort at reasonable web color selection. I.e., the underlying basics apply and carry through in both arenas, even if the particular technical specifics differ.

No, this is nonsensical. You don't have to be a good role model to bring forth a criticism. Who better to point out your alcohol problem then an alcoholic?

Are you talking about color grading or web design?

If you are talking about web design you are making no sense whatsoever. No sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com