Paul Graham Publicly Releases Nodejitsu From Hacker News Jail | Hacker News Reader

Paul Graham Publicly Releases Nodejitsu From Hacker News Jail

betabeat.com

8 pointskarlzt12 comments

It's such a drag that HN comments now become news stories. Now when I write something I have to think about how it will sound in print. Plus it decreases the information content of HN to have articles that are essentially dupes of old comment threads.

I didn't even realize Heroku was the company they were claiming I'd banned them to help. I assumed they meant another smaller company we funded that's focused specifically on Node.

Working at a company that maintains several forums; I've found that anything we say publicly can and will be construed to suit whatever agenda they aggrieved party wants to play into. There will always be claims of bias in moderation but all you can do is try to apply the same yard stick to everyone. And still hold feet to the fire when they break the community guidelines.

What if you adopted a strategy of not caring? Honest thought experiment; not a rhetorical question.

Paul Graham represents a brand bigger than himself. When you stop caring what you say to who, it has implications to all those companies that belong to that bigger brand, along with the brand itself.

pg, I think most of us support you hellbanning these overly-entitled spammers. Ignore their propaganda.

pg, not sure how you're taking it, but this story reflects positively on you and HN in general.

What is the other company you funded that's focused specifically on Node? Was it no.de, Nodester, nodesocket, bejes.us? If you don't mind, what makes that solution worth funding?

Disclaimer: I work at Nodejitsu, but my words are my own.

> It's such a drag that HN comments now become news stories.

Oh, c'mon. This isn't like some quiet "just my buddies" forum. HN, whether you like it or not, is a place where "movers and shakers" communicate what's happening to them or what they think, so of course it's going to become news. It's like complaining that people actually pay attention to your tweets.

> I didn't even realize Heroku was the company they were claiming I'd banned them to help.

People may have insinuated that YC/HN was/is engaging in shill-esque activities (it's an easy thing to do), but I don't think anybody representing Nodejitsu made this claim, nor do I think they would if pressed.

Your boss made that claim. In public, on HN. Graham responded, literally to that comment, by unbanning Nodejitsu.

Can we stop talking about this now?

I'm willing to admit I'm wrong, but I scoured those comments and I'm really not seeing it. If it's there, please, quote it, and I'll own it.

"if you’re not sure, don’t."

This is a guideline that ethical people already follow. At least, until they've asked permission.

People who claim to be ethical will do things until they're told not to, claiming that if they weren't forbidden, it's not unethical.

The thing is, ethics doesn't care if you were forbidden or not. It's not about rules or laws. It's about doing what's right, and not doing what's not right.

Accidents happen, and I'm not saying they don't... But there's a huge difference between doing things that you know are harmful to another party (even though they haven't said so) and doing things that you don't realize are harmful.

Can we ban Betabeat? What a giant waste of time.

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