Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

It's not a technical article. It's a lurid media topic* about a suspicious-looking alleged suicide with zero information for a substantive discussion, and tons of fuel for sinister speculation. That's not what HN is supposed to be for. However, we can give this one a pass because the ongoing Boeing saga is of interest and there's clearly a community appetite to discuss this development.

Edit: even though the thread is terrible, which is just what one would expect from a sensational topic with zero information for a substantive discussion.

* Edit 2: I changed the word 'story' to 'topic' because I don't mean to disparage the BBC article itself - anigbrowl's reply is right on that

View on HN

Flatly untrue. It's a soberly worded recitation of the available facts with multiple caveas; the frenzy of speculation stems from Boeing's increasingly tattered corporate reputation, not the story. This was written to far higher standards than (for example) a story from the Daily Mail or New York Post; I'm astonished that you would characterize this way.

Sorry—I'm tired and expressed that carelessly, and you're quite right. I wasn't talking about the article and am glad that it is as good as you say. In fact I merged the other thread into this one precisely because the BBC article was better.

What I mean is that the story itself, i.e. the significant new information, is a lurid apparent suicide, and there aren't any details about that, other than it happened. Not because the article is bad but because that is the only piece of information available.

The interest in such a story is neither technical nor intellectual and we shouldn't pretend that it is. It's a suspicious death story with sinister overtones. The curiosity here is not primarily intellectual, which means it's not really a good story for HN, but I'm giving it a pass because it is strange enough to be different and there's a community appetite to discuss it. Normally the latter isn't enough to justify a story remaining on HN's front page but there are degrees of community appetite and I recognize this one.

Good guy dang. Thanks for all your hard work making this place great.

I also think there are 2 different ways of discussing this - one is on mental health (if it's truly a suicide), shadowy agencies, Boeing's failures, and about corporate whistleblowing and its risks in general.

The other discussion is speculation on what this truly is - which is a more political/controversial topic.

There are lots of discussions on the former set of topics which are fairly popular on HN which explains why this thread is popular. I do think such discussions are valuable if there isn't a ton of speculation, which I think this thread is handling decently (although maybe I'm late enough to see all controversial comments already dead).

alleged is too strong. There's speculation which seems reasonable given the circumstances.

Good point. 'alleged' isn't the word I was looking for. I've changed it to 'apparent' above.

The required explanation is unnecessarily unreadable, so I explain it again.

As I wrote in my other comment, I meant the article as it relates to technology. My original comment is hidden below so I explain it again here. The safety of the environment surrounding engineers is a serious concern of engineers. Note that even if it is a suicide, it is still a safety problem of the environment surrounding engineers. Since it is Boeing that pressured him until he committed suicide.

So I wrote "concerning safety culture of engineers". Your interpretation is a complete misunderstanding. At least the points voted on my above comment indicate that your interpretation is not the majority. Hence, thanks to the many supporters, my above comment received many votes and was moved to this thread and this thread was eventually returned to the top page.

We must not remain ignorant or indifferent to unsafe working environments.

Dang, it would be nice of you if you at least addmitted that the front page as opposed to /active is heavily curated and hand-picked by you and other moderators. Anyone who has been on HN long enogh can see this, there is no point in phrasing it otherwise. And I guess people will be ok with this as long you guys are transparent about it.

I've posted thousands of comments about that over 10 years, starting on the day I took over Hacker News:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494621 (March 2014)

I don't know why you expect people will find your old comment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com