Hacker News Reader

Comment by StandardFuture | Hacker News Reader

Please leave a disclaimer stating that you work for Google, as your GitHub[1] says that you do. Thanks. :)

People take those disclaimers way out of context, so I avoid them. (Google my name to see how I learned this the hard way.)

Most long-time readers of HN know where I work, and I target my comments in that direction, rather than to anyone that happens to stumble upon this page. My apologies.

Nothing I see on the first couple of pages of Google. A link might be more helpful.

I assume it is this that he is referencing: http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads-shouldnt...

Yup! Makes me look pretty dumb, doesn't it :)

(Also: never go up against the SEO blogs! They have good SEO! :)

I'm not sure avoiding putting a disclosure of interest will avoid that sort of thing. I think when discussing anything related to your employer you need to be really careful.

Opinion should always be disclosed as such with disclosure and probably normally a disclaimer that it your personal view and not that of your company although if it is a statement of pure fact I think it is OK to post anonymously and/or without disclaimer.

Your comment about G+ above is very much opinion.

A factual statement correcting another post "you can now do X by going to Y" in response to a complaint that you can't do X is for me fine even if related to your employer and you don't disclose anything.

Working for myself now means I don't have to worry about contradicting my employer or embarrassing them, it is a nice freedom to have.

This is a controversial change, and praising the new system while neglecting to mention that you work for Google risks coming off like astroturfing, regardless of your intentions. I think enough people can be reasonable and take your opinions into consideration even if your employer is the topic of conversation.

That's fine. It's good to consider the source of the argument in addition to its content. I take a neutral view because I don't really care one way or the other; if this was jrockway Inc., I might not have done the change in the same way. But perhaps that's why there is no such thing as jrockway Inc., and there is a such thing as G+ and YouTube. Who knows.

Googlers should be banned from HN as they skew many Google-related threads / comments a bit too much.

You're right! This single, reasonable opinion from one of the thousands of informed people who happen to work on a wide variety of products from this particular company threw the discussion way off! I'm glad we have your reasoned opinion to put things in perspective. Now, how about we go burn down Mountain View?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com