You're clearly talking about a different tptacek, widely known on this site for his coarsely abrasive, impossibly high friction, social interactions and not admitting he's wrong on issues trivial or important. He's also widely known for a being an expert in his field.
All that being said, I agree with you that this site is more valuable with him on it and regularly participating. He's one of the actual experts in their field that makes this a much better forum than any other. IMHO, it's well worth the comment burn to talk and debate (friendly or not) with somebody of his caliber.
And being wrong every once in a while (regardless of his rightness in this case) does not make him either incompetent or malicious. It just makes him human.
What are you talking about? Whatever caricature you're illustrating here is not Thomas Ptacek.
With the way you've been talking, I would've suspected you were a newer member, but you've been around for three years or so. So I simply have no idea what you're talking about.
Would you please point out precisely which comments you take issue with? https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=by%3Atpta...
I think the thing to remember about Thomas, and me, and everyone else, is that we're all human, and we all have different moods which influence our behavior. Thomas's, on average, is exemplary.
I'm talking about the same tptacek who I've personally butted heads with where he couldn't even accept being wrong about how to make stew (looking back, that was exactly 1 year ago to the day!)
I respect tptacek very much for his domain knowledge and expertise. He has great theories on hiring practices and cooking among others. He's one of the names I look for on HN.
But he requires lots of care and effort. I have to mentally peel back about half of his posts to remove the snark and assholery and get to the juicy bits. But those bits are usually there and usually worth the effort to get to.
That's okay, I'm a grown up and can deal with high friction in order to enjoy interacting with somebody who's truly intelligent. tptacek is just one of those types that comes with lots of smarts and lots of difficult personality and that's okay.
And for the record I'm also aware that I can be rather high friction and assholish as well, and not nearly as insightful as tptacek.
I'm logically one of the last people to defend him here having butted heads with him so much, but in fact I deeply value his presence here.
> How would you feel if you saw someone talking like that about you?
I'd probably agree with them. I'm not a high-school kid afraid of how my peers will see me and neither is tptacek. I've said as much about his communication style to him directly.
I highly doubt that tptacek doesn't have enough self-awareness to know that he's a high maintenance debate partner. There's no reason to paint him as a saint, he's just a guy. A very smart guy, but he has his foibles and flaws, which are far outweighed by his contributions. But to ignore those more difficult parts of his personality does him a disservice by not seeing him in his entirety.
I respect the entire person (as much as I can see through the limited lens of HN) not just the parts I think are praiseworthy.
> Jesus, what a tool you are.
How very civil and gracious.