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Comment by Ryel | Hacker News Reader

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Ryel

Just to clarify, Dong Nguyen is still alive... right?

The article is a little fuzzy -

"In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread. Nguyen had committed suicide."

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Did you miss that this was an interview?

I only know he is still alive because I've followed the Flappy Bird story.

I just shared this story with 3 people who only know OF him, all 3 of them replied with their condolences and then we found consolation in his humor about CounterStrike. As a reporter I would think there should be some importance in leaving zero room for misintepretation regarding somebody's well-being.

Is that wrong?

If you include the next few sentences it's clear that there was no suicide:

    In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread. Nguyen
    had committed suicide. Nintendo was suing him. He'd received
    death threats. His refusal to speak fueled the speculation
    even more.

It's a list of the rumors that were going around, and is terminated by a statement about his refusal to speak (at the time) which strongly implies that the suicide rumor was, well, just a rumor.

I see the flow you're talking about but IMO that second sentence is just too big and too bold. The paragraph seems to drop that bomb, inch away and then come back to discredit it rather than just spitting it out like, "rumors begun to spread that Dong had..."

Anyway, no sense in nit-picking but I would like to see a couple words rearranged. I really think he's a good guy and he seems to be someone worthy of the industry's admiration.

We need many, many more people like him in this world. (from what I know about him)

Ah, I see what you're concerned about. The implied structure there is something like:

    In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread:
    Nguyen had committed suicide; Nintendo was suing
    him; he'd received death threats. His refusal to
    speak fueled the speculation even more.

But their approach has more literary force, so I think what they did was a reasonable author's choice, not an editing error.

There is always room for misinterpretation. You will never be able to defend yourself 100% against people with poor reading comprehension.

Huh. Maybe I know too much about journalism. But something titled "Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out" tells me that it's an interview with a person... speaking out. In the flesh and everything.

The reporter talking about going to meet him, and how that Nguyen has agreed to share his story with Rolling Stone for the first time. It ends with Nguyen saying (present tense) that he's good now and talking about what he'll do in the future.

I just don't see how somebody could read this story other than as an interview with a living person.

That part had strange wording. I'm assuming that that was one of the rumors. It could have been worded better, perhaps with a colon and then a list of rumors.

Didn't you read the article? He committed Japanese ritual suicide, in front of 100 broken iphones sent to him by irate players.

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