[tsally]

Right so let's violate the privacy of every interesting person who posts things online. Oh wait, that's what was done with _why. Seemed to work out well, didn't it? I don't even want to think about how many interesting Ruby innovations were lost as a result.

Bottom line: the information is meant to be read but decency and common sense should prevent you from probing deeper. If you don't follow these guidelines, interesting people will stop posting online. Unrestrained curiosity in these situations leads to everyone losing.

[lambda]

You know, AMA stands for "Ask Me Anything", which generally implies that any question is fair game (with obvious caveats for off-topic privacy-invasive questions).

People who don't want to answer any question should probably write "AMAA" ("Ask Me Almost Anything").

[brown9-2]

And how is linking to this provoking people to "probe deeper"?

[tsally]

You seem to have misunderstood Sukotto's comment. He's not protesting linking to the thread. He's protesting a comment posted earlier by a user here on HN that speculated as to the identity of the AMA poster.

[yesimahuman]

I think you need to know going into posting an AMA that people will want to know who you are. I think if you use a pseudonym for anything people will want to know who you are. Just because _why couldn't handle it (as you say), doesn't mean everyone else is to blame for that.

[stupidwhore]

Couldn't handle it? Where the fuck do you get off?

We have this vision, we goddamned assholes, of _why as an entity that existed entirely online. He was TryRuby and Shoooes and the Poignant Guide and his Twitter account and his URLs and his Wikipedia page. Then one day he disappears and we treat him like he's a dead man or a ghost, never to appear again. That's pathetic enough without us actively treating it like some kind of tragic event.

Here's what happened with _why. He realized that his persona was limiting him in some ways. He was busy working to help people he never met who weren't grateful for his work, who expected him to remain some static unchanging persona. And _why, bless him, is a stable man with some reason about him, and he decided that all he'd amassed — all the fame, all the reputation, all the fans — wasn't worth it to him anymore. So he deliberately disappeared himself, so thoroughly that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't even figure out amongst themselves if they'd found the right name to call him by. Now he can do whatever the hell he wants, and none of it ever gets tied down to him. He's a free man. Still got the wit, the talent, the verbal alacrity, the art and the music and the smile, but now he can have an off day without the world knowing.

I'd call that pretty fucking handled. Much more handled than the guy that slowly crushes himself maintaining images and aspects that he personally can't be bothered with. When he left we saw so many people ranting and hailing him as if he were some sort of mystical, incomprehensible being, and nobody whatsoever saying that perhaps he'd quit his job like anybody else working long hours for no pay. For _why, leaving a job meant killing your alias. Nothing incomprehensible there.

But, Mr. Human, you've got to have some nerve to accuse somebody else of something just because he stopped working very, very hard in the public eye for little reward.

[yesimahuman]

What part of Just because _why couldn't handle it (AS YOU SAY) didn't you understand? I wasn't accusing _why of not being able to handle it, I was referring to what I thought the parent meant.

Honestly, I never cared for the drama of the whole concept of _why and I still don't, and I wasn't trying to dig on him since I really don't care about it at all.

[gcb]

always thought that working under the public eye was his reward.