[whowalrus]

I'm on this site a lot, I know who it is and I understand why it made to the front page. It would help everyone (you included) if you try Google first whenever someone (or something) you don't know is mentioned in a discussion. Even if you search for previous mentions of Hugo Barra on Hacker News, you'd learn that stories mentioning his leaving Xiaomi have made the frontpage in the last few days [1]. As a person who is on this site a lot, I'm surprised that you aren't familiar with him.

Let's not even get into what is (or isn't) juvenile at this point.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13461387

[bshimmin]

Just think - the time you spent writing that snarky response could just as easily have been spent writing, for example, "He worked at Google from 2008-13 and had various prominent positions relating to Android, then he took a role as VP at Xiaomi where he played a big role in turning that outfit into a company you've heard of".

[brynjolf]

Same time it would have took to Google it...

[whowalrus]

> Just think - the time you spent writing that snarky response could just as easily have been spent writing...

Is it better to feed fish to a person, or teach them to catch one?

I admit that I was snarky as a response to the entitlement I sensed in his reply to the LMGTFY link. When I come across a discussion on Hacker News (or elsewhere) talking about things I don't know, I take a moment to Google first.

Because asking "who is he, and why should I care?" (which is what the original question amounts to) isn't contributing to the discussion much either.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

"Civil (and informative) comments like yours are why I come to HN."

cough

[whowalrus]

Touche.

[hueving]

A LMGTFY link is juvenile, full stop. It's not appropriate in any response. Condescension (which is what links to that site are) does not make a substantive comment.

If you Google his name, you get an article that he was a VP at Google. Put bluntly, who cares if a VP at Google and VP at Xiami moved to Facebook? Explain why this is relevant and not the equivalent of the magazines in grocery stores discussion who the latest celebrities are sleeping with.

[whowalrus]

> who cares if a VP at Google and VP at Xiami moved to Facebook?

Xiaomi's global vice president Hugo Barra is leaving the company [1] - 124 points, 87 comments

Hugo Barra is joining Facebook to lead virtual reality [2] - 99 points, 37 comments (as of the time of this posting)

So I guess some people DO care. Feel free to read through the discussion on both stories as to why those people care. If you're asking me why YOU should care, I don't think I can answer that question.

Also, sorry about the snark in my previous answer.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13461387

[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488837

[jemfinch]

> Condescension (which is what links to that site are) does not make a substantive comment.

Neither does asking a question which is trivially answered by Googling. Why are you reserving your rage for the person trying to support community norms, and not for the person helplessly demanding that others explain to him what he could trivially discover on his own?

> A LMGTFY link is juvenile, full stop. It's not appropriate in any response.

It makes an important point that someone has asked a question beneath the threshold of questions which contribute positively to the community, and as such I'm happy that it exists, and happy when it's used. lmgtfy links are an act of community self-regulation, whether you think they're "douchey" or not, I'd rather have those links than your pointless screeds in opposition to them.

If you must rage, rage against the person whose time is apparently so much more valuable than the other members of this site that he demands his information be spoonfed to him by humans. Rage against the question "Can someone provide some context as to who this is and why it's newsworthy?" when substituted for the search query "who is hugo barra", which provides more information faster.

[dragonwriter]

> > Condescension (which is what links to that site are) does not make a substantive comment.

> Neither does asking a question which is trivially answered by Googling.

Two wrongs don't make a right; that you see something as a violation of the norms of the site is a good reason to downvote or flag it, it's not a good reason to respond with your own violation of those norms, and should you choose such a violation, you should not expect it to be excused.

[hueving]

>Neither does asking a question which is trivially answered by Googling.

see my response to owebmaster.

>Why are you reserving your rage for the person trying to support community norms

It is not a community norm to condescend with instructions on how to use Google. The downvotes should make that clear.

>when substituted for the search query "who is hugo barra"

see my response to owebmaster.

I'm sorry if you have some personal connection with the guy or there was a cult of personality thing going with him at your job, but a VP of a company moving to a different company just isn't really normally newsworthy. That's why I asked in case I missed something about him changing the entire Facebook VR direction or something.

[jemfinch]

> It is not a community norm to condescend with instructions on how to use Google. The downvotes should make that clear.

It isn't now, and that's sad. But there was a time when this community valued straightforward, direct communication. If that time has passed, it's a loss for the community, and for you, whether you understand that or not.

[bshimmin]

There used to be a thing on usenet, when usenet was still a thing, of people saying "RTFM" or "RTFF" (the last "F" being FAQ). You still see it a bit on the web, but not nearly as much. Of course it was rude and condescending and incredibly unfriendly to newbies, and many people objected to it, but there were always some people who insisted on doing it, and defending it, because it was "straightforward, direct communication" (to use your phrase). In real life, of course, you'd never be so rude to someone - not a friend, not a stranger, not a customer, not a colleague - but for some reason basic politeness gets a bit muddled up on the Internet sometimes.

[jemfinch]

> There used to be a thing on usenet, when usenet was still a thing, of people saying "RTFM" or "RTFF" (the last "F" being FAQ).

I know. And two decades ago, in my youthful inexperience, I was objecting against it myself (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.hp48/f_mPLWMO7Bo/nI...).

> You still see it a bit on the web, but not nearly as much. Of course it was rude and condescending and incredibly unfriendly to newbies

And it's also the reason I got to where I am today. It was only by being told directly to "RTFM" that I learned how to teach myself the things I needed to know, instead of relying on others to spoonfeed me information. I'm not defending it because it's something I want to do--I'm actually a very nice person--I'm defending it because it's something that benefits both the recipient and the community.

> you'd never be so rude to someone - not a friend, not a stranger, not a customer, not a colleague - but for some reason basic politeness gets a bit muddled up on the Internet sometimes.

My coworkers ask me frequently, "Does X do Y?" and I explain to them, "The easiest way to answer that question is to read the code, it's here." Or they ask me how something works and I say, "I don't know, but here's where I'd look to get that information." LMGTFY links are the online equivalent of those replies.

Invariably I've found that the people who object to LMGTFY links or "RTFM" responses or "Look it up" replies or "Try it and see" answers are fundamentally ruder than the ones who give those replies, because they feel entitled to a specific kind of remedial assistance and are too lazy to do the requisite research themselves. I know that's a broad net to cast, and I know that it catches my younger self far more often than I'd like to admit, but it's been my experience and I have no data to contradict it.

[owebmaster]

> A LMGTFY link is juvenile, full stop.

Ask why something is newsworthy while not doing at least a basic research to have a minimum understanding of the subject is very juvenile, and the way you did was disrespectful, now you are lecturing the guy about LMGTFY? Full stop.

[hueving]

>Ask why something is newsworthy while not doing at least a basic research to have a minimum understanding of the subject is very juvenile

Did it occur to you that I did Google his name? The results are littered with this same article and a wikipedia page that mentions he had VP roles at Google/Xiaomi but there was nothing about why this would be relevant to the HN crowd other than him being a VP at big tech companies. VPs at big tech companies move all of the time and they don't make the front page, so I asked who he was and why this was newsworthy.

[notatoad]

>Put bluntly, who cares if a VP at Google and VP at Xiami moved to Facebook?

Apparently HN does, because that's the whole story here.

[jamesrcole]

How do you know "HN does"? Just because the story is on the front-page doesn't mean that. And even if the majority did know, what's wrong with someone who doesn't know asking for some context (where a Google search isn't necessarily easily going to provide that context)?