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by Morgawr 1317 days ago
Every comment I remember of him on HN threads were all hidden, downvoted and flagged. Now, to be perfectly clear, most of them were completely deranged and absolutely unrelated (usually a lot of stuff about god and bible etc etc) and he clearly was not sane of mind, but saying that he was treated "with respect and admiration" is a huge stretch.

People admired his work and acknowledged the existence of his project. People talked about it a lot and it was definitely interesting to see develop. However the person himself was definitely not welcome on HN (and I can't really fault that logic).

2 comments

The net attitude of HN is one of admiration for Terry because he's more talented than most of us. I think the biggest thing that affected Terry on this site was being hell-banned.
For most, it wasn’t admiration, it was jealousy. Hateful jealousy.
I don't think that banning someone who repeatedly posts "completely deranged and absolutely unrelated" material is not treating them with respect. You don't have to look very far before he starts calling things CIA nigger brainwashing, and stuff like that.
This site was better with him on it. So what if he said a lot of crazy things? If you let a crazy guy offend you, I think that's a "you problem." He did not have the position or power to act on his prejudices; he wasn't hurting anybody in any real way. Posting here obviously meant something to him, since he kept coming back and creating new accounts. It was cruel to shut him out.
I'd respectfully disagree.

Propagation of harmful sentiments from anyone, but especially someone who (rightfully) inspires admiration will spread those further to people who are easily influenced or unable to separate a technical brilliance from someones capabilities in the rest of their life.

To be clear - Terry remains an inspiration to me, but I can understand the predicament of a moderator who needs to maintain a space.

People aware of Terry's condition might be willing to put up with his antics, but that's a minority. Everyone else just sees this crazy stuff being posted.