[tdavis]

Seriously people? I didn't expect this to be taken well by most here (in fact it was an experiment to see if there was a limit to down-voting), but some of you seem to be on a war path now.

It doesn't really matter what the Justin.tv CEO said. He pasted some boiler plate because there's nothing more to be said; the deed had been done. What do you want? An apology for not finding the video? For not policing the Internet? Prosecution of anybody "egging him on?" Come on.

Someone broadcast their suicide. That fact doesn't make it any more tragic than any other suicide. It also doesn't mean anybody more than usual was responsible. There's really no story here which is why I chose to make a comment that didn't acknowledge there was.

You may return to being irrationally sanctimonious now.

[SamReidHughes]

This reminds me of something that happened to me after 9/11. In my teenage immaturity, I made a comment insinuating that America got what was coming to it. I'm not sure why I did that (the mind is good at rationalizing behavior after the fact, so I can't trust my own memories on the matter), but I think it was a reaction to the complete unanimous sorrow going on in the forum. Everybody thought that the attacks were a horrible thing, that the deaths were such a tragedy. It might have been that I was struck by the complete irrationality of their reactions -- people don't feel so angered about annual traffic accident fatality numbers. After their angered reactions, I apologized and gave an excuse somewhat like the parent comment.

Having been in this situation, I'd say that tdavis probably posted that under the same state of mind as I did. And now that I look back, I can't help but conclude that taking that state of mind is the right thing to do. After events like these, certain ideas become treated like "correct viewpoints" that good-thinking people have to have. Such as that America is the good guys, or that this event here was so tragic and that you should be mournful. And now that somebody has come along with a different attitude on the matter, we get to witness a hailstorm of people who don't simply disagree on the matter, but who hate him because his reactions are different to theirs.

[swombat]

"America" did get what was coming to it. Its foreign policy of the last 50 years has been brutal.

However, the people in the towers weren't "America", they were people like you and me, and they were not guilty of "America"'s foreign policy any more than you and me are, and it is a tragedy that they ended up being the victims of this event.

[statictype]

And is it similarly irrational to mourn your Father's death more than the death of some random guy in a hospital you never knew?

[SamReidHughes]

My comment was not about the question of which views are correct or rational or make sense.

[aikiai]

Is it wrong to NOT mourn your father's death more than the death of some random guy in a hospital you never knew?

Just because most of us would, does not necessarily give us the right to judge someone who doesn't.

[Ezra]

This is really the most honest response here.

I guess I'm the only other person who can't see why a pseudo-sentimental canned response is so much superior to any other canned response.

When Pepsi, or the Whitehouse, the police, or whoever else (aside from those who knew the person, weeping or outraged) gives the canned response about caring, does anybody actually believe them when they say "all of us are deeply saddened...", or whatever you're proposing?

By now, people are immune to any type of official response to anything tragic[1], and don't expect (and really wouldn't want) a candid response of any type.

I know it was broadcast live on the internet, which is why it made the news at all but no normal well-adjusted adult (or child, for that matter) will go from "happy go lucky" to killing themselves live on the internet over the course of an afternoon flame war on bodybuilding.com, of all places.

[1]except perhaps missing child, axe murderer on the loose type thing... and then only in Podunk, really.

[Tritis]

I agree. The sentimentalists are denying it. The idea that site operators have to be responsible for the live-feed user-content on their sites is absurd. Yes, this kid killed himself, but if I was the CEO of justin.tv I wouldn't feel bad for the kid. I'd feel bad for the tarnished name of my company. Honestly, people commit suicide ALL THE TIME. And it sucks.... for their friends and family, but suddenly it's broadcast across the internet and I'm supposed to have an interest in this specific incident?

But this story is a sensationalized love-in because other people witnessed the 'suicide'. I'm certainly not calling 9-1-1 every time I read a post trolling some web forums. 99% of the internet is NOT serious business. Most of the internet is people trying to piss each other off and cause trouble.

Honestly, the best this CEO can hope for is if people forget his company was involved, and worse case is the family ends up on Opera bemoaning how horrible the internet is and calling the CEO out to get involved in suicide prevention and better moderate his company's web properties.

_This story shouldn't be about how the internet is a cruel place that forced someone to kill himself. It should be about the real world being so cruel that not a single person in this kid's life cared enough to notice his problems._

[jasonbentley]

It matters if you're trying to build a good reputation for your startup in the public marketplace. As much as we like to think that it's all about the code, these public perception things matter. Ill-considered comments - and even well-meaning comments that have the tone-deaf dissonance of stock boilerplate - have a direct, adverse effect on the public's image of your company. If you run a company like Justin.tv, that should matter to you, regardless of your personal feelings about the suicide itself. That may seem calculated and political, but it's a reality in the unpure world of business.

[noonespecial]

Seriously people? I didn't expect this to be taken well by most here (in fact it was an experiment to see if there was a limit to down-voting), but some of you seem to be on a war path now.

Oh, so now I'm a guinea pig in a sociology experiment when I come to hacker news?

Nice. That makes it so much better. Don't think I'll be using ticket-bumbler either.

Edit: Note for future.

Ask HN: Paul, Is there a downvote limit on HN?

See, isn't that better?

[catch404]

Or, surely he could check out the arc source? Doesn't add much to his argument.

[mojombo]

They say there's no such thing as bad press, but I'm not so sure anymore.

I came to this forum to escape the Reddit mentality. I'm glad to see that griefers are still being aggressively downmodded here. It gives me hope that the HN community can maintain its quality status.

[run4yourlives]

It's harder to be anonymous here. As long as that remains, there's hope.

[mattmaroon]

Are you kidding? You don't even have to input your email to sign up. It's easier to be anonymous here than anywhere else, it's just that more people choose not to be.

[run4yourlives]

Well, I meant it more that nobody will really take an anonymous profile seriously here, unlike other sites.

[mattmaroon]

I don't know about you, but I take everyone seriously until I have a reason not to.

[debt]

You think the people on here are dumb enough to believe that what you posted was an "experiment"? You're an asshole.

[river_styx]

Just apologize for the comment, man. You're not going to change anyone's mind with a childish rant like this.

[mrtron]

Posting comments irrelevant to your initial insensitivity will not help save face, especially when you throw in an attack towards the entire crowd.

[petercooper]

An interesting, but rather unanticipated (I expect), side effect of your experiment is that even when you post something that's not too contentious, you're getting voted down to oblivion.

That shows there are plenty of HN users who do not understand HN policy. PG himself has said don't to crazy levels (such as under -10) unless it's obviously spam or the like..

[rms]

This happens to people all the time... it almost never works to reply to massively downmodded posts to try and salvage them. I wouldn't even recommend he apologize as that will probably be downmodded.

[petercooper]

Agreed. Besides, this post will blow over quickly (as they all do).

One thing I've noticed a lot in the past is that I'll post something I truly believe or feel but that's slightly contentious. I'll get downvoted to, say, -4 or so in the first few hours, but then voted up into positive territory over a day or two.

Perhaps those who aren't always trawling the site for new items are more realistic in their voting, whereas those who spend more time on the site are hastier and more damning.

[run4yourlives]

If he intends to experiment with the downvote threshold as he states, I certainly won't stand in his way.

[allenbrunson]

how does this have anything to do with what you posted? your comment was insensitive, regardless of what justin.tv executives did or didn't do.

[swombat]

Please keep your sanctimonious righteousness at home.

[SamReidHughes]

So?

[run4yourlives]

Lesson here: When you make a mistake, buck up and say admit as much, especially when you're fronting a business.