[marvwhere]

first of all: i am so so so so sorry for you!!!

i have a older sister, and i guess i love her more then my parents, it would be the worth if she was gone. we are separated by five years, and we both in totally different things, but there is this connection between brothers and sisters which are stronger then everything else.

but there is a bad part about my comment, and that was more the intention i make this comment, and i already know i will get a lot of down votes, but: what the fuck has this do to on "HACKER NEWS"? it's not against you personally, but in the last weeks a lot of personal storys filling this page more and more, and i do not like this trend. i'm very ver sorry for this part of my comment! but it is bothering me since weeks.

but in the end i want to say again: i'm sorry for you i have a kind of an idea what it feels like, after my grandma past away 3 years ago.

[smoyer]

It doesn't appear that Brian Bailey actually posted this here ... and we do occasionally support our fellow hackers here.

[felipebueno]

You're right. I posted it here because I feel really sorry for Brian and wanted to share his words.

[dantillberg]

I actually really like the focus on personal & emotional issues we have here; I think that a lot of readers here suffer and/or have suffered alone, and this is a bit of a community of sorts for many.

[biot]

It doesn't scale particularly well though. With many thousands of active users here, posting when they have implemented some really cool technology they want to share furthers the HN community. However, posting when they have personal or emotional issues would dilute the HN community and turn it into something different.

That said, there will always be exceptions and I'm neither the person nor am I qualified to make such determinations other than to choose to upvote or not.

[robryan]

I think the upvotes work it out well. It isn't like the front page is inundated with personal life stories. If one in a while is voted up it likely left a mark on people.

[anon1i40292]

I agree with you that this is not "Hacker News". But, this story really hit me.

I do take some opposition to your post, given the context of this thread I think that you could have raised the issue in a politer and less confrontational way. Especially since this was brought to HN by a 3rd party instead of the author.

As an additional side point, one of the HN rules is that "deeply interesting" stories are permitted. Given that OP is one of us I think this qualifies, certainly a few people have found it interesting.

[ceautery]

Brian appears to be a hacker of sorts, judging from the rest of his blog and his "uncommon.cc" site. He writes beautifully, and suffered a tragedy with grace. As hackers, we could learn from his example.

That's how it's hacker news. Now shush and go give him some money to help bury his sister.