Reddit Bans Five Communities In New Anti-Harassment Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/10/reddit-bans-five-communities-in-new-anti-harassment-campaign/ Most notable is /r/fatpeoplehate, which had become an extremely popular "fat-shaming" community. <comment><USER4> This article dramatically understates the magnitude of the shitstorm that is currently unfolding. Check out [http://www.reddit.com/r/all/](http://www.reddit.com/r/all/) if you feel like seeing all the ugliness.

(And if anyone has any doubts that this is ultimately about harassment, count how many of the posts on the front page (and their comments) are made up of personal attacks and/or obscenities targeted at CEO Ellen Pao.)

I don't fault the Reddit admins for trying to clean things up but I can't see any good that will come of this. To paraphrase a comment that I saw earlier today and now can't find, it's like trying to get rid of an anthill with a leaf-blower; you just end up with pissed-off ants everywhere.

EDIT: Ah, found it. It was in the "can I sue Reddit for violating my freedom of speech" thread in /r/legaladvice. [http://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/39c58h/could_so...](http://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/39c58h/could_someone_sue_reddit_for_banning_and/cs2ch7d?context=4)

<comment><USER5> The front page is pretty worrying.

The situation seems almost identical to when Reddit axed r/jailbait: one of their more embarrassing communities started to get too much attention, its users were increasingly behaving in a way that was damaging Reddit, and Reddit decided to kill it (ostensibly for the greater good of the site).

But even though that pissed plenty of people off... I don't recall the front page being totally dominated by calls for anyone's head on a silver platter. Reddit's userbase seems to feel especially _threatened_ by Ellen Pao, and it's hard for me to believe that the difference is anything rational.

<comment><USER6> Pao is attempting to "clean up"... in an environment that cherishes its traditional freewheeling and unrestrained discourse. Even if the stuff getting cleaned up is just the stuff that most people agree deserves it - for some value of deserves - it's a troubling precedent to set.

Some people find themselves wondering what opinions will be deemed unsafe next. The policies are not exactly clear-cut, and neither are the actions of the administration.

<comment><USER7> > what opinions will be deemed unsafe next.

I think this is a little dramatic. It's not about censorship of "unsafe opinions" \- you are free to hold your opinion and talk about it, just not on Reddit. It's akin to a hotel owner disallowing a Klan meeting in the conference room. I think any business owner deserves that right.

> The policies are not exactly clear-cut

I dunno, the blog post seems fairly clear cut to me. It's not about blocking content, it's about blocking subreddits whose sole purpose was harassment of individuals.

<comment><USER8> I think this is a something without general and clear-cut answer. I don't think there is something inherently wrong if you run a hotel only for women or people of a specific religion, probably because your offering is tailored to your audience in some way. But if every hotel would start to randomly decided to set up rules who can and can not stay there, I would definitely see this as a case of discrimination. There is tension between your right to run your business the way you like and the right of your potential customers to not be discriminated and there seems not to be a general and easy way to draw the line.

<comment><USER6> There are easy ways to draw the line. There are also comfortable ways to draw the line. There are precious few that are both. Therein, I submit, lies the tension.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> HN users consistently imply this place has better comments than Reddit. "Reddit is a cesspool." "Can we please not bring this to HN as well." etc.

I've never had a problem avoiding content I didn't like there. Meanwhile I saw great discussions at various times.

Here, on the other hand, I've nearly stopped reading. Besides the unjustified elitism, constantly I'd post on a thread here only to see it disappear with no explanation. I don't understand HN's weighting and it seems to change without notice, or it did a while ago. Arbitrary curating means someone is arbitrarily imposing their values on discussions. I prefer allowing legal speech.

I generally preferred Reddit to HN and will probably end up going to Voat.co like everyone else talks about.

EDIT: Case in point: When I posted the above, the story was number 1 and it was about fifty minutes old. When it hit one hour, it dropped to number 5. The stories that it dropped behind were 5 to 12 hours old so I doubt they suddenly got surges of activity.

In the time I wrote the above edit this story dropped to number 11. Soon it will probably drop from the front page. Who knows?

I don't understand HN's weighting. Maybe this story is getting downvoted and user behavior is driving its trajectory, but it seems arbitrary and tells me to leave the site.

EDIT 2: corrected voat.co address thanks to ljk's comment.

<comment><USER10> HN isn't very good, but it's a little better than the current state of reddit, which is like a middle school without adults. At least people try to be intellectual on HN.

<comment><USER11> Hacker news is consistently superior to reddit. I think we're just being difficult.

<comment><USER12> I have to agree. It's not like shitty stuff doesn't get posted here all the time, but on average, HN is definitely better than reddit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When something that was previously (more or less) politically neutral takes a stance people get upset. Especially when there is vendor lock-in.

Some thought experiments:

Imagine if Comcast blocked access to all liberal sites.

Imagine if Microsoft word was changed so only pro-liberal documents could be created. For extra fun imagine if people could be "shadowbanned" so all their files were silently deleted.

Imagine if Google could only be used to find websites that supported global warming.

Imagine if Facebook messages could only send "patriotic" messages (as determined by their moderators).

Imagine if Intel processors could only run non-violent games.

These may seem weird comparisons because when we think of forums, we think of moderators having the power. But reddit isn't _a_ forum. Reddit is basically a site that _hosts_ forums. And now it wont host some of them anymore. Not only will it stop hosting some of them. It stopped hosting them unexpectedly, with a self-righteous "fuck-you".

<comment><USER14> That's not an especially useful comparsion.

If Google didn't let people search for what they wanted, they'd just go use a different search engine.

If reddit doesn't do what people want, there are other websites for them.

<comment><USER12> The google example is bad, but I think it applies to reddit and facebook. There are no real alternatives to speak of. Now, if they really adopted policies that harsh, people would leave anyway and the competitors would experience a massive burst of growth. However, milder forms of biased content filtering could probably get through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know how to feel about this. On one hand I'm against censorship, on the other I'm against internet bullying.

/r/FatPeopleHate was engaging in both.

In the end reddit is a private site that can do what it wants. Wikipedia removes things all the time and sites like 4chan remove all sorts of extremely offensive material.

I'm glad the mods of the hate oriented subreddits have been shadow banned, I actually think this shit storm is wonderful and I hope the reddit admins literally pull the plug and shut down. The FPH spammers are complete idiots, buying thousands of guilds and donating money directly to reddit and hurting their cause by vote brigading at the same time. They're sealing their fate.

This whole fiasco has shown the true face of reddit, just a whole bunch of (slightly below) average kids who don't deserve my attention.

I can't wait until reddit dies, but I have no idea where I'll go. I want something like reddit, but more open and transparent, and with a way for users to somehow remove mods.

<comment><USER15> > On one hand I'm against censorship,

I feel like censorship isn't the right word for this but I can't think of a better one.

<comment><USER16> It's moderation.

"Censorship" implies suppressing free speech, which this is not. It's simply removing undesirable content from a privately-owned website.

<comment><USER17> Isn't it both? I don't see how moderation (in the form of removing/editing content) isn't censorship.

<comment><USER18> Let me clear it up for you:

Say you post an article about the current state of socioeconomic affairs in the EU in /r/askscience. Your submission will be deleted, because /r/askscience's subject is not to host such articles. There is room elsewhere in Reddit for such an article.

This is an example of moderation.

<comment><USER17> ...and censorship. They aren't mutually exclusive terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is probably the best illustration of the 'no broken windows' theory at work on the web. You can start a new community and keep it 'clean' from day one, but you can't let your community turn into a cesspool and then one day decide to clean it up, the inmates will be able to achieve critical mass and they'll happily burn down the asylum if they can't have their cesspool back.

What I really don't get is that they choose these 5 subreddits to ban, reddit has at least 50 (and probably more) subreddits that are arguably a lot more offensive than the ones they just blocked.

<comment><USER20> > _What I really don 't get is that they choose these 5 subreddits to ban, > reddit has at least 50 (and probably more) subreddits that are arguably a > lot more offensive than the ones they just blocked._

I think this is the key thing that's really got everyone all in a tizzy. There are a pile of subreddits that the vast majority of Reddit users would _like_ to see gone: topics that aren't just politically divisive, but are offensive for the sake of being offensive. Instead, the only thing that's consistent about Reddit's decisions to police subreddits is that it's inconsistent. Reddit's administration looks like they're generally OK with whatever's on the site up until it gets some kind of exposure elsewhere and only then does it get banned, and then the reasons given for it don't make any sense given the site as a whole.

I think Reddit is actually in a unique position to start cleaning up their site. They don't have any real competition at the moment and they have a huge userbase. They could probably institute and enforce new _consistent_ site-wide policies and actually get away with it. But this blindfolded "pin the ban on the subreddit" game is only succeeding in irritating their users and making the admins look ham-handed.

On a side note, I was a little disappointed to see kn0thing's name prominently on the announcement. He's always seemed like a smart, level-headed guy. I'd genuinely love to hear from him how the subreddit banning policy makes any kind of sense. (Alexis, are you lurking here?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Clarification from the Reddit Admins on their announcement post indicate that they're banning subs where moderators either took no action or encouraged organized harassment (as in going to other subs or websites and actively harassing the person in question) as opposed to subs that just post awful things about people.

<comment><USER22> You'd think so, but they're banning any new sub that attempts to be a "new" /r/fatpeoplehate -- if it's not about "banning ideas", but "banning behaviour", then I find that somewhat at odds. I think there's a simpler answer: FPH ended up on the front-page of /r/all constantly, and the Imgur staff "doxxing" (I've heard right before they were banned there was something happening regarding harassing the imgur editors outside of Reddit, though I don't know how true it is) was enough to get the admins to pull the plug.

If you're monetising a website, and the most active and fasting growing sub on your website (aside from the defaults) is a subreddit dedicated to mocking fat people, I think that may make it a difficult sell.

<comment><USER23> Or, if you're monetizing a website and one of the largest hosts of your content (imgur) is being actively harassed by a minority of your users, you find a way to mend the insult.

It's becoming more clear that Reddit took action specifically because of the Imgur insult, and that makes a lot of sense from a business perspective. But from a wider perspective it looks very focused and targeted - not in a good way.

<comment><USER22> _> Or, if you're monetizing a website and one of the largest hosts of your content (imgur) is being actively harassed by a minority of your users, you find a way to mend the insult._

I said exactly as much in my comment?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> And yet subreddits like 'coonville' and 'GreatApes' still exist and continue shitting all over reddit. I know it makes my (black) wife feel welcomed when subreddits she frequents are slammed with the most virulent hate speech you can imagine.

<comment><USER25> People keep bringing up racist subs, but it is unclear what exactly they're trying to argue. Should Reddit not ban anything because they haven't banned everything?

I'd love to see them squish some of the subs mentioned, but ultimately today is just one day, and I'd prefer to see them take SOME action than sit around waiting for the day that they can sweep Reddit clean in one single swoop (which won't ever happen).

PS - The two subs you listed have under 5K readers combined. FPH had 150,000. I've never seen any racist sub on /r/all but FPH was bullying on the front page daily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This marks the beginning of the end of Reddit. It's been a long time coming and Reddit has become a huge promotional platform for pseudo user generated content submitted by shills and celebrities.

A lot of people are migrating to Voat.

[http://voat.co](http://voat.co)

<comment><USER27> I genuinely hope they do, it would be nice to browse reddit without them

<comment><USER28> If you look at parent's URL you will see mostly garbage. The migration of the shitty reddit to voat.com has begun :)

<comment><USER29> I wouldn't have agreed with you until today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Reddit has become a real cesspool over the past few years. You'll always find misogyny front and center and you don't have to dig to find racism.

<comment><USER31> I've been on reddit for 8 years, and lurked before that. The top submissions and comments have always, and consistently, been standard-issue PC/liberal in their overall view.

<comment><USER32> In the years since SJW turned from a meaningful term into a catch-all for anyone who advocates for social justice in any way other than qualifying lip service[1], the general reddit crowd has noticeably moved away from standard- issue PC/liberal to anglo-centric liberal. Systemic issues of injustice are portrayed as primarily matters of self-fulfilling prophecy. The protestant work ethic is heavily espoused for minorities, but it's all systemic issues when it comes to college grads having a hard time finding a job.

The same is true to a lesser degree[2] for many women's issues, though I hesitate to mention it because this community isn't immune either.

[1] Ex) "I hate racism as much as the next guy..."

[2] Or maybe I don't appreciate it as much.

<comment><USER33> > The protestant work ethic is heavily espoused for minorities

What do you mean here? Just looking for an explanation...

<comment><USER32> In social psychology research this often refers to the belief that, in essence, "hard work will bring success." For many, particularly on the right, it also implies the opposite: the poor/unsuccessful are in their situation because they are not working hard enough.

It's a bit of a confusing term, because its use from a more theological perspective (e.g., hard work is a symbol of salvation). I probably should have used a different term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Notch has the right idea. Why not just block the subreddits you find offensive?

[https://twitter.com/notch/status/608706518972788736](https://twitter.com/notch/status/608706518972788736)

Reddit just put the world on notice that they are willing to become user babysitters, and historically this has never ended well for the company involved.

<comment><USER27> AFAIK it is literally impossible to ban 150,000 users from your reddit viewing experience or whatever.

The issue wasn't with the subreddit, it's with what it was doing _outside_ the subreddit.

<comment><USER35> The reddit admins failed to consider the Streisand effect: they made all of reddit an outlet by taking away the container that kept the hate isolated.

<comment><USER36> It wasn't isolated. It showed up on the front page of /r/all frequently.

This will die down/blow over in a week or so anyway.

<comment><USER35> And now the hate is unconfined. The lesser nuclear solution to that problem would be to filter out undesirable content from /r/all to isolate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> In case anybody was wondering what the five communities _are_ , here's the list of names:

/r/FatPeopleHate

/r/HamPlanetHatred

/r/TransFags

/r/NeoFAG

/r/ShitNiggersSay

</comment><comment><USER38> My two cents:

1) Reddit is a business and has certain interests at stake. If they want to seriously monetize their inventory (i.e., subreddits and pages), it needs to be with content that jives with advertisers. Odious content and sub-reddits are kryptonite to advertisers. Clorox doesn't want to see their advertising next to fat-shaming/racist/misogynistic horseshit.

2) Whether or not you think Reddit is suppressing "freedom of speech" is irrelevant (I personally don't think they are). What matters to Reddit is that those who contribute objectionable content according to advertisers leave the site, either because their subreddit has been shut down or because they find Reddit is suppressing their freedom of speech. All those pages were a cost to Reddit that had no chance of making money. When they're gone, they don't have to worry about them anymore. Reddit is probably rooting for other platforms, like Voat, to get traction so that people who want to post horseshit don't linger and leave immediately.

</comment><comment><USER39> A few weeks ago, /r/fatpeoplehate started showing up at the top of /r/all, every day. This was pretty lame, since I prefer /r/all versus home page.

Anyone know how /r/fph suddenly jumped so high?

<comment><USER22> _> Anyone know how /r/fph suddenly jumped so high?_

It was the fastest growing subreddit outside of the defaults, and by far the most active. Turns out there's a large contingent of people who seem to hate fat people, at least that's how it seems anyway

<comment><USER40> I'm speculating but it seems like an easy outlet for that "being offensive for its own sake" mindset you see sometimes in kids and young adults. I think it's part of growing up... It just happens that the Internet allows people to focus and concentrate that negative energy.

<comment><USER41> While that's likely part of it, that's not the entirety of things.

To be fair, I would wager that fatpeoplehate had its share of trolls, but I would definitely believe that the vast majority of its denizens were former fat people, and very frustrated at the obesity epidemic in the United States.

Frustration leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. You know the rest.

I speak here from some experience. Several members of my family are morbidly obese, with BMIs well north of 45.

For the average person, obesity starts at a BMI of 30.

More than a third of the population of the United States qualifies as obese. Obesity-related diseases are the leading cause of death, and the problem is getting worse.

There are growing social movements that promote obesity as a way of life. This is simply insane. Nobody would promote anorexia as positive, or smoking, or heroin.

Now, this would all be completely fine if it only impacted those that choose this lifestyle, but the problem impacts all of us, in the form of higher medical costs, greater danger for service personnel, and in the cost of infrastructure changes required to support the obese.

Every holiday, I got to watch as some of the people I grew up with eat themselves into an early grave. To listen to them complain about their latest weight-related medical problem. To hear them make excuses and blame other people as to why they are sick.

And then these same people would insult my spouse and I, because we control our diets and exercise regularly.

I do not want to live in a society where this is accepted or encouraged.

While I don't think that mocking fat people will solve the problem, I can understand how that particular community could grow so fast.

<comment><USER42> >There are growing social movements that promote obesity as a way of life. This is simply insane. Nobody would promote anorexia as positive, or smoking, or heroin.

I think FPH got created as a counter culture to these movements.

>I do not want to live in a society where this is accepted or encouraged. While I don't think that mocking fat people will solve the problem, I can understand how that particular community could grow so fast.

I agree.

Rather than focusing on education and knowledge they resorted to insults and mockery.

<comment><USER43> "Rather than focusing on education and knowledge they resorted to insults and mockery."

I just wanted to point how that comedy is as if not more effective than education. Education through comedy is even more-so. This is likely a healthier outlet than what they could be doing (given mockery was their first choice of action). Possibly the most peaceful option for this type of community... Is vandalism, assault or other crimes now further up on the to-do list? I suppose we might find out now since censorship has created the opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> People always say that Reddit is fine, you just have to unsub from the defaults. That's nonsense. The defaults are representative of the userbase of the site, and their values seep into every crevice. Furthermore, Reddit has never actually been about "free speech". The vast, vast majority of people who browse Reddit don't do it because they can say whatever they want; they do it because it's an esay way to aggregate and consume light content. I mean, this should be obvious to anyone who uses Reddit with any frequency. The people who trot out the free speech defense — at least from what I routinely see on the site itself — are often exactly the ones who enjoy reading vile subs like /r/fatpeoplehate.

If Reddit can't survive this cleanup, then good fucking riddance.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is pretty interesting. The top posts on all of reddit as of now: [https://www.reddit.com/r/all](https://www.reddit.com/r/all)

<comment><USER46> Like the Digg HDDVD encryption drama. [http://i.imgur.com/0QLFsPo.png](http://i.imgur.com/0QLFsPo.png)

<comment><USER47> I love the irony of (poorly, see #8) censoring the original image

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/HD_DVD_Night_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/HD_DVD_Night_Digg_Frontpage_before_rose_blog_post_screenshot.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> For an... interesting take on all of this, there's always /r/conspiracy: [https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/39ddf1/rfatpeop...](https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/39ddf1/rfatpeoplehate2_has_been_banned/)

<comment><USER49> Meh. IMHO, the real conspiracy here is Reddit's attempting to make it more palatable for advertisers so they can at least make an attempt at making money.

<comment><USER50> I would never want my business to boil down to a collective of people who will undoubtedly be on the wrong side of history. It's bad mojo all around, not just bad money.

<comment><USER51> I can't imagine how this could happen to Reddit - if some category of people is "on the wrong side of history", they are either a minority (however vocal) or are about to become a minority very soon - otherwise we couldn't really say the history is going against them, right? If the site is not a niche site but a broad host-all ad-supported site like Reddit, their income can't depend exclusively on a minority of users, statistically speaking. They may suffer a hit for alienating part of the audience, but they should still keep most of it, so it can't "boil down to" just "wrong side" people.

<comment><USER50> The wrong side of history being people who practice or support hate speech.

<comment><USER51> Quite the contrary - people who want government to ban speech because they feel bad hearing it are on the wrong side. "Hate speech" is just another way of saying "I don't like this speech", nothing more. Which is fine - <USER2> should be forced to listen to something one doesn't like. But when this term is abused to justify violence and coercion - governmental and private - as is frequently the case - then it's the wrong site of history. Of course, Reddit or anybody has the right to choose which speech to host - but one doesn't need to invent special category of "hate speech" to express this simple thought.

<comment><USER50> I respectfully deny your simplified definition of "hate speech" and reassert that history has decided that hate speech is to be prevented (unless we regress completely to a pre-civil rights society). Your supposed "justification of violence and coercion" seems misinformed, and I'd like to hear more about these instances of injustice.

<comment><USER51> "history has decided" \- what is this? Who is "history"? In US, for example, there is First Amendment, which guarantees every US person the basic right for free speech. Of course, not all countries are as eager to protect the rights of their citizens as United States are, and over the course of history there were many governments that infringed on those rights. However, declaring that these infringements somehow come from "history" and not from a bunch of misguided individuals that have no regard to their compatriot's rights I can only attribute to supreme arrogance or unwillingness to take responsibility for their own crimes.

The willingness of the government to infringe on rights of the free speech by definition can not be any part of "civil rights society" \- quite the contrary, it is the opposite of it, as one of the most basic rights - right to speak freely - is being violated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Claiming that insulting obese people in an extremely offensive and aggressive manner for the sole purpose of personal entertainment has anything to do with free speech is something that even the average 14 year old Redditor should be able to recognize as a bit bold.

</comment><comment><USER53> They aren't banning behavior, they're banning the expression of certain ideas.

It would be one thing if the group was about beating up fat people, but posting comments online about them is clearly under the ideals of expression.

If they want to ensure it's behavior and not ideas they should get a judge to rule on whether the expression would be constitutionally protected.

And yes, as a private entity it is their prerogative to ban certain ideas on their site, however, they should just be honest about it, they are limiting speech in a manner that would likely be unconstitutional if they were a government entity, aka. they are abridging freedom of expression.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm hoping this thread gets deleted, because the shitstorm is just going to come here sooner or later.

</comment><comment><USER55> I really wonder if there's not some money involved into those subreddits. It seems pretty easy for a PR company to just create fake accounts and build a popular subreddit and pretend that "the reddit community is angry".

I'm really starting to doubt that plain users can put so much energy in hating fat people, and I'm really dubious that it would create such chaos.

I wonder if the popularity of reddit has not brought some attention from PR groups.

</comment><comment><USER56> The idea is to make people who are being harassed on reddit feel safe[0]. This goal is something I think everyone agrees is a good goal. As a policy decision, I think it is pretty weird they started banning communities instead of people.

There are a lot of people on reddit and policing individual users would be a challenge. Would something like a "flag harassment" button have the same desired affect?

0 - [http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/cs23fzr)

<comment><USER22> _> This goal is something I think everyone agrees is a good goal_

Depends. As it stands, making something a "safe space" is a super broad goal that has some very fuzzy edges. But then, I enjoy dissent and viewpoints at odds with my own, and it's a private company that needs to make money, so I can understand it.

<comment><USER56> Yes I agree. Everyone attaches their own meaning to that. I only mean it to be, a website where using it isn't going to get you needlessly harassed, doxed, threatened, etc. and when that kind of stuff happens, people don't find it acceptable.

This is clearly a growing pain for reddit. Something like "reddiquitte" only scales so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Digg users went to reddit, and reddit techies went to HackerNews. The classic early adopters, high technology users were the people going first. They went because there was a better alternative.

Firstly it's the wrong sort of user that is thinking of leaving reddit - <USER3> are a lot of the latecomers and consumers rather than the early adopters. Secondly, these types of users will not be going to Voat because it is not a better alternative.

If someone comes along and creates a better alternative, we will be pulled towards it, not pushed from something else.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is like dream come true for voat dot co. I highly doubt there is going to be mass migration like it was with Digg but Voat is going to get quite a few users in the near future for what it's worth.

In any case, Reddit has become a new mainstream site full of propaganda, censorship, shadowbanning, hand-picked news, etc. I've noticed a sharp decline in the last year or so.

It's not even their new policy, it just feels like it Reddit got big enough to finally join any other mass media source of information, not in a good way.

<comment><USER59> > This is like dream come true for voat dot co.

A dream they weren't prepared for. The site has been in failboat mode all day. Should have designed to scale for all of those users that want to hate on fat people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I think community oriented websites have stress moments, typically policy or technical in nature, that signal the period in which uniques begin a steady drop-off. Digg has its with the move to approved submitters in v4. I fear while banning FPH was the right thing to do, this is going to stunt the uniques that Reddit draws.

And i'll leave it at that because it looks like, if the comments are telling, Hacker News is going full-on Eternal September right now.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm all for moderation, be it votes weighed by algorithms or by taking a stance on communicative quality. I'm for it, because otherwise easy gratification comments is all I'm ever going to see.

But I am very much against the "For Safety!" stance. That is not what Reddit is about. I don't think angry Redditors is for Hate, they are against Safety.

IMHO, that is pretty simple.

</comment><comment><USER62> Ugh... the majority of the ban was pretty reasonable. The fatpeoplehate was the one that got many redditors' panty in a bunch.

Now I'm stuck with all these fatpeoplehate post on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER63> I do not know about this specific case (looking at the subreddits I truly doubt it is an example) but there are examples of systems using anti- harrassment as a means to censor particular groups, links, and ideas.

With a title like "'Troll hunting' algorithm could make web a better place" ([http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-04/14/google- algori...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-04/14/google-algorithm- predicts-trolls-antisocial-behaviour)) this algorithm seems like a true boon. It's only slightly suspicious (and can easily be explained away) that two of the three websites used in its study were political websites. You'd have to be pretty zany to leap to the conclusion that the paper had anything to do with censorship.

It would look worse if one of its co-authors (Cristian Danescu-Niculescu- Mizil) received funding from the DoD to study the propagation of information through social media online ([http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.01383.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.01383.pdf)) as part of DARPA SMISC - a strategic communications (DoD term for propaganda) research group that studies how information flows on social media and how to direct and disrupt it.

Many researchers take grants from all over though, and anything in this area of study is likely to get investment from the DoD. So still it's more reasonable to think that, since he works in that area, of course he will receive DoD funding.

Yet it was posted with 22 likes to NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence ([https://www.facebook.com/StratComCOE](https://www.facebook.com/StratComCOE)), a Facebook wall also contains a review of a book called "The Weaponization of Social Media" and announces its participation in a conference on "Cyberattacks and Propaganda: the Battlefield of Future".

As evidenced (again) as recently as this week by a group of people who run an anti-TPP website, there is an inter-website system for blocking posts to certain content ([https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/38pmg8/hey_redd...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/38pmg8/hey_reddit_someone_is_trying_really_hard_to_erase/)) - Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc all simultaneously blocked this website. Whether this was an error or not (it probably was), it points out there is a centralized system for blocking content.

Both the Facebook emotion experiment and the Facebook vote experiment had ties to funding to the DoD (and Air Force though blurbs about funding from the Air Force, which handles cyber in the US, was erased from the academic's page when there was public attention; it was reported to be a clerical error).

This is not to say that this is used inside the US to block US contibuted content. While the history of the United States Government in applying strategic communication and information support to US audiences has been slippery, and the Smith-Mundt Act (anti-propaganda law) was recently weakened under the justification that global interconnectedness of conversation, news and social media makes it difficult to prevent US propaganda intended for foreign audiences from making it back home.

The new CEO of Reddit is on the board of a Washington Defense Thinktank. This anecdote doesn't imply anything. But it does mean that you should be asking Reddit and its CEO hard questions, you should be skeptical of intentions, and you should demand that Reddit - like all other companies that own your communications and socialization - keep themselves to the highest possible standards.

</comment><comment><USER64> Has any large website ever managed to stay censorship-free?

<comment><USER28> any website is "moderating" its content. Even 4chan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> The West is so inconsistent. It will cheer as Charlie Hebdo mocks the prophet of a quarter of the living people on Earth.

"Free speech!"

But then it will close down forums where some people say mean things about some other people.

"Propriety!" "It's 'curated' or 'managed', not censored!"

<comment><USER66> It's almost as if The West isn't a monoculture, and contains people who disagree with each other.

<comment><USER65> I don't think we can characterize it as that. Of course there are people who disagree with one another (everywhere).

This comment above is about consensus - or its approximate form - that ends up dominating the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I truly hope that this will have one of two outcomes:

1\. End of Chairman Pao's CEO term

2\. End of Reddit.

I find only these two outcomes desirable, because the third one is chilling free speech in the internet, the one that Ellen Pao is gunning for.

<comment><USER36> Lol, take it to /r/conspiracy bud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> AAAAAnd reddit just jumped the shark.</comment>


The secret to success in the arts - <AUTHOR> http://www.felixsalmon.com/2012/08/the-secret-to-success-in-the-arts/

<comment><USER2> Before adopting programming as my job and passion, I was a professional actor and I plan on continuing to act professionally when I move back to to a place where it is more avaialble. Working professionally in many capacities for many years, I can tell you that luck certainly helps, for some people. This author completely discounts artists who trained, worked and pushed themselves for years and years to get where they are: regularly hired for awesome roles, being paid well, and doing it professionally day after day for their livelihood.

 _The fact is that pretty much every successful novelist, every successful pop star, every successful artist is successful mainly because of luck. Oftentimes there's skill involved too, but if you look hard enough, you'll find just as much skill in the millions of unsuccessful strivers as you do in the tiny set of people who make it huge._

There are a few things I find very wrong with this paragraph:

1) The definition of success. Even under the assumption of monetary gain, this just isn't a good statement. Success, for an artist can be measured in many other ways. That aside: plenty of successful actors got to where they were because they tried harder than others. They showed up to more auditions than others. They worked hard training themselves in schools or other avenues. They were simply better at the profession with a greater understanding of how to get hired. This brings me to my next point.

2) _Just as much skill in the millions of unsuccessful strivers._

This statement is just not true. You will only find handfuls of people that are capable of pulling off, even basic, performances necessary for a professional venue. They are the exceptions and they are skilled and talented. They get work because of this uniqueness. They don't appear in shows over and over again because they are lucky, they appear because they present artistic, or even monetary, value to the production.

I appreciated and enjoyed reading the article but the definitive nature of the statements from the author regarding "pretty much every" successful artist didn't sit well with me.

For the reasons that the author illustrated earlier in the article, yes people do get lucky. But I don't think the conclusions are appropriate to apply to the skillsets of artists in this way.

Artists can, and do, achieve successes on their own accord without lady luck. Sure, luck is helpful but for every 1 successful Hollywood star, there are scores of other successful artists working because they are simply better and more talented. You may never see these people on the silver screen. They are successful; in their own minds, and the minds of artists. All of this without regard to an agreed upon definition of success.

<comment><USER3> I'm a professional film director. I also agree 100% with this statement.

There is a huge variance in skill in all the creative professions.

I've had the opportunity to work with some extremely well-known actors. Within five minutes of starting working with them, it was obvious why they were so well-known - their skill at the craft was, to a man/woman, extraordinary.

That's something I've found to be the case in other contractors on films, too. Most of the time, in my experience, the 3D artists who get the top jobs or command the highest contracting fees are the most skilled and the easiest to work with, for example.

If you want a really good basic guide to success in the creative arts, I recommend Neil Gaiman's University of the Arts speech:

<http://vimeo.com/42372767>

<comment><USER4> Salmon's point isn't that there is no variance in creative skill, it's just that there isn't enough to matter in the scheme of being "the best in the world". There's not nearly enough variance to compensate for the luck required to be in the top 100 out of several million.

What you're describing is a "3-sigma" difference, but to be an A-list Hollywood star you'd need to be in something like the 50th sigma. That just isn't explainable by skill.

<comment><USER5> My problem with his article is that he seems to only define "success" and "recognition" in terms of being within that top 100.

There are a lot of startups that are profitable and have users loving their products that will never sell to Facebook for $1 billion. Using Salmon's argument, it takes pure luck to get to that Instagram-level of success. I buy that. I don't think it follows that all of those small profitable startups are therefore financial failures, which seems to be the conclusion he's drawn.

<comment><USER4> I don't think he does. You have to take the argument in context - he's talking about Nassim Taleb, who's interested in "Black Swan" 50-sigma outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article lack of detail derails the point that it is trying to make. Yes, there are millions of people who try to enter certain creative fields at any one time but a very small percentage truly have what it takes to enter the business. And when I say have what it takes, only a small percentage of that is talent. Talent is important but it is only the first step.

The lucky part is impressing the right person at the right time that you can become a star. After that you still need to be set up with the right team, proper motivation and yes some talent. But the most important part of that equation is the right team, especially the marketing team. If you look at the music business, they usually try to sell you a rags to riches tale when it comes to their artists. They want you to believe that the person was found on the street, signed to a record deal, and now millions of people love them. Very rarely is that true. The music business has a formula and they try their best to stick with it.

You can see that happening right now with an artist named Azealia Banks. I use her as an example because she is in the middle of that process now. Not mainstream yet but on the cusp of it. Her label(Interscope) is pushing her as an independent artist that just happens to be getting some attention. They want you to believe that luck and her talent is why she is getting any attention at all. The truth is her marketing team is doing a tremendous job at getting her name out there. No luck at all. A well planned cosign by Kanye West, the use of Twitter to get into well publicized problems (beef) with other artist ala the 50 Cent strategy, Several big name magazine covers or articles before anyone knows who she is, a "just so happens" controversial Dazed and Confused magazine cover that is getting a lot of attention now, another cosign by fashion designer Alexander Wang, and all of this before she has even put an official album out.

None of that is luck or because of talent. When a label thinks it has a hot property then they step up the marketing gas. Gone are the days of putting gigantic posters up & magazine ads and catering to radio stations. Now the job of marketing is to fool the customer into thinking the artist popularity is all organic. The web is used to break the star, traditional forms of media is used to mass market them. So to the outsider it seems lucky but it really isn't. It is really the music business equivalent of SEO.

</comment><comment><USER7> To make this quantitative, there are some interesting studies that show the popularity of music depends largely on luck. Researchers built a music sharing site that showed the popularity of different downloads and found not surprisingly that people downloaded the popular songs more. The interesting part is they randomly showed different users different popularity rankings. The songs that became popular with one set of users weren't very correlated with the songs that became popular with another set of users - basically once a song randomly gets more popular, positive feedback sets in.

To summarize the abstract:

"Increasing the strength of social influence increased both inequality and unpredictability of success. Success was also only partly determined by quality: The best songs rarely did poorly, and the worst rarely did well, but any other result was possible."

<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5762/854.short> <http://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_watts08.pdf> [http://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.p...](http://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.pdf)

It would be interesting to test this with Hacker News, showing different users two different sets of comment rankings. This would show how much top-rated comments get voted up because they are popular versus voted up because they are "better".

</comment><comment><USER8> Luck is certainly a big part of success - but IMO the author has misclassified a lot of skillful execution as luck, and that's a shame.

> _"Carly Rae Jepsen has a catchy pop tune, but is only really successful > because she happened to be in the right place at the right time."_

No, publicity like this is practically never accidental. Every news article, blog post, radio station play, magazine mention, is highly deliberate and evidence of a good publicity and marketing crew at work.

Whenever the NYTimes writes about some new app, some new startup, or a new product, suffice it to say some marketing legwork has been done. This isn't to insinuate some kind of payola, but rather that "getting noticed" is 90% putting your product in front of important people - these leads are rarely ever organic.

To bring it back into our tech-world for a moment: do you really think that getting featured by Apple in an App Store "guide" is accidental? That it's strictly Apple deciding who makes the cut without external influence? Or is it a whole lot of interested parties pitching their product in the background?

So no, Carly Rae Jepsen wasn't "in the right place at the right time", she had a catchy pop tune, an incredibly well-executed music video with just enough shock/controversy to go viral, and incredible timing.

And luck. But let's not shovel everything under luck.

<comment><USER9> She's actually an excellent example. She is a Canadian performer who placed third on a season of Canadian Idol, and it happened that Justin Bieber was listening to the radio, heard "Call Me Maybe," and tweeted about it. Perhaps the song would have spread later on its own, but Canadians can probably point to five or six other well-played pop songs that never really crossed the border.

<comment><USER10> But how many times did Carly practice and rehearse and sing that song in public before that happened? Dozens? Hundreds? And just to make it on the show Canadian Idol and get that exposure - was that luck? Or did it take a lot of courage and gut churning effort?

She EARNED that chance to be heard by Bieber. Luck doesn't and never does have anything to do with it. Luck doesn't exist. The word luck is just a way to discredit hard work and unseen efforts.

<comment><USER9> The luck is that he happened to hear _that_ song at that time. What happens if there's another channel on, not playing that song?

Think of it as a 6 sided dice roll. 3d6 simulates a bell curve of skill + 1d6 simulating luck, and you need 18 or more to "win." The top of the top talent will rise to the top with or without luck. Those without the drive or talent won't "win" even if they have the best luck.

But to ignore that luck exists? Talent and hard work are a pre-requesite, but everything from winning the genetic lottery (passport from an Industrialized country) to being attractive.

For another example... in 1999, a Canadian band called The Tea Party had a #1 single called "Heaven Coming down," and had a great run in Canada, but they never became the global sensation Nickelback did, despite having talent. (That is not to disparage Nickelback -- that band worked _hard_ , and had talent. Why did one make it in America, and one only in Canada, and Europe/Australia to a lesser extent?)

King's X was rated one of the top 100 artists of hard rock by VH1. They toured their ass off, yet somehow never captured the attention that others expected them to get. Sometimes, it isn't all about talent and hard work.

Again: talent is a prerequesite. Luck does not cancel talent out by any means! Luck does not describe Bill Gates -- he likely would have been successful even if his parents weren't millionaires. However, we might all remember CP/M a little better if Mary Maxwell Gates isn't on the United Way board with John Opel.

Now, that doesn't mean Gates and Microsoft doesn't become massive in another way. However, that small bit of "luck" helped tilt IBM to trust a less known entity. ___

The way I look at luck is not like the lottery, but rather a dice roll. You may have to roll yahtzee, but if you give yourself a thousand chances, you're better off than the person who only gives themselves one chance, or resigns themselves to failure because they figure only someone lucky can roll yahtzee.

You still may have to be at the right place at the right time, but if you work hard to stick around the right place, the right time is significantly more likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this article suffers from a lack of understanding of what exactly artists do, and how they become successful. From several of the excellent replies, luck does have something to do with it, but just because the OP doesn't understand the skill put into getting a gig or putting on a successful spoken word performance piece, for example, doesn't mean that an artist is just "lucky" to be successful.

Lots of armchair handwaving here.

<comment><USER11> There is also another factor: allowing yourself to be lucky.

While I can not attribute my experience to be anything like an artist's, I find that at least for myself, my artistic endeavors are much more successful when I am open to types of creativity different from mine.

Working with other people and allowing their art to change my art, but at the same time holding onto the kernel that my art is about results in more opportunities to "catch that particularly important editor's eye" or to become more "lucky" so to speak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm amazed every time I read/hear Nassim Taleb being quoted [1]. His black swan (outlier) "theory" [2] made some people rich, and it gained him fame.

He spent a lot of time pitching that "theory" (backing the _least_ probable outcome) at economists at the likes of the ECB, BoE, the Fed, and so forth, and in the process pissing them all off very, very much.

Outliers are just that. Outliers. If, as an economist (or any other role that predicts anything), you went with a least-probable scenario you'd probably lose your job. So, instead, your recommendation is based on the most probable scenario. If you're thorough you might note outliers as a footnote.

[1] People who perpetuate and then capitalise on "bullshit baffles brains" annoy me.

[2] Predicting a one-in-a-billion probability that happens to come true is not a theory.

<comment><USER13> The outlier theory didn't 'make' anyone rich, it just explains why some outliers got rich and why other outlier events lead to the crash.

Taleb doesn't advocate backing low probability outcomes, because he can't predict which of them will occur any more than anyone else. That's a fundamental misreading of his approach. All he's saying is that some of those low probability events are going to happen, and you need to develop strategies that are survivable given low probability events. Strategies that assume no low probability events will (ever) happen are doomed.

The problem is, and he's very much aware of this, that strategies that are survivable against many low probability events are never optimal for the actual way events play out. The question then is what degree of non- optimisation (risk protection) are you willing to tolerate. A single trader might tolerate extreme risk for short periods of time. Too big to fail institutions should tolerate very low risks. Taleb is arguing for more realistic and practical ways to calculate and account for risks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> EVERYTHING can be put in a distribution. Showing that something is X standard deviations away from the mean does not explain at all how they got there.

Take SAT scores for example. Are the top scorers just lucky? Luck may explain one's 1500 relative to a 1490 or 1510, but luck doesn't explain the difference between 1000 and 1500 except for maybe some extreme tail case. More importantly, the fact that SAT scores fit on a distribution does not in any way show us how they got in that distribution.

Whether fund managers and artists are lucky or not is not proven or disproven by this blog post.

<comment><USER15> But SAT outcome for individuals is deterministic by design. If there was any significant luck component, it wouldn't be a good measure in the first place. Yet you can't deny the possibility that some fool could score 1500+ by merely circling the correct sequence of bubbles without having much skill. Furthermore winner doesn't take all in SATs. They just go to some college and that's the end of it. Contrast that with the stock market where there is a much more significant luck component and compounded effects of winners taking all and losers getting pruned out year after year.

<comment><USER14> Your statement, while widely believed has not been proven or disproven by the fact that people's success can be shown on a distribution.

 _Contrast that with the stock market where there is a much more significant luck component and compounded effects of winners taking all and losers getting pruned out year after year._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Patton Oswalt's recent comments concerning "luck" are worth adding to the discussion. Talent may be worth more now than ever before. We've heard this before, but it certainly seems to be true: "Our careers don't hinge on somebody in a plush office deciding to aim a little luck in our direction. There are no gates. They're gone." -- [http://thecomicscomic.com/2012/07/27/patton-oswalts- letters-...](http://thecomicscomic.com/2012/07/27/patton-oswalts-letters-to- both-sides-his-keynote-address-at-montreals-just-for- laughs-2012/#.UBQY0Apz6og.twitter)

</comment><comment><USER17> Most of the discussion here is focused on skill vs luck. Those are far from the only two variables is success, however. There's Networking, the ability to sell yourself and the ability to target a specific niche (which in art, means not being too different, but not being exactly the same as everybody else, either). These factors influence success more than skill and luck combined.

</comment><comment><USER18> tl;dr: Be lucky</comment>


Show HN: XP.css – Windows XP CSS file and framework for building GUIs - <AUTHOR> https://botoxparty.github.io/XP.css/ <comment><USER2> Beautiful! I've added it to my list of retro css: [https://github.com/matt- auckland/retro-css](https://github.com/matt-auckland/retro-css)

<comment><USER3> Finally! Someone made a list on Github that's not Awesome.

<comment><USER4> I know the awesome meme seems overdone, but it's cool that you can search that one word and see curated lists of interesting/high quality projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have tried before to recreate the 95 UI in CSS. I didn't release the results but I was quite happy with what I managed. Honestly, I should probably contribute to these projects.

Annoyingly, certain parts of the Windows UI cannot be recreated with just HTML and CSS. One of these is how focusing works. I don't know what the proper names for it are, but Windows has two kinds of focus:

• Dotted line (or flashing cursor for text boxes). If you press space bar, something will happen with this element.

• Black outline around the outside. If you press Enter, this button's action will be triggered. This is why the OK button in a typical Windows dialogue box looks different to the Cancel button. I don't remember what this looks like in XP but I think it uses a thicker blue border.

However, the browser only really has the former kind of focus — even for HTML buttons in Internet Explorer on Windows 95! So if you want a full Windows-like look and experience, you need some JavaScript to emulate the second. I notice that XP.css lacks this kind of focus, and I think that's why it feels like something is missing from the buttons.

<comment><USER6> The first kind is the input focus and the second kind is the _default button_ in a dialog (not really a kind of focus): "If the button is in a dialog box, the user can select the button by pressing the ENTER key, even when the button does not have the input focus."[1]

[1] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/controls/butt...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/controls/button-styles#BS_DEFPUSHBUTTON)

<comment><USER5> I feel like it is almost its own kind of focus because that state can be lost, though I don't remember how. Multi-line text boxes maybe.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, there are definitely some non-obvious details in its behavior. The default button focus moves with the input focus to other buttons but reverts to the _default_ default button if you focus another kind of control. Raymond Chen has an explanation: [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040802-00/?p=38...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040802-00/?p=38283)

<comment><USER5> Aha, thanks for that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This brings back so many memories! I hope there is a windows 7 css out there.

Every time I have to use UWP apps I feel really sad and angry about how much Windows Desktop UI has regressed.

<comment><USER8> I know what you mean, I get that skeuomorphic was overdone in a lot of places but, the remedy may have been worse than the disease since we have had such regression in UI design that it now looks somewhat like high-dpi versions of text user interface graphical blue blocks everywhere.

<comment><USER9> Honestly skeuomorphism was so much better than the flat mobileshit we're stuck with now.

We had Windows 7, gnome 2, OSX Lion, all of which had mild drop shadows, 3d depth in icons and window borders, clearly delineated edges between various UI controls, and then it was as if one day some shadow illuminati council of UI design put out a worldwide decree that everything has to be flat and use indecipherable heiroglyphic vector icons made of little dots and lines.

I've been waiting for some kind of aesthetic counter-reaction to take place and it seems like it actually might be starting to happen. 2010-era was the peak of UI design and it's high time we went back, godammit!

<comment><USER10> History goes in spiral. After everyone will be fed up with flat style, someone will release gorgeous super-realistic skeuomorphic UI and everyone will praise it.

<comment><USER11> And then someone introduces the flat design all over again, and on and on it goes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks good, but seems to be really broken on my iPhone. The checkmarks float below the checkbox, and the slider also seems to have a check mark in it.

<comment><USER13> It's broken on MacOS Safari as well. It looks like they need to add a `top: 0` to the selector `input[type=checkbox]:checked+label:after`.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's honestly great - it's what I was hoping someone would make when the 98.css made it to HN - but does the kerning have to suck? What's wrong with beautiful typography that's not constrained by the DPI of the 90s?

<comment><USER15> The kerning is part of the font, which is part of the experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nice! Windows XP was peak UI design, I wish we'd make more UI's like it today.

<comment><USER17> Really? I thought it was quite garish, plastic-y, especially the blue version.

I still think that in the Windows timeline, original Win95 (with actual toolbar buttons) was the best. It got all "designy" with each official iteration afterwards, but at least the progress of time meant that the weird third party shenanigans died out (like Borlands(?) huge buttons with the cross/checkmark).

Switching back to 9x looks, moving away from Nappa and installing a real file manager was always on top of my list when switching to Windows.

<comment><USER18> Windows XP was peak windows aesthetic without compromising usability. The toolbars, icons, Taskbar and everything in between was the right balance of style and functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Peak UX! Damn I miss it

<comment><USER20> I miss the old start menu. I now have to remember the complete names of programs I have installed, as win 10 search won't find partial matches all the time

<comment><USER21> After using Windows 10 for a while I grew similarly fed up. I found OpenShell [1] to be a very faithful replication of the old start menu I'm used to from XP and before.

1: [https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu](https://github.com/Open- Shell/Open-Shell-Menu)

<comment><USER22> Thanks! Reskinned to look and act like xp. Hopefully I'm not getting stuck in my ways...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So nostalgic and brings back many memories of my teenage years. I had way too much time when Windows XP was being built - would hang out on IRC and download leaked new builds every week or so. devils0wn is forever embedded in my memory (if you know, you know). It was such a fun time, downloading new builds, installing hacks to disable product key checks. A golden age.

</comment><comment><USER24> I love it. I'm sure we can also get a Vista theme using things like [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/backdrop- fi...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/backdrop-filter) some time.

</comment><comment><USER25> the most surprising thing is how readable the whole webpage is. really a good testament to the user interface of windows xp.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wow, that's awesome. I'd also forgotten how nice the interface was of xp.

<comment><USER27> I really liked it as well. Most systems are more functional in one way or another these days but somehow nothing ever seems to achieve a look and feel on par with XP (IMO). It was a sad day when regular security updates for it stopped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow, that's awesome!

Title bars are a bit thick. Take off the min-height, and you're practically there. The title bar gradient seems a bit off, but unless you're looking at an XP VM, no one would know.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's slightly unsettling to see the default window theme of XP to be used for this. Most users of XP (at least in my experience) changed the theme from "Royale" to "Windows Classic" immediately and never looked back. Except for your parents or those people in your office who didn't know what they were doing and wanted to look at goofy colors all day.

<comment><USER30> Nah the zune theme is where's it's at. That black and orange theme was the best

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Ouch! This just came 15 years too late for me. I would have loved this in Windows XP times to style MS HTML Applications (HTA).

Anybody knows of some (preferrably simple, preferrably outside of any UI framework) Windows 10 CSS style, that is free?

<comment><USER32> For what it's worth, it may be impossible to implement this using CSS features no more recent than 2005.

<comment><USER33> I'm imagining some horrible <table> layout now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> My company, an online pharamcy, actually works with more than one supplier whose website has some elements looking like this. You can tell they definitly didn't do it for a nice retro feeling though.. sigh

</comment><comment><USER35> This is cool, but To me, the 98.css rocks more. It feels like a more clear and consistent ui. I wonder if that's really true or if its just ny nostalgia for what i had as a kid. Probably the latter.

Nonetheless, props to the author

<comment><USER36> This is what I think too, but the amount of people I hear that say XP was the best windows makes me wonder, do the more colourful buttons, lighter backgrounds, (maybe not rounded edges?) make for a better UI than win95 ultra- consistency (very grey, X not highlighted)?

Can any proffesional designers chip in?

(Win2k was the peak windows, although using win3.1 web emulators to play solitaire is my peak nostalgia)

<comment><USER37> _> the amount of people I hear that say XP was the best windows makes me wonder_

It's just a function of generational popularity IMHO. Windows XP broke into the mainstream in a way that 98/2000 had not, for a number of reasons. It was literally garish, but between people looking for a "wow" factor after years of grey borders, and the increased amount of total desktop users, more people loved it right there and then than anything that preceded it or followed it. I wouldn't extrapolate any big theory of design from this phenomenon.

As a long-time Windows user at the time, I can say that "the dream" back then was OSX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's awesome and nostalgic! Just one thing: the scroll bars should change color/brightness when they're hovered/clicked.

</comment><comment><USER38> You can almost hear ticks and shwoops from XP! That's fantastic!

I wish the scroll bars worked on mobile but that probably needs JS in addition to the CSS.

</comment><comment><USER39> The fade when hovering & clicking the minimize/maximize/close buttons in the title bar should be removed, otherwise pretty neat.

</comment><comment><USER40> It's strange, but I like it now much more then 18 years ago. Though this sharp blue is still not my style.

</comment><comment><USER31> If I display the page in 90% size, the images are become dirty. If I enhance to >100% they seem to be fine.

</comment><comment><USER41> If we could get a windows 2000 version of this I would 100% use it for real projects...

<comment><USER42> Will the 98.css version do?

[https://github.com/jdan/98.css](https://github.com/jdan/98.css)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> TreeView lists should have selected state for items, otherwise it's very accurate.

</comment><comment><USER44> This one also includes a styled Dropdown, which missed from the 98 one.

</comment><comment><USER45> I always used classic in XP, that said, anything not win10 is welcome.

</comment><comment><USER46> The checkboxes don't seem to render correctly in Safari (iOS).

</comment><comment><USER47> I appreciate that the dropdowns are native so they actually work on mobile. I think the treeview (and others) however should select off of the aria roles for this kind of widget to enforce accessibility.

</comment><comment><USER48> Fantastic! Going to use this in my next project.

</comment><comment><USER49> Great work! It's interesting to see that Windows XP's blue and gradients design didn't age well compared to Mac OS X's blue and gradients.

<comment><USER50> Well, you have to compare it to early 2000s Mac OS with Aqua pill buttons and pinstripe background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Is there a macos alternative? A mac like UI is something I'd personally be happy to use in prod.

</comment><comment><USER52> Broken in safari ios

</comment><comment><USER53> I think this was build too late..

</comment><comment><USER54> Font scaling on "Pixelated MS Sans Serif" is terrible in Windows (both Firefox and Chrome). This does not look correct on a high dpi monitor.</comment>


Finding Gene Cernan's Missing Moon Camera - <AUTHOR> https://www.spacecamera.co/articles/2020/3/3/gene-cernans-missing-lunar-surface-camera <comment><USER2> Unrelated story, but in the nineties I worked as a line service tech at the local FBO. Gene Cernan regularly flew his C-421 from Houston to his weekend retreat in the hill country. I got to know him fairly well and eventually got to where I was taking care of his 1980s yellow suburban. I got to be "his guy" and was allowed to drive his truck, fill it with gas and wash it for him. As a 17 year old kid, this was the highest honor imaginable. I went off to college the next year, but I won't soon forget how well he treated me and his willingness to share all kinds of pilot and astronaut stories with me that were basically in his "private collection" of stories. He died not long ago, and I wish I could have attended his funeral. What a man.

<comment><USER3> Please write those stories down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On another camera-related story, years ago I remember an article about some kind of very special pink-tinted (?) camera lenses that NASA (or Hasselblad?) accidentally shipped to some regular customer instead of its intended destination.

I think the guy kept them, refused to be paid off to ship them back or something, but that's about all I remember.

</comment><comment><USER5> Omega better buy this guy a very fancy drink. Thanks to him, their their camera just skyrocketed in value and illustriousness. I think the last used- on-the-moon camera auctioned for $1mil.

<comment><USER6> ""a real moon camera" which was on loan to the Omega Museum from NASA. "

<comment><USER5> Thanks for pointing that out, guess NASA and Omega should split the bill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A totally cool looking camera.</comment>


Design Continuums and the Path Toward Self-Designing Key-Value Stores That Know… - <AUTHOR> https://stratos.seas.harvard.edu/publications/design-continuums-and-path-toward-self-designing-key-value-stores-know-and <comment><AUTHOR> " __The Research Challenge. __The long-term challenge is whether we can easily or even automatically find the optimal storage design for a given problem. This has been recognized as an open problem since the early days of computer science. In his seminal 1978 paper, Robert Tarjan includes this problem in his list of the five major challenges for the future (which also included P Vs NP) [85]: "Is there a calculus of data structures by which one can choose the appropriate data representation and techniques for a given problem?". We propose that a significant step toward a solution includes dealing with the following two challenges:

1) Can we know all possible data structure designs?

2) Can we compute the performance of any design?"</comment>


Hotmail e-mails 'missing' from accounts - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12103707 <comment><USER2> I am shocked with Microsoft's abilities at ruining a product.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought the same thing has happened to me a while back before I noticed that it was syncing up with Apple Mail by default had the option to delete the mail from the server checked.

</comment><comment><USER4> Dear Microsoft spokeswoman, losing mail is not an "inconvenience".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This actually happened to me. I have an old Hotmail account I rarely used and hadn't checked in 2-4 months. When I signed on last week __all __of my emails had been deleted. I was pissed but assumed it was some sort of policy in place.

<comment><USER5> Your particular problem is most probably their policy of deleting all emails after a certain period of inactivity (90 days if I remember correctly), happened to me too once..

<comment><USER6> I find this absurd in this era of cheap storage. Blatantly anti-consumer.

<comment><USER7> Don't you think it's a bit over the top to call the lack of a feature on a free service blatantly anti-consumer?

Microsoft's online services division loses $100M-$200M each quarter.

Google retains the data indefinitely because it's in their best interests not because of their dedication to the user. Why else would they retain even what the user deletes?

<comment><USER8> Deleting data from a large scale system I'd actually pretty difficult, since the whole system has been designed NOT to lose data (redundant copies, caches, multiple data centres, backups).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Colo hosting cheaper than high-end VPS, so why VPS? - <AUTHOR>

I've been tempted by VPS solutions, but no matter how I slice it colo hosting comes out cheaper:
- You can pick up a refurbished 1u server for $100-$150, for example from geeks.com . That'll get you an older processor, but often 4GB of RAM. Whatever you get will be significantly more powerful than low end VPS's, equivalent to a high-end VPS.
- We're hosting at a facility with excellent connectivity but little technical support. We pay ~$60 per month all in.
So for $200 upfront and $60/month we get the equivalent of a linode 4096, which would cost $160/month.
- We have a similar setup at another data center from another colo provider with semi-hot fail-over, providing both backup and BCP.
I can't figure out why people would go for high-end VPS instead of buying their own hardware and hosting. Is there a hidden benefit I'm missing? <comment><USER2> Rolling your own will always be cheaper when all you compare are the costs of hardware and hosting costs. It also tends to be a huge time-suck and a big pain in the ass. What is your time worth? I rolled my own for years too, and then I realized I was twiddling with servers rather than building better software. That made it a very easy reason to switch.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought along the same lines, but our experience has been that beyond the initial server setup time we spend almost no time twiddling with servers. Hardware failures are extremely rare, and in case we have a significant one we'd just replace the entire server. Since our software deployment is automated, it takes little effort to fire up a new server.

<comment><USER2> And where does that new server come from? How quickly can you get one set up at your datacenter? Automated software deployment is easy by comparison. Hardware failures are rare until they happen. At the end of the day, you get to decide if the value of business continuity is worth it of not. Maybe in your case it's not.

I'm not suggesting that VPS is the answer for everyone though. Certainly an app that has significant infrastructure almost always benefits from rolling their own hardware, and hiring systems administrators to manage that infrastructure.

Since you're talking about a single machine, from my perspective, a VPS is cheaper and more reliable over the long term.

<comment><AUTHOR> Business continuity comes from having warm/hot backup servers in different colos, not from the speed at which we can replace servers. But your point is taken, it is certainly much easier to have a server replacement automatically happen than to have to buy the server, set it up, and drive to colo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree it is cheaper (I have a full cabinet of hardware co-located myself), but at the expense of being on call 24x7x365. Although hardware is generally reliable, it can and does fail. Do you want to be the guy dealing with the burned out power supply at 3AM?

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely don't want to be the guy getting the 3AM call, but I don't see how going with a VPS saves me from that. Our approach is to have a semi-hot backup with semi-automated fail-over (hopefully fully automated in the future).

Using a VPS simply gives you the ability to get a new server up and running quickly. You'll still get the 3AM call unless you have automated fail-over.

<comment><USER3> Usually a good outsourced provider will have measures in place to monitor and pro-actively deal with hardware failures as well as maintain standbys and replacement parts onsite. My point is simply that by outsourcing you don't have to deal with those issues. You might still get the call, but your provider should already be working on a fix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All my company's servers are dedicated rental, we have a deal with a provider that effectively gives us colo costs without paying the upfront server costs.

But for my personal use, there a few reasons I like VPS options:

\- Flexibility: rarely does a month go by where I don't shut down at least one server and add at least one server, plus various resizes

\- Locations: my five current VPS servers are split over three data centres in two continents, without any of the hassle of making three seperate arrangements for colocation

\- Price: High-end VPSs offer worse value for money than the cheaper options, and for server testing/developement it's handy to be able to pay ~$20/month for a low-end option

\- Control Panels: It's surprisingly nice to be able to re-install the OS in a couple of minutes with a single click, to have a simple web GUI to control backups (and for that matter, the option to automatically backup the entire server regularly), it's not something I'd need for most servers, but for testing stuff out where I'm regularly re-installing it is very nice (I've got my server deployment down to a 600line bash script, so any time I want to try something new I re-install the OS, run my script, and in 5 minutes I've got my ideal server ready to go)

<comment><AUTHOR> Control panel keeps coming up. I haven't used one, so maybe that's what I'm missing. You're right, single click OS install or backup would be compelling.

<comment><USER5> Being able to dump, restore, rebuild, reimage, or do pretty much anything to the server without fear of leaving it in some unrecoverable state is an advantage that cannot be ignored. It's great that you can simply trash and reinstall a server without having to be careful you won't inadvertently lock yourself out and need to request a technician for a reboot or a manual rebuild.

If you have a co-lo provider that gives you access to toggle power plus serial console access, you have it nearly as good, but you still can't re-image the machine without having it installed as such from the start.

The best hybrid approach would be to get a decent machine at a co-lo provider, then partition it yourself using Xen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you can avoid colo I would. It's such a pain in the ass to remotely troubleshoot the servers when that one thing does go wrong with the hardware. I blogged about it here:

[http://teabuzzed.com/2009/08/the-number-one-reason-my- startu...](http://teabuzzed.com/2009/08/the-number-one-reason-my-startup- failed/)

For the power I needed and what I could afford colo was the only way to go but it definitely came with a price...

If/when you're big enough colo probably makes more sense but in the beginning VPS is definitely the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER7> Can anyone point me to some good resources/guides for Colo information? I am trying to get a better grasp of the pros/cons, etc. Sites or individual articles would be greatly appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why a VPS can be better:

\- Assured hardware continuity when you depart from the project (death, buy- out, vacation).

\- Easy temporary duplicate server for migrating database.

\- Remote console at a more affordable price.

\- Affordable geographical distribution. (Provision in London and Tokyo just because you feel like it.)

\- Rapid scale up. And scale down if the project turns out to only need a $15/month VPS.

\- Instantly replace bad hardware on vacation.

\- Rapid hard drive failure recovery.

\- Better hardware (SAN + premium RAID, redundant power supplies, ECC memory).

\- Better physical security (deep background checks for every person allowed in the building).

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a fair list. I'd argue that you can get scale-up by augmenting your colo servers with on-demand VPS servers and still save money on the common case (we did this not too long ago when we got an unusual traffic spike). If the traffic is consistent, just add another colo sever.

The "replace hardware on vacation" argument is the most compelling so far.

Better hardware and better physical security I don't necessarily buy; security is the same at a colo, and good hardware is pretty cheap these days.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A minimalist puzzle to de-stress - <AUTHOR> http://blocks.ovh/?puz <comment><USER2> Works well on iPhone 6s. Oddly satisfying. The auto snap feature works well. Went through about 15 levels. Only a couple times I wanted to move more than one block at once, but the levels are small. The initial pile can be make it hard to see all the pieces but I have a small screen.

Great job

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Browser-based game with calming music.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh yeah!!!</comment>


Show HN: DeStack: An AWS Stack Deconstructor - <AUTHOR> https://moca.computingarchitectures.com/en/~destack/ <comment><AUTHOR> Building something on AWS, and then keeping it up-to-date is hard. DeStack analyzes your stack, and gives you the updates that matter to your stack.</comment>


Self healing stretchable wires - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfAOEt1eNFU

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, this is pretty cool, I could totally see this making things that might suffer from metal fatigue and conductor breakage much more reliable.</comment>


Hospital Groups Sue to Block Price Transparency Rule - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospital-groups-sue-to-block-price-transparency-rule-11575460685 <comment><USER2> How's this for a desperate argument?:

 _Complying would require spreadsheets with hundreds of thousands of columns, the groups said in the lawsuit. They say such files could crash most standard computer systems._

 _"Some members worry about the ability of their websites to function at all with such a large file," the lawsuit states._</comment>


Moving from MySQL Database to Postgres Database with Django 1.8 - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/a/30129025/1514427

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is great! I'm working on a project that'll need this soon, and this saves me a bit of research.

I wish more and more of the world would move to pg and just let mysql die. :)</comment>