'I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place' - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/04/dan-mccomas-reddit-product-svp-and-imzy-founder-interview.html <comment><USER2> Many of the comments here are picking apart pieces of subreddit drama or are discussing specific Reddit positions, but I think that's missing the forest for the trees. The VC grow-at-all-costs model seems to be resulting in monopolistic business practices and more negative externalities than positive ones.

Msatodon/GNU Social/Qvitter right now is a thriving social network run by instance owners that federate their instances. Or you can run your own instance if you want total control of everything. Secure Scuttlebutt is a growing social network run in a fully distributed (as opposed to federated) model.

The cat is out of the bag, and if you're complaining about social media today I see no reason not to embrace modern social networks.

<comment><USER3> Some programmers see a problem and say "I know, I'll add federation". Now you have 7 problems.

More seriously, I'm not seeing how federation solves any social network problem better than subreddits did? In either case, the quality of the discussion will depend on the moderators, who can be good, bad, or evil.

<comment><USER2> Federated social networks give you the ability to change allegiance or fork. Don't like a particular moderator on an instance? Leave to another instance, or start your own. Things can get problematic if other instances refuse to federate your own, but if you maintain even a bit of social capital, most instances will not block an instance with a single user. There's a growing culture (and a set of actions in the ecosystem) of letting people know when you've changed instances, because instances are becoming easier and easier to run and more and more people are trying to run their own. But if you don't want to deal with it, join one of the large already existing instances.

<comment><USER3> But the problem with Reddit doesn't seem to be that subreddits don't have enough independence and ability to make their own choices?

<comment><USER2> Federation makes a lot of moderation decisions easier. If an instance chooses to stop federating with another instance, it's not like the entire other instance disappears and those users now do not have a place to discuss their ideas, all that happens is that their ideas cannot spread into the Federated network they were cut off from. Likewise if an individual is banned from one Fediverse, then they can join one more hospitable to their beliefs. Probably the worst case scenario would be if an instance were to go down (or get hacked), in which case the users would have to find another instance to go to, but they could probably sign up at another instance that they were previously federated with.

<comment><USER3> That's a good point. But this sounds a lot like user blocking tools?

At one time, making sure that users could block other users on the same social network might have seemed like it might enough to prevent abuse and keep social networks out of the moderation business. Users that don't get along can just block each other. Good enough?

Maybe not. You say you know the "worst case" but that might not be imaginative enough? There are apparently people nastier than that, and they're creative, and they gang up.

I suspect that if federation really got going, there would be plenty of abuse. Not sure what form it would take. Chain mail? Phishing? Something new? Who is going to be in a position to fix it? How much drama will this cause?

<comment><USER2> Phishing combined with botnet attacks across multiple instances could probably pose a big problem for the network, but here's where the second facet comes in to play: instance operators are not incentivized to grow their userbase at all costs. Performing actions that might please their core userbase but may make it harder for new users to sign up, or other hurdles are something that instance operators won't shy away from, when Reddit (as evidenced in TFA) would probably tread more lightly in fear of angering users.

Even in the above botnet+phishing situation, nothing is stopping instances from cutting federation off completely and then banning suspected users, a move that a growth-oriented network would think many times before instituting.

<comment><USER3> Cutting your users off from communicating with their friends seems kind of drastic? Suppose that happened with email, the original federated network?

Though there are email blacklists for known spammers, and it can be hard to administer a new email server. You wouldn't want to block Gmail, though.

Speaking of which, I'm not seeing why every instance operator would decide not to grow. It seems like, if the federated protocol is successful and allows it, new large providers would spring up like Gmail and Hotmail.

<comment><USER2> > Cutting your users off from communicating with their friends seems kind of > drastic? Suppose that happened with email, the original federated network?

> Though there are email blacklists for known spammers, and it can be hard to > administer a new email server. You wouldn't want to block Gmail, though.

Most people typically find an instance with people similar to them. Most of my followers/followees are on the same instance as me. While blacklisting an instance can be problematic, it's also probably not that big of a deal for most. Moderators are more willing to take actions like this when each user does not contribute to their bottom line.

> Speaking of which, I'm not seeing why every instance operator would decide > not to grow. It seems like, if the federated protocol is successful and > allows it, new large providers would spring up like Gmail and Hotmail.

Hotmail and Gmail came about because running your own email is difficult (I used to run my own email). You have to setup SPF records, DKIM records, on top of which many mailers send non-standard mail out, which you have to make sure your rules accept these non-standard pieces of mail. Right now the ActivityPub standard is well defined, and most instances already follow the server-to- server API. Spam is also a huge problem in the email world because of the ease of sending an email. You don't need a mailserver to send mail to an address, but you need to setup an instance and have other users specifically follow you to send spam toots, or Fediverse messages. On top of this is a community interest in creating software (like Pleroma) that is easy to install and administer. All of these combined decrease the friction for lay (for multiple definitions of lay) users to run their own instance, which makes the gulf between a (not-yet-existent) commercial instance and a personal instance a lot smaller. While there will be a space for commercial providers which use ads or subscriptions to pay for their instances, the ease of personal setup makes centralization a lot less of a tendency for the Fediverse than it did for email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still can't get over the fact that their official mobile app stops rendering comments past a certain level of nesting. There's no indication that anything is missing, no "continue this thread" link, nothing... the comments just aren't there. I don't understand how one of the world's largest social media platforms could have a mobile app that silently hides content from the user. Just blows my mind.

<comment><USER5> It feels like increasingly they are shifting away from focusing on the comments and discussion, to trying to get readers to click, consume, leave and keep scrolling (to generate more impressions).

I'm saddened by this, and in digital battlegrounds (and I'm not using that term lightly) like /r/politics or /r/worldnews where it has been very obvious for a long time that hostile foreign nations are conducting operations there, it can result in a lot of the important meta-chatter being pushed down, or troll comments being gamed to the top without the accurate counter-response being visible anymore. This results in further distortion of the truth (or at the very least exposure to multiple sides of an argument).

<comment><USER6> Next thing you know they'll have a UI "refresh" a la Digg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Were there moments in which Reddit chose to double down on something and made it that much harder to work toward a solution?

>> I don't know. I'm trying to think about your question.

>Is there something recent that you're thinking of?

>> I can't remember the specific instances right now, but there was a bunch of press about things that were going on on Reddit and Discord, and they both reacted and banned the subreddit.

>> I've got a lot of advice for start-ups, and it's not very fucking complicated. It's just: Think about the impact that you want to have on your users and on the people consuming your content and do the right thing. They know what the right thing is.

Sounds like this guy has a lot of vague complaints but not much in the way of concrete solutions, other than "do the right thing" which in his mind is extremely obvious and yet undefined.

<comment><USER8> That's an uncharitable interpretation of what are, I think, pretty clear words on his part.

He says he doesn't know how to fix existing broken entrenched sites like Reddit and Twitter but does have suggestions for sites that are just getting started.

<comment><USER9> How well did those things work out for him?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reddit wouldn't be so toxic if the vote counts were hidden, but echo chamber validation is the ultimate badge of honor there. There is so much in this document that applies to all things Reddit _(please note that I wrote it inspired by my time on Reddit)_ : [https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Tr...](https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Trolls.md)

<comment><USER11> Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog.

I have both pseudonymous handles on reddit and also I go by my own name. On Hacker News I _only_ go by my own name. And I have found that it made me a much, MUCH better person when posting. So now I post on reddit about 95% of the time under my own name as well.

When you have no skin in the game -- such as your reputation to uphold, no superego to hold yourself in check -- a person's id reveals itself. And it's not pretty.

<comment><USER12> We've seen with facebook that have real names doesn't improve the level of discourse that much.

I think it's the protection (or at least the apparent protection): you can't be a jerk in person in a public place without exposing yourself to immediate negative repercussions. That's why online forums with harsher moderation are usually much better (one of the best examples being /r/askhistorians).

<comment><USER11> > We've seen with facebook that have real names doesn't improve the level of > discourse that much.

Yeah, okay. How about: real names + no private gardens.

<comment><USER13> What does "private garden" mean here? People have no problem showing up on public Facebook groups, visible to all, and posting racist stuff in their real names.

<comment><USER14> I think, and totally admit it is pure speculation, that the hate foments in the private garden until the person is brainwashed enough to believe their hate is a normal and acceptable viewpoint. It is at that point that it leaks out into the public groups, visible to all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > I had conversations with Jason [Citron] a year ago about the problem of > white supremacy on his site, and he said, "I don't want to invade their > privacy by going into their channels and reading what they're doing." And I > said, "They're gonna cause deaths because you're not doing that." And he > said, "You really think so?" And I said, "Yeah." And sure enough they didn't > do anything, and sure enough deaths were caused because of the shit going on > in their channels.

I'm not sure I can agree with this kind of moralizing. It's the same argument that blames gun manufacturers for school shootings. Clearly the latter argument is absurd, and yet very intelligent people subscribe to the former argument. So either some step is missing here that differentiates these two arguments, or we should be focusing on the real problem.

<comment><USER16> The idea that these "hate speech" venues have caused deaths is thrown around quite often, but I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case. Gaping chasm between rhetoric and reality.

<comment><USER17> >I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case.

I'd argue that the psychopaths who're attracted to such forums have their hateful beliefs reinforced and amplified by them. Whether or not they would've ended up killing people even if they'd never started hanging out on those forums is hard to say, but it seems pretty naïve to me to assume that those "hate speech" venues didn't have an effect on them.

See the many murderers who've been active on Stormfront for example.

White Homicide Worldwide, SPLC (2014) [pdf]: [https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_file...](https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_filesW/downloads/publication/white- homicide-worldwide.pdf)

<comment><USER18> You could argue that, but there's no real evidence for it and it's been studied with music, television and video games. All have been blamed, using the argument that you'd have to be naive to assume that killing people in a video game doesn't have an effect on someone's likelihood of killing people in real life, or listening to angry music makes you more likely to hurt people.

The list of murderers who've listened to 2Pac is quite long, for example.

<comment> loup-vaillant I don't know about the other media, but the effects of TV are both disastrous and thoroughly demonstrated. IQ, SAT scores, obesity, teen pregnancy, violence, tobacco… Depending on what you watch and how often, all can be increased. All won't show on each individual, but the statistical effect is far from negligible.

As for video games… that's a tricky one. I recall an anecdote about two teens holding up a bakery at gun point. The baker at some point made a move that was a bit too sudden, and the teen shot him in the forehead. One possible facilitator is very similar to a soldier's training: simple conditioning about shooting the bad guys as soon as they threaten your avatar in your favourite FPS. For all I know the teen didn't even intend to shoot.

Of course, it takes more than a lifetime of violent video games to actually point a gun at someone. But a tiny nudge can sometimes push you over the edge. By the way, I expect the nudge will get bigger with VR. (So will the benefits, I expect.)

<comment><USER18> While awful, one of the problems with that facilitator is that you don't shoot the enemy when they threaten you in an FPS. You shoot them when you see them.

<comment> loup-vaillant Correct, I'm not sure how well that would translate. Probably not very well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The comments here have this mentality of "there are people with different opinions from me, why don't these websites deal with these opinions". It's dangerous thinking that can be applied to your opinions.

The internet always worked this way. There are the cesspools, maybe things you don't like, but if you don't feel like engaging with these communities you simply keep going. Problem with these social media forum sites is that as much as you don't want to engage/debate with these communities they still use the same website as you so its unavoidable.

This is why centralizing these forums onto one website was a bad idea, blame that. Because now, there's too much money involved and excluding people of certain political ideas or whatever means you lose a substantial chunk of userbase, which means users would depart to another website.

<comment><USER20> > The comments here have this mentality of "there are people with different > opinions from me, why don't these websites deal with these opinions". It's > dangerous thinking that can be applied to your opinions.

It has nothing to do with opinions. It has never been about opinions, and you know it.

It has to do with _antisocial behavior_. Antisocial behavior is inherently hostile and doesn't deserve a platform, which has been known to anyone who has ever ran any kind of social space for a long time. If you don't moderate antisocial behavior, you create a community where only that behavior thrives.

This is not news, and the real dangerous trend that I'm seeing is that antisocial behavior doesn't matter and should be protected. No, it shouldn't.

> There are the cesspools, maybe things you don't like, but if you don't feel > like engaging with these communities you simply keep going.

Yes, except thanks to aggregators all the communities got, well, aggregated, and now there's really nowhere else to go. A cesspool used to compete with other non-cesspools, now we're all in just one big cesspool, because the quality of trash is that it affects everything it's in.

Thank god for programming IRC communities.

<comment><USER15> > It has to do with antisocial behavior. Antisocial behavior is inherently > hostile and doesn't deserve a platform

Can you define "antisocial behaviour"?

<comment><USER20> There's a wealth of literature on the topic that you could examine at your leisure.

<comment><USER15> So you're suggesting reddit admins, mods or some algorithm should diagnose antisocial behaviour using the DSM-V based only on a user's written words? This is genuinely what you believe?

<comment><USER20> I think I genuinely believe only things I claim to genuinely believe, not things someone's attempting to put into my mouth.

<comment><USER15> Then point to this copious literature of which you speak, and describe how you would employ it impartially in a forum setting to diagnose antisocial behaviour. Frankly, I think I've been more than charitable to your claims so far, and you're just avoiding answering the question.

<comment><USER20> You've asked me to define what is anti-social behavior. That is an existing term on which lots of study have been performed. Because people don't owe you answers to a question you could research yourself.

People also do not owe you solutions to hypotheticals they never suggested in the first place.

> I've been more than charitable to your claims so far, and you're just > avoiding answering the question.

[http://wondermark.com/1k62/](http://wondermark.com/1k62/)

<comment><USER15> > You've asked me to define what is anti-social behavior. That is an existing > term on which lots of study have been performed.

So you're still not defining it or referencing it. I asked you specifically in a previous question if you're talking about the DSM-V criteria, or perhaps the DSM-IV. There are many more definitions of anti-social behaviour than you seem to be aware of.

> People also do not owe you solutions to hypotheticals they never suggested > in the first place.

Except policing antisocial behaviour is exactly what you suggested, and that's specifically what I'm asking you about. So answer the question, or you have no idea what you're talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reddit has been a completely positive force in my life. I subscribe to hundreds of subreddits and they all seem quite well-moderated. If I want to ask a question of doctors, engineers, lawyers, or manufacturers, I can. If I want to spend some time look at cute baby elephant pictures, I can. If I want to learn about a new GarageBand feature, it's easy. I literally didn't know about the things like jailbait until they became national controversies.

<comment><USER22> I've seen absolute junk science on gun control posted in reddit science. Comments that questioned the "study" were flat out removed. Millions of subscribers on that sub, at the time it was a default.

No one is implying that gonewild or programmerhumor are bad forces... but news censors, worldnews is manipulated, politics is beyond a joke. Those three particularly are almost certainly bought and paid for.

Reddit is pretty bad, particular subreddits can be great. You need to understand the content vs the company.

<comment><USER23> I used to be a mod of r/science. There is an _incredible_ amount of garbage in the comment section. This makes precise moderation very very hard. In general, I think the sub is far too lenient about leaving up comments. Far too often the top comments are pointing out some "flaw" in the study that is either irrelevant to the paper or addressed in the paper body.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As many on Hacker News know, I've been an avid fan of Reddit and believe that their data and community, and there's still a lot more that can be done that can be derived from that data that can't be found anywhere else.

That said, from an administrative perspective, the intense hands-free policies are baffling. You'd expect a company based off the nature of community would engage with their community and their needs. Admittingly, that's not very _profitable_.

<comment><USER25> But they did get engaged! They banned all subreddits related to the trading/purchasing of firearms and alcohol. /r/beertrade, a subreddit for trading beer, had a strict policy that users were not allowed to sell beer for money (something that's actually illegal) and only allowed people to post about trading beer. Even someone like me, who doesn't ship beer and only trades in-person, is no longer allowed to talk about trading.

<comment><USER26> They did after realizing they would be facing lots of regulatory problems.

Organizationally, it should be very obvious to anyone who thinks that things like facilitating anonymous gun and alcohol sales, etc is probably not a good idea.

<comment><USER25> Except they banned trading as well as sales. Trading beer is legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've significantly reduced my time on Reddit. Used to pull up the website out of curiosity every day but the atmosphere is incredibly toxic. My front page was riddled with Russiagate stuff too for some reason and every time you'd bring up an argument that isn't the norm you get a mob after you.

<comment><USER25> The default/popular subreddits are toxic. The smaller, niche subreddits are rarely toxic and usually good communities.

As for the Russiagate stuff, the front page is riddled with it because it's a very important subject in the US, Reddit's user base is primarily people from the US, and there are bombshells dropping every day.

<comment><USER28> Still a nothing burger, it's paid political propaganda on those default reddits, paid teams pushing bs and noise.

Share blue for example was given a budget of 40+ million a year to do just that. (Over 100k a day)

The other paid campaign is 'deplatforming' (their term). They do your best to silence opinions which don't match the paid script.

<comment> streb-lo I'm sure it's being brigaded by both sides for political points/fire control.

But you'd have to be willfully blind to describe the events up to now as a "nothing burger."

<comment><USER28> There is nothing, except a large paid hoax propaganda campaign. With the same team we could make mother Teresa seem like an imperialist religious nut. But anyway, let's agree to disagree. Because the world is nicer that way.

<comment><USER29> Your attitude of batching everything not matching the "side" you happened to pick and calling it a "large paid propaganda campaign" is dangerous and the world is certainy not "nicer that way".

This attitude is something you find everywhere because it's simpler for people who believe something strongly, to also believe that anyone who disagrees has been paid to do so. So it's attractive to dismiss anti-trump articles as "paid propaganda", and dismiss people like you as russian bots.

But you're going to have to wake up from that attitude at one point or another because it's going to catch up with you. As others have said, arrests and indictments aren't a "nothing burger". You won't get to the truth by dismissing sources you've been told not to like.

<comment><USER30> > As others have said, arrests and indictments aren't a "nothing burger"

Arrests and indictments for things unrelated to illegal dealings with Russia, except for maybe failing to renew registration as a foreign agent but that's a stretch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

<comment><USER32> True, but The_Donald is always leaking. I've seen plenty of sexist/racist content on subreddits for cities, sports teams, memes, etc. Reddit has allowed itself to be a platform used in part for really despicable content, and the despicable people who generate that content regularly venture outside their cesspools.

<comment><USER33> There's a certain sub I like that is full of sexist and racist stuff and nobody there likes Trump at all. What I mean to say with this is, when you see stuff you don't like on Reddit, that does not mean it's coming from T_D, or that getting rid of T_D would get rid of stuff you don't like.

<comment><USER34> You're just asserting that though. There was a study done on the removal of two of the racist/hate subreddits on reddit that indicated a positive affect.

"In this paper, we studied the 2015 ban of two hate communities on Reddit, r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown. Looking at the causal effects of the ban on both participating users and affected communities, we found that the ban served a number of useful purposes for Reddit. Users participating in the banned subreddits either left the site or (for those who remained) dramatically reduced their hate speech usage. Communities that inherited the displaced activity of these users did not suffer from an increase in hate speech. While the philosophical issues surrounding moderation (and banning specifically) are complex, the present work seeks to inform the discussion with results on the efficacy of banning deviant hate groups from internet platforms."

[http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand- hate.pdf](http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf)

<comment><USER35> I've always been skeptical of this study, mostly because of how fluid reddit accounts are.

I have at least three accounts that I know of (I've probably forgotten about others).

I'm sure people who participate in terrible behavior like that probably also have multiple accounts.

How does the study account for those users simply abandoning the accounts they used for those hateful subreddits? I find it far more likely that they didn't "leave the site entirely", and instead just migrated to their other accounts not associated to the banned subreddit.

<comment><USER33> I only use one account and I've been called off multiple times in the "mainstream" subs for posting to the right-wing ones, sometimes when not even talking about politics. I'm sure most people who post to right-wing subs keep two accounts or even more to keep their activity "segregated".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is going to be an increasingly common realization, especially in Silicon Valley. Which got way too caught up in the idea that everything was making The World a Better Place.

But Zynga and Facebook are like fast food companies.

This realization started really kicking in with Free to Play mobile games a few years ago (also mostly here in the Bay Area). I worked in F2P early on, left and moved to a non-F2P company. One of the most common things we heard from interviewees is that they were looking to get out of the F2P side of the games industry.

</comment><comment><USER37> Reddit is the only popular website where rational discourse can actually happen, thanks to the infinitely threaded conversations and complete markdown.

While there is objective rude comments on there, this is why some people call it, "toxic," because their ideas are challenged, and they'd rather preserve their ideological bubble than seek to understand reality.

<comment><USER38> It's toxic because a relatively small number of mentally ill people can effectively overrun any conversation. These people are not interested in rational discourse. You can't spin that as "the challenging of ideas".

Reddit has been fully gamed at this point and engaging in the most popular areas is just frustrating.

<comment><USER39> >It's toxic because a relatively small number of mentally ill people can effectively overrun any conversation. These people are not interested in rational discourse. You can't spin that as "the challenging of ideas".

you know what is truly toxic? internet armchair psychologists.

<comment><USER38> I run a forum and I've had to deal with mentally ill individuals, you don't understand frightening that can be.

They have all the time in the world to hack your software, doxx you, create entire blogs to attempt to publicly ruin your reputation, call your family, your employers, etc. You give them a podium to post their views and they will use it. Internet armchair psychologists more toxic than that? You should only hope so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Only just getting started reading this, but I had to jump into comments to give a shout-out on how amazing 924 Gilman was for me as a kid growing up in the East Bay. I wasn't there for the glory days of the 80s/90s, and I have no idea to what extent Dan played a role in its founding, but as a space for playing and watching music, I've never found a venue in my life that comes even close to what they were able to achieve. We actually had a great scene in the East Bay, with a decent number of spots for young, local punk/hardcore/metal bands to play. But as a teenager, it was frustrating when an overzealous security guard would go off on a 15 year old kid for moshing, or when a skating rink would flip the lights on and kill the power an hour and a half before the bands had agreed earlier.

924 Gilman had none of that. I remember the first time I saw this sign[1] and then realizing that there were no security guards to enforce those rules. And yet, the punk ethos was strong enough that folks were just generally good to each other.

Or the graffiti all over the walls with a graffiti code of conduct posted every so often: don't tag over color with black and white, don't put doodles over real art, that sort of thing. Sure, it wasn't 100% followed, but people really respected it for the most part.

Or the 25 cent bottles of water and cans of soda. No profit, just kids handing out there zines and making sure no one goes thirsty.

Anyway, I'm going to go finish the article now, but if this guy got 924 Gilman, and wants to take that ethos into the internet, I couldn't be more supportive. Godspeed.

[1]: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/61992100@N03/23226226149/in/al...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/61992100@N03/23226226149/in/album-72157660564998867/)

<comment><USER41> Gilman was a huge part of my life and I played various roles in participating and helping to manage it over the year, though I don't want to take ANY credit for this, it's not my place and no person should. But, the experience I had there showed me what is possible when things are started with good intentions and managed that way going forward. There were and are rocky times at Gilman, but overall it's a model that should be studied.

Also, we made and shared a lot of great music with the world, which is the real upside of gilman. I miss that time in my life.

<comment><USER40> Oh yeah, it certainly wasn't perfect, but the good far outweighed the bad IMO. Also, I'm now realizing there are probably a lot of parallels in building those sorts of communities with the Eternal September problem: getting too big and people betraying the ethics. It'd be a fun historical analogy to explore...

> I miss that time in my life.

Me too. I'm still in my 20s, but given that I now have a lot more means working in the tech world than I had when I was a teenager, I've been thinking a lot about how I might be able to help foster communities like that for younger generations (opening a venue, starting a small label, patronizing high school bands that want to record, etc.) Curious if you've thought about the same?

EDIT: Holy crap, just realized you're the subject of the article. Definitely didn't mean to imply you didn't play a role, FYI, but I imagine you played a large part given your humility on the matter. ;) Keep up the good fight, man. We're rooting for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The entire Hollywood mythology was built around being "discovered," and elevated to fame and stardom, and arguably it's main product wasn't movies, it was hope.

If I were Conde Nast, I would use reddit as a farm team for finding, creating, and monetizing internet celebrities through its "legit," properties the way that movie studios created vehicles to profit from actors.

Costs them hardly anything to talent scout redditors and try them out in other publications, then promote the story back of how success story X was "discovered," on reddit.

Keeps their monetization platforms hands clean, while bringing a steady stream of talent to market. The difference between hollywood and Conde Nast is that now, Conde Nast literally owns that talent source instead of relying on a bunch of agents.

<comment><USER43> Condé Nast doesn't own reddit, the parent company to Condé Nast, Advance Publications, is the majority owner of reddit, but not the only shareholder.

Block me on Twitter!

<comment><USER42> Good color. Single party has control of Conde Nast and Reddit, so while there is a legal distinction, this isn't a correction to the basic business dynamic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The fundamental problem I have with reddit is that it seems extremely easy to game and astroturf. Things like /r/politics felt like a Democratic party propaganda platform around the 2016 election for example.

</comment><comment><USER45> One thing that really annoys me from Reddit is the mob mentality.

For instance, a person will make a seemingly "logical" argument and everyone will just keep adding their own "opinion" agreeing with this argument to be part of this mob. Later, even if this argument is proven wrong, you will get insulted, downvoted and threatened if you make any sort of counter-argument. I hate generalizing but my experience was that most people were unwilling to take back what they said.

<comment><USER46> Not unique to reddit. Once a forum comment has been accepted as right, it will always be the top post. Child comments only ever see fewer views. The correction will never be as popular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> /r/mma is an absolute gem. /r/BlackPeopleTwitter is great as well.

I'm also getting tired of these apology tours from SV people. The biggest flaw they have (aside from collecting scary amounts of data) is seemingly taking a too-rosy view of people. It'd be more refreshing for somebody to stand up and quote a somewhat notorious fighter by saying, "I'd like to take this chance to apologize... to absolutely nobody."

</comment><comment><USER48> Reddit has been overrun by extremists and special interest groups and has become a dangerous tool for indoctrination and misinformation.

This interview feels disingenuous and a thinly veiled humble brag/promo for Imzy.

Jailbait Really? How can you mention jailbait but not coontown, KKK, fatpeoplehate, incels, boston marathon, there are so many worse communities/incidents that have spilled into general reddit than jailbait.

the cycle is media backlash > ban a few subs > replacements/under the radar alternatives readily available in the ban announcement comments.

no one seems to fully appreciate the massive influence that reddit has on the news cycle/national discourse and how the company policies can actually shape world politics. It's insane we're not studying this and talking about it more.

</comment><comment><USER49> He's basically saying that freedom of speech is too risky on the internet for any platform.

That is scary to me.

<comment> streb-lo Freedom of speech has nothing to do with Reddit.

<comment><USER50> No, the first amendment of the constitution of the United States (which describes the US government's responsibilities in regards to freedom of speech) has nothing to do with Reddit. Freedom of speech as a concept can be applied to anything: reddit, the government, hacker news, you or I.

<comment> T-N-T American corporatism and singular definition of 'freedom of speech' as being 'the amendment' really polluted the well of any discussion of the topic on English-speaking platforms. We, in Europe, have limited freedom of speech. You can't do things like denying the holocaust. But that doesn't mean we don't recognize the concept of freedom of speech, and that we don't have discussion platforms that feature freedom of speech -within the limits of our laws-. Censorship is still censorship, even when it's done by a corporation.

Listening to americans there can be no debate as to whether censorship even exists if it's done by a corporation because corporation are free to do anything and we shouldn't even debate what they do and whether we should boycott a place and move onto something else because corporations can do no wrong and exerting individual judgement, opinion, and sharing them, encouraging the growth of freer online platforms and the likes is heavily discouraged. No, everything has to do with the law and if the law doesn't call it bad then it's not bad and it shouldn't be judged as bad. That worship of the law and constitution as the only sacred values in human societies is disgusting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is the latest flavor of humble bragging in the Valley.

<comment><USER52> Speaking from one of his nine yachts over a satellite phone, Spammy Tachsdodger McScrapyface said "What we did at Zynga was terrible and should be regulated. My new company is available to consult on how that should be done."

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I've been actively working on a media literacy guide for engineers, contributions welcome:

[https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer](https://github.com/nemild/hack- an-engineer)

(Think Reddit influences so much of engineering thought from things like r/learnprogramming to all the cryptocurrency subs)

<comment><USER54> This is just a collection of stereotypes of journalism that are already commonly believed among the tech crowd.

Just one example: it's insulting and hurtful to any quality journalist (ie at the NYT, WSJ, or Economist) to suggest that their reporting is motivated by personal financial incentives, or their employer's.

<comment><USER53> I'll respectfully disagree. Financial incentives influence everyone, including the editors at top publications who are constantly looking at what is read, watched, and shared to decide what to invest in and feature.

You might really like "All the News That's Fit to Sell" which is written by a media economist that digs into how market incentives influence coverage (he's the director of the journalism program at Stanford). There's lots of discussion as well about media coverage decisions in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election at even the national networks.

This Cecil the Lion example at the Washington Post has always been illuminating to me: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/business/where-clicks- rei...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/business/where-clicks-reign- audience-is-king.html)

Even at the top publications, financial incentives influence choices. It's not as malevolent as someone paying off a journalist.

For example, at most top tier newspapers, there is an incentive for "if it bleeds, it leads". This is an economic outcome, as this elicits the most reader interest and also increases profitability. (See my data analysis on this in the NY Times: [https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror- films.html](https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Fundamentally, the problem with the site is that Reddit was happy getting growth on the back of people searching for jailbait[1] and creepshot porn and white supremacists for years and they have a user base that reflects that. A lot of the power mods that run the largest subreddits are just awful human beings. I don't see how they fix that short of nuking the whole site from orbit and starting over.

[1] [http://web.archive.org/web/20110429125747/http://www.alexa.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110429125747/http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com) (check the top search terms)

<comment><USER56> These people exist and no amount of censorship will eliminate that. Protective bubbles exist in the form of moderated subreddit and other forums outside of Reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> _And sure enough they didn't do anything, and sure enough deaths were caused because of the shit going on in their channels._

Which incident is this referring to?

<comment><USER58> Likely this, but perhaps something else...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunil_Tripathi#Misidentificati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunil_Tripathi#Misidentification)

<comment><USER59> No, Discord wasn't around at the time of the Boston Bombing. I believe (though don't know) that he's referring to some of the white nationalist stuff, like Charlottesville perhaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I was quite disappointed not to see more from McComas on what went wrong with his so-called kinder, gentler Reddit alternative, Imzy.

He briefly mentions the investors, but not his role in the site, its own group behaviours, staff, etc. I'd explored it and was impressed by several of its technical features, but found the net of its founding cohort _and_ technical design, as well as staff and volunteer management & moderation, hands down the most toxic online experience I've seen in 30+ years. (Yes, pre-dating the Web.)

The session-based anonymous identity dynamic in particular gave rise to dynamics such that every conversation was a single-iteration Prisoners Dilemma encounter with a strong dose of Zimbardo.

I've been hoping to see a post mortem with some degree of introspection. That's not happened.

More on my experiences: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/500ysb/the_imz...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/500ysb/the_imzy_experience_well_that_escalated_quickly/)

</comment><comment><USER52> reddit - anarchic garbage = metafilter

metafilter has 12,000 users, not mansions, yachts and tennis star wives. No one is asking metafilter mods about reddit, they're asking people who got rich off reddit, because they respect people who get rich, not people who have well-run, wisely-moderated forums. This is because well-run forums are common, and reddit.coms are not.

</comment><comment><USER61> >if Reddit, specifically, focused all their efforts on the health of their platform, on the people that are really the contributors and not the consumers, they would see growth beyond what they're getting.

I think Digg tried this, shortly before being crushed by Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER38> "They believe that if they have a billion unique visitors a month, that they have a property that is going to be worth a ton of money in some way eventually."

This is stupid; users are fickle and visitors mean nothing if you can't monetize them. And usually attempting to monetize visitors causes them to leave to the next platform trying to reach a billion unique visitors.

I can't believe intelligent people think this is a valid way to run an Internet business. It might work for small startups looking to be bought out by a larger company (who will then try and monetize it, driving away all the users) but for a company like reddit it's a bit ridiculous.

(Edit fixed typo)

<comment><USER62> I think the idea of reddit collapsing entirely is much harder than a single news site for instance. It's not one product, it is hundreds of strong communities that have gathered from different places on the web. There are discussions and communities that I would not know how to find elsewhere on the web.

<comment><USER38> Reddit is not profitable. Your strong communities are supported by investors hoping to get a return on their investment. If the growth stops, the investment stops, and the servers go away.

The fact that the communities are strong matters not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I used to have an reddit account from the first year reddit came out and I finally decided to delete it this year. I kept going into smaller and smaller subreddits because the ones I used to like, askscience or askhistorians etc. grew too much and became non enjoyable for me. At the end even the smaller subreddits were a waste of my time. I feel good about this and I don't think I'm going back to reddit.

</comment><comment><USER64> Can the sentences for this article get any longer?

</comment><comment><USER65> What I can never reconcile with is that when mainstream media means 'toxic' they are never referring to the /r/latestagecapitalism plastered all over the front page of reddit. They protest the fact that somewhere, hidden from popular view a minority of people hold a different view from the extreme leftist one.

<comment><USER66> What's wrong with r/latestagecapitalism?

<comment><USER67> Admins do nothing to prevent extreme moderation as occurs on there from deleting any comment with an alternative viewpoint. Yet it appears quite consistently on the front page with only agreement in its comments section.

<comment><USER68> right, because the rules of the subreddit indicate that. The subreddit has its own mods that follow its own rules. And the Admins of reddit do not get involved unless they're peventing a lawsuit. Which is kind of how the internet should be run. Free and safe from mass control, but communities controlling themselves.

<comment><USER69> Which would be fine, if the community had a way to control themselves. But moderators are literally chosen by being the first person to squat on a particular subreddit name. There is an incredible amount of inertia to controlling a popular "domain name" (eg popular brand names), and no recourse if the person who squatted it first turns out to be a huge shithead.

There have been plenty of instances where someone just turns off a subreddit, now _nobody_ gets to use it, have a nice day. Let alone the more subtle problem of a toxic person who should not be moderating a sub in the first place.

<comment><USER70> Maybe one should be able to put a subreddit in 'unmoderated' view and see what's getting moderated out so the community has a little more transparency. Yeah, you'll have to wade through some sewage, but at least you can opt-in on occasion to make sure you're not being unwittingly moderated into an echo chamber.

I think this hits on the underlying problem I see with Reddit and similar forums, though. Look at the evolution of subs like /r/LateStageCapitalism or /r/FatPeopleHate or /r/Incels or T_D or TRP or Flat Earth or Broneyism or whatever. I don't think in all cases the communities started out as extreme as they eventually became.

I'm not defending their original charters by any means, I just think there's some kind of sociological reality or formula these subs are tapping into that allows them to purposefully moderate/evolve into echo chambers and bring a community of followers along with them, to a point where the community even starts to self-moderate to the extreme -- but they don't just start out that way.

It's almost like you can take some ridiculous idea or some interesting but archaic belief system, build some interest in it using humor or shock value, then once you have an audience with critical mass slowly turn it into a cult without anyone noticing, like the boiling frog analogy (hmm, the irony of that comparison just now struck me). I almost want to try this myself with something absurd just to prove the theory.

And I'm sure this isn't a new concept in sociology or anthropology and there are people researching how it works at Internet scale. Can anyone point me to what it's called?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reddit focused on openness and push growth as hard as possible.

Imzy focused on heavily policing their userbase.

Where is each of them at today?

</comment><comment><USER71> With the complaint that VCs are incentivised to favor short-term metrics and over emphasise growth, how would you go about fixing that? Also, as a founder, how would you seek investors that wouldn't pressure you to scale too fast?

<comment><USER62> That's the problem with VCs in general, and it doesn't fit their business model from a math perspective if you are low-growth. There are some investors who are trying a new model (see Indie.vc).

The alternative is either to go without funding (at the expense of an ad or subsciption model), or have your users help fund you through something like an ICO or equity crowd fund or patreon etc.

Or you find a way to remove infrastructure costs through some technical decentralization or open-source and treat development/support as a hobby, but that doesn't scale to this size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> That confirms the actions of what Spez usually does. He remains silent on the rampant abusive subreddits UNTIL someone publishes a news article about it, then he steps in with the whole "We're dedicating ourselves to stepping up regulating these harmful subreddits, and other blanket PR statements". Like most, I enjoy the hobby specific subs(tech related for me) like sysadmin, networking, netsec, etc. Those communities are often very closely monitored by moderators who don't want off topic things floating in. I do browse the news sections everyday but it's normally not terrible. Most people have caught on now to the bot comment structure so those accounts get their comments downvoted to invisibility.

I think the biggest problem is that Reddit has created a poison with two perfect ingredients. 1) Having little to no moderation on abusive/illegal topics due to fear of PR backlash. 2) Creating a platform that allows people all over the world the communicate.

Mix those together and suddenly you have extremists, criminals, and just outright mentally sick people joining together to create massive communities where that behavior and mentality is allowed to prosper. When insane people have insane views, they typically have them amongst themselves or in a very small groups. Their not going to go around telling the town about their views and intentions, so it can be hard to find others to connect with that are in the same boat. That isolation I think tends to lead to towards those ideologies to fizzle out, or continue in private but without the backing to do any harm. When you suddenly have hundreds/thousands of these small groups of insane people banding together in a place where they can share their views publicly with anonymity, things get out of hand.

Take Incels for example, which is a now banned sub that was made up of generally unappealing men would very likely never experience intimacy with a female due to their own shortcomings. It's one thing for a guy to think in a brief moment "I really want to do X with a female, maybe I should just do it forcefully". That's just a personal thought and likely to fizzle out because it has no backing. Now when you have an entire echo chamber of like minded individuals saying things like that, now it's leading to encouragement and active planning of those illegal actions. All because Reddit refuses to step in.

Reddit truly doesn't offer much in terms of positives. Sure the easy going, user friendly, rolling forum type setup makes it easy for people to discuss hobbies and interests. However, forums have been doing just that since the internet began. Sure you can get news, cooking recipes, tech help, etc in a fast, easy going manner but you can get all of those from plenty of other sources too.

Think of it like this: In many areas down south in the US, militant groups are living in the forests. Generally they are white extremist, pro gun nuts who have small communities being self sufficient in the deep woods. These groups hate government interference and usually have a shoot on site policy. By themselves, these groups are nothing. Even the ones who threaten the public, pretty much never do anything. Now what if these groups had a way to _find_ and _communicate_ with each other in as efficient a manner as Reddit provides? Now you go from harmless threats to a potential, real world problem that could lead to violence and destruction since many groups would now have banded together.

<comment><USER73> >Think of it like this: In many areas down south in the US, militant groups are living in the forests. Generally they are white extremist, pro gun nuts who have small communities being self sufficient in the deep woods. These groups hate government interference and usually have a shoot on site policy. By themselves, these groups are nothing. Even the ones who threaten the public, pretty much never do anything. Now what if these groups had a way to find and communicate with each other in as efficient a manner as Reddit provides? Now you go from harmless threats to a potential, real world problem that could lead to violence and destruction since many groups would now have banded together.

That kind of logic is what leads to events like the internment of Japanese- Americans during WWII

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Bring back Ellen Pao.

</comment><comment><USER75> reddit is probably one of the best social sites on the internet. You need to pick and choose the best ones though. Like everything, there are shitty ones and great one. The great ones have great mods with a very precise focus.

</comment><comment><USER76> Bold claim; most people in the world have never heard of Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER77> I'm sure that's what most people could say about their time at, or on, Reddit.

<comment><USER78> Reddit is just a reflection of the world. There is both good and bad there. It is very easy to avoid the bad. Only visit the subreddits that you know are good. For instance, I'm a boardgamer and r/boardgames is a very friendly place. Other subreddits I frequent like r/woodworking, r/bodyweightfitness, r/campingandhiking are likewise places that positively contribute to the world.

<comment><USER79> The problem is that the site leaks in a way which doesn't have a real world analog. Your favorite coffee shop doesn't have random skinheads show up as soon as someone starts talking about e.g. sexism or racism. If it did they'd be limited to who lives nearby and the manager could kick them out when they started bothering people.

None of that happens on reddit and while intense moderation works (I love /r/AskHistorians for example) it's expensive.

<comment><USER78> Except, in the subreddits I frequent nobody brings up sexism, racism, politics, etc. so the skinheads (or whoever) don't have a toehold to start bothering people.

<comment><USER79> Lucky for you but that doesn't help anyone who is targeted for some reason – remember all of the city subreddits getting "helpful" contributions from racists highlighting crimes committed by black people? The Internet shouldn't just be for white guys even if we've gotten used to thinking of ourselves as the default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> As a foreigner, i am massively puzzled by how people seem to want to place all this on some left-right axis when both "sides" seems to have a massive problem of authoritarianism and groupthink.

</comment><comment><USER81> > The incentive structure is simply growth at all costs. There was never, in > any board meeting that I have ever attended, a conversation about the users, > about things that were going on that were bad, about potential dangers, > about decisions that might affect potential dangers. There was never a > conversation about that stuff.

This externality-disregarding culture was idolized in SV for the last decade or so. It's nice to see some self-reflection, but unfortunately the VC community, without heavy regulation, is structurally unable to value anything other than growth.

<comment><USER82> Regulation doesn't solve all the problems. In and of itself, regulation can create just as perverted incentives as the existing VC culture. With the perceived impact that Facebook had on the election, I'm starting to believe our culture is evolving into one that won't allow such disregard with or without laws enforcing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> The introduction indicates that this is part of a series that NY Mag has been running called "The Internet Apologizes", where it appears they specifically seek out influential people willing to say bad things about online communities and properties.

This series can probably be reasonably interpreted as part of the traditional media smear campaign against democratized speech platforms -- they quite prefer speech controlled by their fancy executives and programming directors.

While it doesn't necessarily diminish anything the interviewee states, it's important to understand the context and framing of the discussion.

</comment><comment><USER84> They're suffering the same problem as Facebook & YouTube. They're leaderless, being driven by and reacting to the mob of users, instead of the producing a planned product that understands people.

The problem with social media is that they don't have people telling the public that their ideas are crap, so everyone thinks they're awesome.

Editors get to make sure people understand that, no, they are not awesome.

Social media, like any advertising-driven media, needs editors to tune their site. They're trying to have it all - the profit of big advertising with the automation of tech, but advertisers only want something specific, and automation isn't going to get what advertisers want. No major advertiser wants their beautiful fashion brand ad nexts to a post of child mutilation on Reddit. And editors get to tell people that their content is garbage or great.

And editing means people are going to be unhappy. You are officially taking a certain viewpoint, and are literally filtering out incompatible expression. The people that get edited out, they'll get mad, but they'll have to deal with it, like the millions of other people that get edited out by various editors around the world and deal with it appropriately.

To fix it, Reddit & other social media needs Editors-in-Chief. Just tell the users: "This is the boss. Keep that person happy. Want to be pissy about it? Go somewhere else."

YouTube is now trying that with their kids channels.

In the long-run, things work out better with editors.</comment>


Emilie du Châtelet and her work on Newton's Principia - <AUTHOR> https://narratively.com/the-pregnant-scientist-who-raced-against-death-to-transform-physics/ <comment><USER2> Odd that the article doesn't mention what is arguably her most important contribution: conservation of energy, which isn't one of Newton's laws. Physics was very unformed at the time, even after the publication of Principia, and people were fumbling around to formalize concepts we take for granted now.

<comment><USER3> Very odd that energy is not mentioned at all in the article. I do not believe that she conceived of conservation of energy in the modern sense, where energy includes heat and chemical energy, but she saw that Newton's laws of motion conserved something besides momentum, and she somehow tested that experimentally for some mechanical systems. Anyone have more info on this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> According to the wiki on her, her commentary on the principia included "a profound contribution to Newtonian mechanics—the postulate of an additional conservation law for total energy, of which kinetic energy of motion is one element. This led to her conceptualization of energy as such, and to derive its quantitative relationships to the mass and velocity of an object."

So no, it wasn't just a translation of the principia. It seems she was also a philosopher and an early financial pioneer in developing financial derivatives.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet)

</comment><comment><USER5> I think scientific translations are undervalued in academia and the general public. Whether or not a direct scientific discovery is made is irrelevant in my view, as this work enables _other_ discoveries to be made.

Still, making a good translation can require deep understanding of the subject and offers plenty of opportunity for scientific discovery. The translator can be one of the first few to understand an important work. I think most people would agree that understanding an important work early can be advantageous. At least a few of the scientific contributions I've made were motivated by things I translated, as appears to also be the case for Émilie du Châtelet.

An acquaintance of mine in linguistics told me that translations are treated as roughly equivalent to a conference paper in linguistics, where journal articles are considered first-class. I think this setup is better than the status-quo in engineering, CS, physics, or math where translations are often treated as a waste of time.

Today, most science is published in English, but for problems which have existed for a long time, it can be worthwhile to consult the foreign "archival literature" for important papers that haven't been translated or appreciated. (Or even digitized, frequently!)

Edit: If there's a particular paper you're interested in finding a translation of, I'd recommend looking at this Stack Exchange post I made about locating existing translations: [https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/93209/31143](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/93209/31143)

</comment><comment><USER6> From wikipedia, it seems that her translation became the standard in France which helped drive the scientific revolution in mainland Europe.

Furthermore:

"Her commentary includes a profound contribution to Newtonian mechanics—the postulate of an additional conservation law for total energy, of which kinetic energy of motion is one element. This led to her conceptualization of energy as such, and to derive its quantitative relationships to the mass and velocity of an object."

</comment><comment><USER7> All: we've replaced the baity title above. Please stay on the interesting side of this topic and ignore whatever reflexive reactions it may provoke. All that is predictable and we're here to learn something new. Flamewar comments impede that; they're agitating in a way that feels exciting, but intellectually they're just boring.

<comment><USER8> The new title isn't accurate either. She didn't produce a translation, she produced a commentary. It included substantial original work addressing the 60 years of criticism of Newton's theories. Moreover:

> du Châtelet took the idiosyncratic mathematical proofs relating to the laws > of attraction that had been most scrutinized by Newton's critics and recast > his geometrical equations into integral calculus.

This is an important point vis-a-vis the history of calculus. Newton used a geometric formulation of calculus. The continent, meanwhile, and eventually everyone else, use Liebniz's formulation of calculus. That engendered a something of a divide that kept people on the continent from crediting Newton's work. In addressing criticisms of Newton's work, du Chatelet redid Newton's equations using Liebniz's formulation of calculus. It's not necessarily click bait to say that was transformative, given that a lot of subsequent development of calculus and physics happened in France.

<comment><USER9> > du Chatelet redid Newton's equations using Liebniz's formulation of > calculus.

Newton did not use equations in his book, it was all done geometrically and with proportions.

<comment><USER10> > Newton did not use equations in his book

Correct, in the sense that there's no explicit equality sign and the left and right side of the expression. There are expressions though (I see them e.g. in Book II).

But what surely nobody would find there is calculus as we know it today, all explanations are indeed geometrical there.

So rayner's claim "Newton used a geometric formulation of calculus" can be accepted (although the "calculus" was not explicit at all, but just a hidden "guiding line"), and even more that it was an immense work reinterpreting Newton's ideas to something easier to follow and prove (to those equipped with the knowledge of Leibniz's notation).

From the article we comment:

"du Châtelet took the idiosyncratic mathematical proofs relating to the laws of attraction that had been most scrutinized by Newton's critics and recast his geometrical equations into integral calculus."

Her "commentary" should surely be considered one of fundamental "On The Shoulders of Giants" set of texts.

(Btw: it's "Leibniz" or "Leibnitz". The "ie" is a sure typo.)

(One more warning, as if the other reactions weren't enough: the page on the site is structured so that when seen in Firefox reader view (at least in my case) one gets a totally different story! (the one from here: [https://narratively.com/the-secret-revenge-of-an-assault- sur...](https://narratively.com/the-secret-revenge-of-an-assault-survivor/) I haven't analyzed how that substitution happen). The story should be about [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> More info about Émilie du Châtelet and her work on her Wiki page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet)

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like some of the choices were suboptimal. In particular, sleeping 4 hours a night is ridiculously unhealthy. She might have actually lived much longer and kept her daughter alive, if she'd only kept 7-8 hours of night sleep. Seclusion and withdrawal from society is also not particularly healthy.

But. Amazing.

</comment><comment><USER13> The "baity" part of it was by far the most interesting part, for me. The title once sounded like the premise for a potentially amazing movie, and now just seems boring and inapplicable for me and most other readers who otherwise would've clicked it with the previous title. (Not to knock the value of translating scientific works.)

If I were you, I'd retain some aspect of the "race against the clock before your probable untimely death which you know is soon coming" portion. Some baitiness is unavoidable when that's the story.

The misogynist trolls will probably flock to a comment section like this regardless, if there's something about a female technologist or scientist in the title. I think removing the old title is kind of letting them win.

<comment><USER7> It's standard HN moderation to replace baity titles. Basically, it's the headline writers' job to sex up the title and make everything sound like a car chase, and it's our job to knock it back to size so readers can attend to the substance.

Part of the experiment of HN is to learn, together, how to calm ourselves down so we can find the quieter sort of material genuinely interesting again. There's plenty that's interesting here.

(We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22199116.](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22199116.))

<comment><USER13> I agree "The Pregnant Scientist Who Raced Against Death to Transform Physics" was way too extreme and in need of changing, but I still think totally neutering it is burying the lede.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The reading option part is interesting.

The story. Well cultural shock a bit and sympathy a bit, and equal opportunity concern a bit;

... but not that interesting. Sorry. Did fall into the bait though :-)

</comment><comment><USER15> Her work was a translation of Newton's Principia into French? That's good and all, but it's not scientific discovery. It's understandable that she's not widely recognized if she didn't make any important discoveries.

<comment><USER7> " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER16> Could you stop your mindless dictatorial attitude? The title says "work on Newton's Principia", which suggests at least minor original contributions to the work itself.

Who do you think you are to rudely lecture people who may be more qualified than yourself?

You are the one who is constantly rude here.

<comment><USER7> I changed the title after that comment was posted—first to "translation of", and then to "work on" because [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22199282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22199282) argued—apparently reasonably—that she made contributions beyond translation. "Working on X" is standard English for a scholar studying something. It doesn't imply that they're adding to X itself. Harold Bloom worked on Shakespeare, but not even he would say that he contributed to Shakespeare's plays.

I'm sorry to come across as rude, mindless, and dictatorial. That's definitely not the intention. The intention is to prevent HN threads from getting stuck in local flamewar states that tend to burn like garbage fires and give off fumes rather than information. That's a big problem on a site like this—in fact it's the biggest problem on a site like this. It doesn't, alas, mean that we make every call correctly. If you read lopmotr's GP comment in isolation and without the flamewar problem in mind, it is probably fine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some of the coolest demonstrations of JavaScript on the web? - <AUTHOR> Just looking for some examples of really cool uses of JavaScript---games, visualizations, art, interactions, whatever. The examples can be bleeding edge or not; I'm looking for anything. <comment><USER2> [https://www.chromeexperiments.com](https://www.chromeexperiments.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> I love this one: [http://david.li/paint/](http://david.li/paint/)</comment>


StarWars crawl text done with CSS - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/TimPietrusky/pen/eHGfj

<comment><USER2> Watch out for the cease and desist notices from Disney. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome!

<comment><USER4> Not to be a party pooper but this was done back in 08 [http://tumblr.gesteves.com/post/261593774/im-done-star- wars-...](http://tumblr.gesteves.com/post/261593774/im-done-star-wars-opening- crawl-using-only-html)</comment></comment>


The Best $12 Ever Spent for my Startup - <AUTHOR> http://boxngo.tumblr.com/post/28673064751/the-best-12-ever-spent-for-my-startup

<comment><USER2> Idea #1 - buy these notebooks in bulk and sell them online via Boxngo. Leverage great blog post that makes people want to buy one.

Idea #2 - add a feature to blog that allows people to leave comments

Idea #3 - blog about an equally good pen and/or pencil, and sell that on Boxngo, too</comment>


Ballmer: 'The Internet is not designed for the iPhone' - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/10/microsofts_ballmer_the_internet_is_not_designed_for_the_iphone.html?ana=from_rss <comment><USER2> The iPhone was the first cellphone with a browser that actually made the internet useful on a device of that size. A real browser, not some weird WAP enabled thing. But, that's really irrelevant. What is relevant is Ballmer's need to keep making stupid comments. It is like he thinks he can change reality by just saying some weird stuff.

Microsoft's looking for its next big thing. They have executed an awesome series of steps going from Basic -> DOS -> Windows -> Office. They are a big company and seem to be putting out tons of new products without much success. The Zune HD might finally be the real deal, but it is a great entrant in a market that is being absorbed by cellphones. Their stock is stagnant and Apple + Google are getting bigger. It just seems like Ballmer doesn't really have the vision to take all cool stuff Microsoft is working on and turn it into a new generation of products, so he attacks everything and keeps iterating the old.

</comment><comment><USER3> To be fair, little of the way we use the internet now was deliberately designed. If there's a specifically PC-centric bent, that's only because the PC's been the sole form of hardware it's been built around until now.

I'd say it's less than five years until Ballmer eats crow.

</comment><comment><USER4> Right, but a PDP-10 doesn't fit in my pocket.</comment>


MetaFilter launches "Best of…" blog - <AUTHOR> http://bestof.metafilter.com/2012/04/Announcing-the-Best-Of-Blog <comment><USER2> I have wanted this to exist for a long time.</comment>


Online Advertising without Douchebaggery - <AUTHOR> http://powazek.com/posts/1491 <comment><USER2> > _Bike Hero's fake ad has chalked up 1.6 million views. The EA Tiger Woods > video scored 2.5 million. Maybe honesty really is the best policy._

Or maybe one has one of the most famous celebrities in the world in it doing something really funny? I wouldn't draw any deep conclusions based on their YouTube views.

And which had a better ROI? I'll bet it was Bike Hero.

</comment><comment><USER3> What if EA has planted "kid's mocking video"?

<comment><USER4> They did, of course.

<comment><USER5> More likely, they planted the bug in the game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Chiseled in stone old. But a great ad.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised that a text praising an advertisement ends with the sentence 'Maybe honesty really is the best policy'.

Honesty would be not to advertise.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't stop laughing.

</comment><comment><USER9> amazing.</comment>


Minimum Database Wrapper for PHP projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/indyarmy/MDW

<comment><AUTHOR> This project is just a simple wrapper for accessing a database. It simplifies things for people who might tend to forget sanitizing their inputs (particularly INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE) while providing a convenient, class-based interface.

</comment><comment><USER2> Almost all PHP frameworks have already DB wrapper built-in. If you're a PHP dev and not using a framework, then you should consider using one.

</comment><comment><USER3> PDO already _is_ a simple wrapper for accessing a database.

<comment><AUTHOR> No argument from me - but how many people are using it? Just from watching SO for a few days it seems that nearly all of the people having trouble with their code (tagged 'mysql' and 'php') are using the old methods. Almost no one is using PDO for their projects (in that limited demographic, at least).

MDW is just to lower the barrier to entry a little bit for people like that. Easy to use, easy to understand, and thanks to the helper pattern, the interface won't change if something better than PDO comes along.

<comment><USER4> The barrier is already pretty low. Good on you for trying to promote PDO, but I doubt it's going to change anything.

There are already a number of DB layers like ADODB and of course the dozens of ORMs around.

This doesn't help when people have read "make a blog in 2 hours" from 2003 and think they're a PHP superstar.</comment></comment></comment>


An Open Letter to Dove - <AUTHOR> http://www.bennjordan.com/blog/?p=735 <comment><USER2> If you haven't heard it already - his music is great coding music. Start here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5mQMN1KktY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5mQMN1KktY)

<comment><USER3> Indeed. Benn's "Compositions for Piano" has been my personal favorite for years. There's something very clean and crisp about his mastering. Some call it "Modern classical". I call it sublime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "[...] also made waves globally in regards to realizing what the toxic fashion and beauty industry does psychologically to young girls."

No.

See "The Dove Sketches Beauty Scam" [https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/05/dove.html](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/05/dove.html)

<comment><USER5> That was a great read. Looking forward to reading that blog's back catalog.

<comment><USER4> I'm envious - I'd love to read all the stuff for the first time - the back catalog is excellent, several articles significantly changed my world view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I understand the reluctance to use litigation against mega corporations, given that any procedural error can basically cost you your existence, even if the core complaint is very simple.

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks like the article was taken down. Here is an archive.org link to it. [https://web.archive.org/web/20171110080004/http://www.bennjo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171110080004/http://www.bennjordan.com/blog/?p=735)

</comment><comment><USER8> Hope they make this right.

</comment><comment><USER9> Both his posts regarding the Dove music licencing have now been removed. Lawyers getting involved maybe?

</comment><comment><USER10> Could someone share a link to the actual Dove ad?

<comment><USER7> I believe it is this one. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Site is down?

<comment><USER12> Page loads for me but no content. Maybe post was deleted?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a prime example of why we need copyright reform. Here is a guy who, by his own admission, (co)created a cultural landmark; something many people know, love or at least recognize. In a prime example of bait-and-switch scam, after it has gotten successful, he's now trying to lock it away behind a paywall, extorting people just to keep using what they already paid for. Maybe he has the law on his side (after all, it's only to be expected that capitalism would serve only the interests of rent-seeking owners), but proprietary music is eating away the very foundations of our culture. This guy should be boycotted and we should organize a movement of musicians who make works available for Free - not just free as in beer, but also (and more importantly) Free as in speech.

(/s , if that wasn't obvious...)

</comment><comment><USER14> Ah yes, the company that make Axe/Lynx, they're all about empowering women.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe someone does think the guy hasn't been paid enough and is deliberately providing a justification for "damages"

<comment><USER16> Perhaps he's been paid enough in the past to cover their usage of his music in the past, but he's not being paid enough in the present to cover their usage of his music in the present.

<comment><USER9> What eecc is suggesting is that some insider at Dove was unhappy with how much the musician earned from royalties, and so deliberately stopped paying them while leaving the campaign up to allow Benn Jordan to sue and therefore gain a greater share in the end.

I think that's extremely unlikely myself but the comment may have been made in jest.

<comment><USER16> OK. I read it to mean eecc thought Benn Jordan thought Benn Jordan hadn't been paid enough, and has written all the "this is what I signed up for, I'm happy with the amount I was getting" spiel as a way to prepare to seek damages without appearing to act in bad faith.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> His music was used for a soap commercial, he should be glad they're removing it. These commercials can totally destroy a peace of art.

<comment><USER18> The article states Dove SAID they were removing it, but didn't, and are illegally using it after not renewing the license.</comment></comment>


Thanks, Steve - <AUTHOR> http://samaltman.com/thanks-steve

<comment><USER2> It's amazing how many of us had the same emotion, about not wanting to let down or disappoint Steve Jobs. Much of what you said is echoed in my own post, about being at Apple when Steve came back, and him shutting down our project (and feeling no anger, but sadness and disappointment). This isn't linkbait, just nice to know someone else felt the same way: [http://geoffclapp.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-steve-jobs- story.h...](http://geoffclapp.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-steve-jobs-story.html)</comment>


Bill Manning has died - <AUTHOR> https://rdvlivefromtokyo.blogspot.com/2020/01/bill-manning.html <comment><USER2> For anyone wondering who he was or his contributions:

> Manning has been working in the Internet industry since 1979 when he started > working at Texas Instruments and helped in building its IP network. After > which he joined Rice University and made SESQUINET. He played a significant > role in the migration of MIDNET and SESQUINET from NSFnet regional networks > to commercial networks.

> He worked on the COREN and CALREN-2 technical committees. At ISI he worked > in the Routing Arbiter Project.

> Bill has been working with the the IETF and IEPG as an individual > participant, working group chair, and code developer. He specfied the method > to add NSAP support to the DNS.

[https://icannwiki.org/Bill_Manning](https://icannwiki.org/Bill_Manning)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that.

I always feel bad seeing that someone has died and how important they were in computer science but it's the first time I've heard of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I see eulogies like this for people I've never heard of, I'm reminded sometimes that everything good in my life that I take for granted exists because of someone somewhere just doing the best they can. It helps ease the angst.

</comment><comment><USER5> I knew Bill professionally, he was a great guy and we'll all be at a loss without him around.

Back in 2003 when I started SFIX he was instrumental in getting it off the ground.

I can't believe he's gone.

<comment><USER6> I'm sorry for your loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some stand-up comic in the 90's had a joke to the effect of:

And when you hit a certain age, your friends start playing a game called, "Guess Who Died?"

This seems like the year when all the DotCom era kids start playing the game.

<comment><AUTHOR> Flipside is that many of the founding fathers of computers, software, networking, and security are still alive, and can still tell their stories.

That's an opportunity for any historians out there.

<comment><USER8> One of the best experiences of my college life was escorting Tony Hoare around the campus during his several talks that day (as well as attending those talks of course). I distinctly remember thinking how lucky I was to be around during the time of the giants of my field. Like a physics major getting to sit and talk with Newton or similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > On other occasions, when the waiter asked for his order, Bill would point to > another person at the table, and say, "I'll have what she's having." "Well, > what is she having?" "I don't know, I haven't heard her say." Once in a > while, he would point to someone else in the restaurant and say, "I'll have > what they are having." It was funny and sometimes disconcerting, which was > very Bill, and it was also his way of making sure he himself was eating (and > thinking and doing) as broadly as possible, without getting stale.

What an endearing fellow. I wish I was more like him.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm always impressed (and admittedly envious) when I see a person who manages to get a PhD while skipping the bachelors degree; being a dropout I wish I could do that, but of course I didn't build TI's IP network or SESQUINET :)

RIP Bill; HN should consider putting a black bar.

<comment><USER11> Does anybody know more about how this happens? As a fellow dropout, I've sometimes wanted to go back for a master's, but there's no way I'm spending n years getting a bachelor's first.

<comment><USER10> From the research I've done on this, it looks like you typically have to have made huge contributions to a field already, and have a professor or ten advocating for you at a university to accept you into the PhD program.

I've emailed about twenty of math professors in the NYC area to let me into a masters or PhD program, since I thought my work history for the big "brand name" compsci research companies and my work as an ostensible research scientist a a big nice university would suffice, but sadly not a single one was even willing to meet with me.

<comment><USER12> Knowledge > credentials. Hope it doesn't get you too down, sometimes the only winning move is to not play.

<comment><USER10> You're not wrong, though it does sadly preclude me from the more interesting compsci/math research positions (stuff involving type theory and compilers and whatnot); most universities and research teams (understandably) have a firm minimum requirement of a masters degrees, preferring a PhD.

I totally understand why they do this...if you're dedicated enough to get a PhD in a field then you're almost-inherently going to be a decent researcher, so I can't blame whomever is in charge of hiring at places like MS Research for having these criteria. It's just a bit sad that this means, at minimum, even if I were an otherwise perfect candidate, I probably couldn't get a job doing real research for at least another seven years (3 to finish the bachelors, and 4 to get the PhD if I'm being _very_ generous).

EDIT: To those wondering if this is contradictory to my previous comment, I will clarify; I do work for one of the big brand name compsci research companies, but (sadly) not doing research. When I worked for a big university, my title was technically "research scientist", but my actual job could have been more-accurately described as "code-monkey", and that's putting it generously.

<comment><USER12> Never give up on applying for roles you believe you're qualified for even though you're missing some letters, every once in a while someone breaks the mold and hires based on the right signals (versus a checkbox) in this scenario. Applying is free, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.

<comment><USER10> Oh, I do keep applying, I just try to not get me hopes up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe there is a little bit of solace in knowing that in some sense he lived more in his too short life then most of us will in our full-length ones.

</comment><comment><USER14> RIP

</comment><comment><USER15> Re: _...we called Bill "the bad idea fairy". He always brought a slightly-off- kilter view of technical problems, which triggered endless discussions of fascinating, if usually implausible, alternatives._

I've been "accused" of similar. Although, I can't claim I'm as successful as Bill. I tend to ruffle sacred cows. It's not like I'm trying to agitate people, I just view the world a bit different from established opinions.

For example, we have dynamic programming languages, but not dynamic RDBMS (that use SQL or a close variation). Why not?

And we have XML as a fairly flexible meta-standard for data structures, but why not something comparable for C-like-syntax programming languages? You could roll your own programming language without creating a parser from scratch (and hopefully mix and match behavior based on "part kits").

Both of these seem like logical extensions of existing tools to me, but I get a lot of vague flack. It's like the universe is calling for them, not just me, yet nobody cares. It's not outright inventing new concepts, it's just taking concepts that worked well in one computing domain and applying them to another. They might fail, but so might every other IT experiment going on currently.

<comment><USER16> > _For example, we have dynamic programming languages, but not dynamic RDBMS > (that use SQL or a close variation). Why not?_

Depending on what you mean, SQLite is exactly this.

It is relational, so one does have to structure tables, but I consider this equivalent to naming variables.

Unlike most (all?) other SQL databases, however, the 'types' of the data are just suggestions, and have some influence on how SQLite stores and retrieves them internally.

But you can put a string in an INTEGER field, SQLite won't stop you.

<comment><USER15> But you have to pre-specify the columns. In a truly dynamic DB, you could enter "INSERT INTO foo (myNewColumn) VALUES (123)" and both the table "foo" and "myNewColumn" are created on the fly. SqlLite doesn't do this. Further, one could add restrictions as needed to "lock down" both new column creation, and add type-like validation ("parse" check). Thus, as requirements solidify, it can act more like a traditional RDBMS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Really tragic. RIP.</comment>


What are the worst hacker scenes in TV and movies? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@e/what-s-the-worst-hacker-scene-you-ve-ever-seen-in-the-movies-67ce3cf1ffe8#.undm6iv27 <comment><USER2> "Oh cazzo, un debian!" \-- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5ocXFgowZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5ocXFgowZA)

Just a quote: "Don't worry, I've got a small program that reads from /dev/null!"</comment>


Bitcoin falls below $6,000, and one crypto trader says it will go lower - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/bitcoin-is-below-6000-but-these-other-cryptos-are-hot-says-trader.html <comment><USER2> >[below $5,000, that's when miners start asking themselves, 'is it worth keeping this machine on?']

That's what we said when Bitcoin was at $30, when it was at $300, and I'm sure we will say it again when it's at $3,000.

You don't have to be a genius to predict Bitcoin's market swings. A miner incurs capital and operational expenditures to acquire fancy digital tokens known as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.

That miner then needs to have the intestinal fortitude (aka "stomach") to hold on to those coins while waiting for the next viral hype cycle to occur in the coins they own.

If it never comes, the miner loses a lot of money, permanently. If the hype cycle does come, then at that point it's just an exercise in guessing the top of the market to maximize profit.

Trading anything in the world is just like this. Beanie babies, gold, retro video games, and so on.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep yourself motivated to work on an idea? - <AUTHOR>

I have lots of ideas but I find myself switching from one to the other very easily. This way I will never fully commit to one idea and I've realized that you need at least a few years till your startup becomes truly successful.
I'd be grateful if the HN community could help me out and share a few techniques as to how to keep myself motivated and keep pushing on just one idea, day after day, month after month.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Thought: Maybe the problem isn't one of staying focused, but the real issue is a lack of deep passion for the idea?

Although maybe one thing you might do is to work on smaller ideas that can happen in a small space of time (say a calendar month vs. a year).

</comment><comment><USER3> Consider working on something smallish that will improve _your_ life. "I can't wait until I have this!"</comment>


Why Yahoo Passed On Microsoft's Search Deal (New Details!) - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/hey_yahoo_please_explain_again_why_you_passed_on_microsoft_search_deal

<comment><USER3> Actually, it doesn't explain _why_ Yahoo! passed up on the offer - <USER2> does.

As a publicly-traded company, Yahoo!'s number one goal is _required_ to be that they keep their stock prices going. Microsoft's deal was for more lucrative, but Yahoo! turned it down (yet again) for murky-clear reasons that aren't backed by numbers or facts - just Jerry Yang's insistence that "Yahoo! can do better."

(Note: I'm glad the deal didn't fall through, IMHO, it would've been the end of both MS and Yahoo!)</comment>


What Economics Models Really Say - <AUTHOR> http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2017/07/what-economics-models-really-say.html <comment><USER2> Error = Model - Reality;

//current process

1\. Dig in heels

2\. Yell louder</comment>


Learning Git from Novice to Expert - <AUTHOR> https://juanmanuelalloron.com/2020/04/26/weekly-digest-6-learning-git-from-novice-to-expert <comment><USER2> I'm really surprised that nobody mentions tig [0] when talking about git. It is by far the most convenient git visualizer I've ever used, and I use it hundreds of times a day. It's written in C so it's super fast (loads a huge project in a few seconds), and it's a CLI so you don't even have to leave the terminal.

[0] [https://github.com/jonas/tig](https://github.com/jonas/tig)

<comment><USER3> ... or Magit.

Needs Emacs, but installable in 1 minute from Spacemacs installation, requires zero emacs knowledge and has vim-like shortcuts if required. I haven't seen any git client more convenient and powerful at the same time than Magit and I've tried dozens; I don't use Emacs but keep it around solely as a git front end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also:

\- Interactive rebase - reorder, squash, delete etc commits. Ensures your history is 'implement X' rather than 'implement X' 'fix typo' 'update old comment'.

Command line UI (git rebase -i) is ... dated. But Fork, SourceTree, Tower and a few others have better UIs.

\- If someone added a secret in the past, which should have been in a .env file: 'BFG repo cleaner'.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Git is not an acronym, in slang "git" means "a stupid person". Linus > Torvalds when he created the first version name it "the stupid content > tracker" and that is how Git was born!

He was pissed at Larry McVoy, hence the name. But things need different explanations.

It's like the gnu BFD library — I was asked once during a talk what the name stood for and so I had to think on my feet: Binary File Descriptors. Not the actual origin or meaning of the name!</comment>