I'm going to keep tilting at the windmill, here. Why are you downvoting these comments? How is Zed Shaw not simply trying to insert himself in the debate with base presumptions about _why and his motivations or the cause of his disappearance?
I downvoted the parent for snarky ad hominem that adds nothing to the site. I downvoted this comment for complaining about comment voting and perpetuating the notion that voting should be about whether you agree or disagree with it. They are just bad comments.
No, my comment was intended to further elucidate the original comment as to garner an explanation for the reasoning behind your disagreement with the comment.
Instead you dismissed it as "snarky". Why do you disagree that Zed Shaw is attempting to hijack the situation to garner attention?
You're missing the point by a wide margin. I voted because I felt they were lousy comments. Whether I agree with them or not is hardly relevant, as I don't think they're even worth paying that much attention to.
The whole idea that comment moderation should be based on whether you agree or disagree with the message is a toxic one that has killed civil conversation on dozens of sites, replacing it with thoughtless and instinctual groupthink that frankly makes everyone dumber. (I won't even pretend to be above it at all times myself, but I try, and would hope to not be alone in that.) Ultimately, you can't stop everybody from voting that way, but you can discourage it, and that's what my post was about.
a) _why was hacked. a crime has been commited
b) he did this for personal or "artistic" reasons, and other people got screwed
Since (a) is unlikely, I can only assume (b). I understand the artistic mind - the need to create, and destroy, to find beauty in the world. I'm glad that people were touched by _why and are sad to see him go. I saw his persona as an artist, and never got personally involved with his projects because I like more professionalism in my code. It sucks to say it, but now I'm glad that I didn't.
