A bitter commentary on EuroRust conf | Hacker News Reader

A bitter commentary on EuroRust conf

lucumr.pocoo.org

13 pointskunley13 comments

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@dang this looks like a fairly editorialized take on the title:

Original: "EuroRust 2023 Reflections: What's a Conference For?"

Current: "A bitter commentary on EuroRust conf"

Reminded me of an old cartoon:

Scientist: I'm sick of you, filthy journalists! Get off!!!

News title: Scientist Assaults a Journalist

An idea for LLM AI startup: editorializer (translates titles in journalistish), and clickbaitizer (translates titles in present day internetmediatish).

Or rather: a realistic take, because the article is bitter.

This kind of headline edit is done assuming the maturity of the readers: they can see by themselves if the title matches the content and act accordingly. The fact that the original author decided to soften his message in the headline, doesn't change the content. So, as long as there is free speech, one can submit link like I did. You're also free to complain, and yet others have right to disagree with you.

No, it's putting your own opinion in the title, and it's against the HN guidelines: "please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize" (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

I disagree, I merely put back original author's opinion he stated in the article.

Saw that many times here, btw.

The original author wrote their opinion in their own title.

You wrote your own opinion.

I read the same article and did not percieve bitterness even though it was critical. So now what?

This is probably exactly why there is simply a rule about editorializing that applies the same in all cases and leaves no room for creative interpretation.

It doesn't matter which of us is right this way. You can still think your perception is OBVIOUSLY the sane one, and so can I.

And the cherry on top is needing to have such a thing explained while presuming to lecture anyone else about maturity. Chefs kiss right there.

Mmm, I will just address the last paragraph as I am a bit in a hurry, you are mistaken thinking I am lecturing anyone about maturity... exactly the opposite, I strongly believe in people's genuine maturity and that they don't need much control over such trivia as the headline for example. They can judge by themselves.

And I believe that replacing a title, especially without indicating so IN the new title somehow, is putting your words into someone else's mouth, which is failing of basic integrity.

You could argue that applying one's own title is only adding commentary rather than editing, and so not a lack of integrity. But then we are back to square one that you wrote your opinion rather than the unadulterated facts. Or you could also argue that it is editing, putting words into someone else's mouth, since, there literally were words from the speaker, which you literally replaced with words from yourself, and you didn't indicate that these new words were yours with "I think" or other modifiers in your replacement title.

Now you seem to start with lecturing, by claiming that what I do is lacking a basic integrity. Quite a bold claim, considering the fact that you don't know my motivation, you didn't hear it yet. But this raises a question, do you approve lecturing in the comments, or you don't, or you do but only when you do it...? It's confusing.

I repeat, the general tone of the article is bitter - it says a lot about negativity in the community and lack of consious direction of the conference itself. Majority of the article is about that. This is justifying what I said about article. Then, at the end there is some cheering up words, like, he liked we has there, which is again the typical and healthy behaviour - no one wants to have a conclusion that did something which maybe was a big waste of time and money and it probably wasn't. But still, there are many concerns, not technical but social, in the article as a whole. And you know, the word "bitter" pretty much fits the situation when somebody describes social affairs of some group with dissapointment - in this case, it not only about the conference but about the society around the Rust language in general. So I am guessing now, what kind of title would be satisfactory for you, saying "overall a bitter comments on a conf and Rust society but with a cheerful conclusion"? That's kind of waste of characters typed, and honestly, seems to suggest lack of intelligence of the reader.

Honestly I wasn't thinking about all the guidelines for posting; read them years ago and wasn't even remotely suspecting I'd break them now. Re-read them when this discussion started, and as long as I see I have broken one of the points, I still disagree with that. It's putting too much attention into the petty details. People are more mature and less sensitive that you think, and can have their own opinion even if the headline is less neutral than some policy-watchers think.

So, if you think that you will convince me to edit or delete my submission, I'd say no. You can ofc invoke "higher powers", I don't care. Precisely for the fact I described above - it's too much regulation around a simple thing.

I already knew better than to convince you of anything. I merely respond to invalid arguments with that which makes them invalid, just for the sake of the record, and so that you can not claim to be unaware. Or to to be enlightened myself if you present something that I hadn't considered, which has not happened.

He's not bitter. He ends the post with:

    The conference was great, I had a good time. It's a really good starting point for even better conferences going forward.

which definitely sounds positive to me. If anything, his reflection is a mild critique of things that could be improved, and is seeking to understand the community and how it sees itself.

Funny talking about the toxicity of social media as a factor behind recent incidents and bleakness when every other language or professional community has exactly the same social media landscape presumably without the same issues or to the same magnitude. Not that said toxicity doesn’t exist, but struggling with it more (?), and doing other things such as the keynote incident which did not occur on social media AFAIK indicate other/deeper cultural issues I’d say.

These suggestions make sense to me though, all hands especially IMO … they can be a good way to force institutions to be grounded and can often be cringey for groups that have lost touch and the faith of their constituents.

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