I am finally glad to see a post that hasn't been taken down that recognizes Kobe Bryant, even though somewhat distantly.
The behavior I saw from mods and the HN community yesterday left a lot to be desired.
It left me questioning what qualifies as HN material and whether sometimes this group is sometimes stubborn just for the sake of it.
Kobe Bryant might not have been a technologist but he definitely played a huge role in a lot of developers' livelihood. Whether that was inspiration, motivation, drive or mental health... Kobe influenced a lot of people. It would be very arrogant to assume the HN community was free of his influence.
Every single Kobe post, no exception, was flagged or killed.
Some of us were not doing ok yesterday, and if we can't share our struggles with the rest of the community then why are we even here? I felt a lot of dictatorial tendencies yesterday on this platform and I personally really hated it.
Your heroes are different from mine. To pretend as if Kobe's death is of zero worth to this community is not only arrogant and selfish, but quite reflective of the pains minorities suffer in communities like these.
Today I showed up at work wearing my Mamba jersey in memoriam. Had I gone with the picture presented by HN yesterday, I would have thought I would have been all alone and would have had to explain my depression to a lot of other folks at work. Instead I was met with shared remorse and others also affected by the death. Most of the people at work were in similar mode and we shared our feelings and thoughts and comforted each other.
Yesterday, even if only for one day, I would have hoped HN would have been that support group.
Mamba mentality is real and has driven a number of us. May it live forever.
Until reading your post, I did not realize I have not read a thread on Kobe yesterday on HN. What I stumbled upon was the 'Why helicopters crash all the time' which seems.. tone-deaf. I was surprised on how many different people from different backgrounds posted about Kobe on my timelines yesterday. It's obvious what you say is true: there are a lot of us here that see him as influential and want to discuss his legacy.
I am not a long time fan of the NBA or Kobe himself. I got interested in the league recently due to Kawhi's dagger on the 76ers that made the rounds on Twitter. I followed last years finals, and watched a lot of highlights on YouTube. I recently just realized how big Kobe was and how his mentality and legacy is revered throughout the league. It's weird seeing old highlight clips and realizing MJ, Pippen, Bird, even Magic is still here while Kobe is gone.
He is a recent inspiration for me yet I felt the loss too. Please don't feel alone on feeling that on HN.
Kobe was also more directly involved in tech investing through Bryant stibel, which he co-founded (though - granted - not as much the same type of early stage investing that most HNers are interested in).
And now the HN mods have flagged this comment as off-topic, which causes it to be collapsed by default for all viewers of this thread. Everyone needs to specifically click the [+X] on it to even be able to read it.
Regardless of that, it seems like you're upset because of some mistaken expectations of what HN is for. It's not trying to be a "general purpose" site where you should expect to be able to discuss any and all topics. It has a pretty narrow focus, and users tend to aggressively flag posts about anything without a clear connection to the set of subjects that they feel "belong" here.
You shouldn't try to treat HN as a place where you'll be able to find general news about the world or discuss anything in particular, no matter how important you feel it is. It's a good site for its particular niche, but you're going to end up with a myopic view if you aren't also using other sites too.
Point is there is no hard and fast rule and is subjective. There’s plenty of people who died that have nothing to do with technology that have been not been flagged for removal.
The behavior I saw from mods and the HN community yesterday left a lot to be desired.
It left me questioning what qualifies as HN material and whether sometimes this group is sometimes stubborn just for the sake of it.
Kobe Bryant might not have been a technologist but he definitely played a huge role in a lot of developers' livelihood. Whether that was inspiration, motivation, drive or mental health... Kobe influenced a lot of people. It would be very arrogant to assume the HN community was free of his influence.
Every single Kobe post, no exception, was flagged or killed.
Some of us were not doing ok yesterday, and if we can't share our struggles with the rest of the community then why are we even here? I felt a lot of dictatorial tendencies yesterday on this platform and I personally really hated it.
Your heroes are different from mine. To pretend as if Kobe's death is of zero worth to this community is not only arrogant and selfish, but quite reflective of the pains minorities suffer in communities like these.
Today I showed up at work wearing my Mamba jersey in memoriam. Had I gone with the picture presented by HN yesterday, I would have thought I would have been all alone and would have had to explain my depression to a lot of other folks at work. Instead I was met with shared remorse and others also affected by the death. Most of the people at work were in similar mode and we shared our feelings and thoughts and comforted each other.
Yesterday, even if only for one day, I would have hoped HN would have been that support group.
Mamba mentality is real and has driven a number of us. May it live forever.
Rest in eternal peace Kobe!