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seanflyon | 10 years ago

Could you explicitly state what it is you are referring to? I'm not familiar with github's content restrictions.

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hga|10 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118

tl;dr: Observed fact, GitHub disappeared a repo (this I personally know for a fact) and all its forks, the only reason we can surmise is that it described itself as "X for retards". I believe it's this one https://github.com/WebMBro/WebMConverter now described as "WebM for bakas." (Japanglish for idiots or fools).

Per this https://imgur.com/QC51FZz it was indeed for the use of that word.

I'd be more willing to extend some slack to GitHub if they hadn't precipitously turned off their service for these repos, that's worse than this example of their "tolerance", but who knows what it'll be next?

Who knows how this will play out in the long term; their trashing of their meritocracy rug suggests this is not a one off (ADDED: and erics32 reminded me of C+=). Why should I or anyone else concerned about long term stability invest in their particular value adds when they show such capriciousness?

The great point, in relation to this topic of their latest investment, is that companies that depend almost entirely on their "communities" can screw those up and destroy their value.

geographomics|10 years ago

What a curious turn of events. Is "retard" particularly offensive in some cultures? I wasn't aware it had such inflammatory power behind it.

joesmo|10 years ago

"The great point, in relation to this topic of their latest investment, is that companies that depend almost entirely on their "communities" can screw those up and destroy their value."

I think it's pretty much inevitable once the money rolls in that companies like Github and others will start censoring content and generally doing things that upset the community to appease their investors. I can't think of a single company that doesn't do this, and in many cases it has led to a downturn of the company if not outright demise.

crucini|10 years ago

Github has chosen the left/PC side, certainly, as evidenced by the rug death. But I suspect this will help them rather than hurt, as the majority of developers are probably left/PC, as is leadership of major tech companies. They are aligning with the power structure.

Do you think Bitbucket would stand up to a PC Twitter campaign? I think not; only the explicitly ideological want to fight such battles.

gizmo686|10 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118

This was on the front page recently. 741 comments and only 480 upvotes, so it wouldn't suprise me if it set off the flamewar filter and got pushed off.

jessaustin|10 years ago

It was surprising how long that stayed on the front page: it was still there when comments were ~550 and upvotes were at least a hundred less.