Comment by wtallis
7 hours ago
I wasn't at all saying that points = credibility. I was saying that points = not unknown. Enough people around here know who he is, and if he didn't have credibility on this topic he'd be getting down voted instead of voted to the top.
Is that meaningfully different? If you read malfist's point as "tptacek's point isn't valuable because it's from some random person on the internet" then the problem is "random person on the internet" = "unknown credentials". In group, out group, notoriety, points, whatever are not the issue.
I'll put it this way, I don't give a shit about Robert Downy Jr's opinion on AI technology. His notoriety "means nothing to anybody". But instead, I sure do care about Hinton's (even if I disagree with him).
malfist asked why they should care. You said points. You should have said "tptacek is known to do security work, see his profile". Done. Much more direct. Answers the actual question. Instead you pointed to points, which only makes him "not a stranger" at best but still doesn't answer the question. Intended or not "you should believe tptacek because he has a lot of points" is a reasonable interpretation of what you said.
Pointing to the profile leads someone on the path of understanding why to trust tptacek on security issues. Pointing to his points on HN explains why lots of users here already know that he's credible in this area and will recognize his username and upvote his comments on this topic and know better than to blindly accuse him of being a just a random person on the internet.
The problematic, ignorant comment that has been flagged asserted that what tptacek says "means nothing to anybody else", which is a very wrong statement about his role in the HN community.
I don't get your argument. That everyone should know and recognize our community celebrities? That seems really out of touch. Given the age of their profile I'm assuming they just spend more time touching grass.
Either way I'm not sure what your point is. You didn't answer their question. The one you replied to. I you're in defensive mode but no need to defend, I'm not going to respond anymore.