Talk:Paul Graham (programmer)

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Latest comment: 7 years ago by InternetArchiveBot in topic External links modified

Hierarchy diagram name-calling

Not sure of the best place to raise this, as the image is used in a few places around Wikipedia, but this article is probably the most significant one, since it's a biography and we're trying to summarise the man's writing.

File:Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement-en.svg explains the "name-calling" level with "sounds something like, 'You are an ass hat.'" - this is the only quotation on the diagram, but it's not a phrase Graham used in his original definition. User:Red Slash edited the image to read "you are an idiot" in July for seeming "out of place", User:CFCF changed it back explaining that it was a "long-standing supported version".

Graham's original example uses quotes of "u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!" and "The author is a self-important dilettante." (and points out that the two are not so different). Neither of those really fits the context here. "Ass hat" seems an obscure enough slang term to suggest to the reader that Graham might have used it in the essay, although has the advantage of being a silly nonsense term that can't be perceived as an ad hominem; "idiot" is more neutral in tone, but is harder to distinguish from the ad hominem of "my opponent is not intelligent enough to argue properly".

Which should the image use? Do we even need an example, when we could have a short sentence distinguishing name-calling from ad hominem? --McGeddon (talk) 17:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

With no response in a month I've gone ahead and reverted it, as "idiot" seems less of a profanity, making the image and this article more widely reusable. (Reading up on "ass hat" as an insult it may be intended to mean "to have one's head up one's ass", which would make it even more of an ad hominem than "idiot" anyway.)
I tried editing the SVG directly in a text editor to a third option - something like "jerk" might be a better word to use - but the text isn't editable. If anybody wants to make or implement suggestions, feel free. --McGeddon (talk) 15:25, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
I never responded, but I do appreciate your careful reversion, McGeddon. Thank you. Red Slash 20:43, 24 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

Early life

Not much info from before 1995, about younger earlier life, whereas this seems a usual thing to do, and is relevant.88.159.69.48 (talk) 13:11, 11 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

What's stopping you to add it?Amin (Talk) 22:12, 30 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

This is one of his most well known, and most read essays. Why is there nothing on this page about it? We should ad that to his wikipedia page. Prede (talk) 18:42, 22 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

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