A character assassination would be something like "He does something morally reprehensible (cheating, selling ads to three year olds, etc". The above post is more like "He harps on multiple things he maybe shouldn't, and has an outraged user-base he keeps stoked, so that should be taken into account."
If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable.
> If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable.
How does that quote remotely imply there is something "wrong" with it (aside from it obviously factoring into credibility)? Another person took the exact same quote and declared that it betrayed jealousy. This borders on parody.
If that doesn't "remotely" imply anything to you, have you considered whether you're perhaps just a little less sensitive to linguistic nuance than others? And that this doesn't necessarily mean that it is they who are overly sensitive?
> If I said, "I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him" that isn't a character assassination- just my opinion he is unlikeable.
If you were in court for an act you didn't commit and the prosecutor said:
"I find his voice really grating and his outrage mostly makes me dislike him"
What would you said to this?
This commenthas noting to do with anything. Its a pointless opinion nothing to do with given case. And its a vague ad-hominem attack.
OP seemed quite open that he sees his right to repair work as important and is simply commenting on the direction his YouTube channel is taking. Not sure what goal posts are being shifted exactly and I can't see what "personal characteristics" are being attacked in any way in what reads as a simple personal opinion.
Strange how it's still the top comment in this thread, even though it's a personal attack that has nothing to do with the actual topic, or make any attempt to discuss his arguments.
Seems like the type of tactic you'd see from those lobbyist groups that pay money to release commercials claiming right to repair will lead to rape: https://youtu.be/EozPi1qmH44?t=59
If a comment is sitting at the top of the thread that you feel is off-topic in an unhelpful way, the one thing you can do that will make the most difference is let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for more explanation.
Posting insinuations about "lobbyist groups" is singularly unhelpful; as I've written about ad nauseum in recent years, the overwhelming majority of such perceptions are based on zero evidence. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Top comments on HN are usually ones that counter the post itself or are self-congratulatory in some congratulatory/celebration post. It's pretty obvious as to why. For people who want to read something that could have any sense of controversy - people who don't like the person or some of their content then others will read the comments and upvote the comment that aligns with them (which is counter to the content). Whereas people who upvoted the story (and maybe align with the story) will not upvote all the comments supporting the story - they might upvote one or two but might spread it out. Dissent isn't universal. It takes more effort and isn't relevant to them - also more people might just read the content and upvote it and not participate in the discussion. Upvotes are basically finite resource and tend to be spread out over majority positions, whereas minority positions are spread over fewer posts... Thus, they get to the top easier even if they're a minority.
It's not really surprising at all if you're on here enough. It's standard practice. It's not like it takes as many upvotes as the story gets to be the top comment on the page. Usually 20-40 is enough even for modestly popular posts like this. Larger ones will require over 50. A few people don't like some of his content or thumbnails and there you go - easy to reach the top.
Personal attack, character assassination, apparently it's astroturfing (something something rape), another guy saying it's "NSA tactics". Amazing.
Pretty rabid fanbase. Anything other than adulation must have nefarious origins. It certainly can't be organic.
I think it was upvoted (after a lot of downvotes) because a lot of people have experienced the same thing. Rossmann started as a Mac/Apple repair guy elbowing to try to keep his business going, which no one can contest and was admirable and sympathetic. He had a credible argument about right to repair.
Somewhere along the way -- maybe after Apple had customs block some of his imports, or maybe after he started getting those fat YouTube checks -- he turned from an Apple repair guy to an anti-Apple advocate in virtually every dimension. He has a whole plethora of anti-Apple opinions, and he seems to be a cult of personality not for repair people, but rather for people who still harbor a grudge that their Lumia prophecies didn't come true.
So I just said what I thought, and clearly a lot of people have the same impression, which was that once I'd see his name and think credible repair arguments, and now I see his name and just click past because it's going to be some new anti-Apple screed appealing to a base. Eh.
I have sub his channel years before the R2R stuff.
One thing that can be said about him is that he supports R2R fro a selfish reason of being able to keep his business afloat.
> Somewhere along the way -- maybe after Apple had customs block some of his imports, or maybe after he started getting those fat YouTube checks -- he turned from an Apple repair guy to an anti-Apple advocate in virtually every dimension. (...)
WHO CARES? Who cares? I want my phone to be sum of more then 1 parts. I don't care if Rossman kicks puppies for fun. I don't give a fuck about that. I don't care if someone is supporting R2R because their turtle choked on an apple. Its as irrelevant as this example.
What I care about is clear pattern of slow creep of anti-consumer practices lately serialisation of parts is abhorrent. Before that - parts exclusively sold to the makes of the phones, design choices made with intention of making repairs harder.
And this is not only scourge of phones, if car manufactures could they would be renting you cars. If they could the car computers would lock your car till you pay them to fix 0x4525828 error.
I think most people are against supporting bad people just because they do something good. You can like Right to repair and can support it even financially (assuming the gofundme funds will be dedicated to the direct ballot and not other endeavors), but I and many others don't like that Rossman is the one who is harboring this when he has moved from well-done repair videos to rants about anything that can be ranted about.
> I think most people are against supporting bad people just because they do something good
> I and many others don't like that Rossman is the one who is harboring this when he has moved from well-done repair videos to rants about anything that can be ranted about.
He rants on random topics that's what his audience likes to watch. And mind you, they're often quite educational and make you think. Even when he's wrong.
It's ludicrous to say he's a bad person because he rants about something other than R2R in some of his videos. It's like you cannot fathom a good person can have more than one topic he's interested in?
> Rossmann started as a Mac/Apple repair guy elbowing to try to keep his business going, which no one can contest and was admirable and sympathetic. He had a credible argument about right to repair.
> Somewhere along the way -- maybe after Apple had customs block some of his imports, or maybe after he started getting those fat YouTube checks -- he turned from an Apple repair guy to an anti-Apple advocate in virtually every dimension.
So after being persecuted by Apple he became generally anti-Apple? Wow, go figure, how utterly weird.
(And clearly shows he's the bad guy and Apple the good ones.)
Agreed, it's a bit weird to see the replies here. If anything I'd have expected that the very... glorifying? title of the article would get more comments like yours that would put things into perspective. Rossman is good at repairing electronics and his channel can be very useful, but it's very obvious he also likes the big audience that he gets from going full on anti-Apple. I'm not sure why people think Rossman would be immune to incentives.
And FWIW I've rarely seen outright accusations of character assassination on here, even against wildly cynical comments, insults or when wild allegations are made. So again it's weird that your pretty moderate/balanced take on a guy directly relevant to the article is getting so many of those.
The article is “One Man’s Fight for the Right to Repair”, so it indeed is focusing squarely on Rossman and his involvement in R2R. If it were just an article about R2R that briefly mentioned Rossman, your comment would be true.
Rossmann opensourced his repair manuals and has detailed videos of how to repair equipment, you can literally start your own repair business of that.
If that is not being for right to repair I don't know what is.
Reading your post again it is a character assassination post.
Shifting goalpost and attacking personal characteristics instead of the point.