8 ms·

I checked the TIFF talk page and found comments from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scarlsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scarlsen Turns out the an

I checked the TIFF talk page and found comments from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scarlsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scarlsen Turns out the answer was on Wikipedia already :).

adzm 11mo ago
If anyone can contact John Buck this sounds like information he'd be interested in. Also an interesting avenue for future investigative work.
- hellojohnbuck 11mo ago
  thanks adam
  - pinkmuffinere 11mo ago
    Hey John, I'm just curious how people find these comments about "would be nice if X saw this" on HN. I don't think there's any pinging behavior. Did somebody message you? Did you just happen to read it? Do you have an eldritch curse that summons you when called by name?
    - throwaway314155 11mo ago
      Not who you're asking for, but generally I think it's just a case of the author also being an HN regular. Although, I suppose you could set up some Google Alerts for mentions of your blog posts.
    - hellojohnbuck 11mo ago
      Somebody subscribed to my blog with ref to hacker news so i just poked my head in :-)
    - shawn_w 11mo ago
      Once upon a time there was a guy who went by Kibo who would search Usenet feeds for posts mentioning his username and reply to them...
      - wiredfool 11mo ago
        Kibo greps
      - Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
        I bet Musk hacked something together (or has a column in TweetDeck if that's still around) that continuously searches for mentions. I wonder if there's a tool like that that covers more of the internet, although the primary users would only be famous people and/or their agents / social media staff.
        wongarsu 11mo ago
        There are lots of tools that do this if you are willing to pay for it. "Social Media Monitoring" or "Brand Monitoring" would be the keywords to search for
        arthurdelerue 10mo ago
        You can try our tool for example: https://KWatch.io https://KWatch.io It monitors keywords mentioned on X, Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube, Quora, Reddit, and YC.
    - davedx 11mo ago
      From what I've seen, sometimes people see that their blog post got a lot of referral traffic from Hacker News and they come have a look to see where it came from.
    - kens 11mo ago
      I use f5bot.com, which monitors HN, Reddit, and Lobsters. (I have no connection to f5bot except being a happy user.)
    - phibz 11mo ago
      I've seen Ken Shirriff do this. You mention him and suddenly he's there.
      - kens 11mo ago
        hi! :-) As I commented elsewhere, f5bot.com is a nice, free tool to monitor HN
oidar 11mo ago
His lone comment: >Yes it is true: the second word of a TIFF file, 42, was indeed taken from the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, from Hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galaxy. StephenECarlsen 23:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
svat 11mo ago
Thanks! If you look at his (logged-in) edits on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Scarlsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Scarlsen ), then apart from the lone comment on the talk page (about the reason for "42") and creating that user page, he has two edits to the TIFF article: - one of them clarifies the (non-)involvement of Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TIFF&diff=prev&oldid=160130913 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TIFF&diff=prev&ol... - and the other is even more interesting: though he is being scrupulous and removing a sentence that has no published citations, in his edit summary he confirms that it is basically true: > The author of the original TIFF specification wanted TIFF to stand for "The Image File Format", but he was overruled by Aldus' president Paul Brainerd on the grounds that it sounded presumptuous. (The edit summary says: Removed the "The Image File Format" sentence, since it only has eye-witness support (me, for one), but no published citatations)
- vanderZwan 11mo ago
  Ok so then we could technically edit it back in since he's a primary source, right?
  - Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
    Technically yes, but I'm fairly sure Wikipedia wants cited sources, not "I'm the guy, I said so" anecdotal sources. Of course, if he was still alive he could have written a blog post or something like that and use that as a source, much like how it's likely this blog post will be used as a source for things surrounding the format and person.
  - wongarsu 11mo ago
    That would be what Wikipedia calls "original research". A big no-no on wikipedia. At a minimum he would have to tweet or blog about it and link the tweet or blog. And even then that's a primary source, which wikipedia considers less valuable. Ideally he would get someone else to report on his tweet/blog and use that as source. Then the wikipedia gods are happy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

I checked the TIFF talk page and found comments from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scarlsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scarlsen Turns out the answer was on Wikipedia already :).

adzm 11mo ago

If anyone can contact John Buck this sounds like information he'd be interested in. Also an interesting avenue for future investigative work.

hellojohnbuck 11mo ago
thanks adam
- pinkmuffinere 11mo ago
  Hey John, I'm just curious how people find these comments about "would be nice if X saw this" on HN. I don't think there's any pinging behavior. Did somebody message you? Did you just happen to read it? Do you have an eldritch curse that summons you when called by name?
  - throwaway314155 11mo ago
    Not who you're asking for, but generally I think it's just a case of the author also being an HN regular. Although, I suppose you could set up some Google Alerts for mentions of your blog posts.
  - hellojohnbuck 11mo ago
    Somebody subscribed to my blog with ref to hacker news so i just poked my head in :-)
  - shawn_w 11mo ago
    Once upon a time there was a guy who went by Kibo who would search Usenet feeds for posts mentioning his username and reply to them...
    - wiredfool 11mo ago
      Kibo greps
    - Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
      I bet Musk hacked something together (or has a column in TweetDeck if that's still around) that continuously searches for mentions. I wonder if there's a tool like that that covers more of the internet, although the primary users would only be famous people and/or their agents / social media staff.
      - wongarsu 11mo ago
        There are lots of tools that do this if you are willing to pay for it. "Social Media Monitoring" or "Brand Monitoring" would be the keywords to search for
        arthurdelerue 10mo ago
        You can try our tool for example: https://KWatch.io https://KWatch.io It monitors keywords mentioned on X, Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube, Quora, Reddit, and YC.
  - davedx 11mo ago
    From what I've seen, sometimes people see that their blog post got a lot of referral traffic from Hacker News and they come have a look to see where it came from.
  - kens 11mo ago
    I use f5bot.com, which monitors HN, Reddit, and Lobsters. (I have no connection to f5bot except being a happy user.)
  - phibz 11mo ago
    I've seen Ken Shirriff do this. You mention him and suddenly he's there.
    - kens 11mo ago
      hi! :-) As I commented elsewhere, f5bot.com is a nice, free tool to monitor HN

oidar 11mo ago

His lone comment: >Yes it is true: the second word of a TIFF file, 42, was indeed taken from the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, from Hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galaxy. StephenECarlsen 23:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

svat 11mo ago

Thanks! If you look at his (logged-in) edits on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Scarlsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Scarlsen ), then apart from the lone comment on the talk page (about the reason for "42") and creating that user page, he has two edits to the TIFF article: - one of them clarifies the (non-)involvement of Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TIFF&diff=prev&oldid=160130913 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TIFF&diff=prev&ol... - and the other is even more interesting: though he is being scrupulous and removing a sentence that has no published citations, in his edit summary he confirms that it is basically true: > The author of the original TIFF specification wanted TIFF to stand for "The Image File Format", but he was overruled by Aldus' president Paul Brainerd on the grounds that it sounded presumptuous. (The edit summary says: Removed the "The Image File Format" sentence, since it only has eye-witness support (me, for one), but no published citatations)

vanderZwan 11mo ago
Ok so then we could technically edit it back in since he's a primary source, right?
- Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
  Technically yes, but I'm fairly sure Wikipedia wants cited sources, not "I'm the guy, I said so" anecdotal sources. Of course, if he was still alive he could have written a blog post or something like that and use that as a source, much like how it's likely this blog post will be used as a source for things surrounding the format and person.
- wongarsu 11mo ago
  That would be what Wikipedia calls "original research". A big no-no on wikipedia. At a minimum he would have to tweet or blog about it and link the tweet or blog. And even then that's a primary source, which wikipedia considers less valuable. Ideally he would get someone else to report on his tweet/blog and use that as source. Then the wikipedia gods are happy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research