Top all-time · #437
Anil Dash
Personal blog · dashes.comculturewriting
Anil Dash's personal blog at dashes.com covers culture and writing. Since 2007, 128 different Hacker News readers have linked it 143 times, most often “If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-23, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (25) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Anil Dash's posts on web culture, platform openness, moderation and startups. Commenters cite them as support for their own points about Twitter, NDAs and community design.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- One commenter calls the moderation article "a very excellent article"; another calls a post "recommended reading"; a third says it "makes a pretty good case".
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 25 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
Most-linked posts?
- If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2011-07-20
- What it's like to be verified on Twitter3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-03-01
- Tips Guaranteed to Improve Your Startup's Success3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-03-28
- The Web We Lost3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-12-13
- Who benefits from iOS6's crappy maps?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-09-19
- The Blue Collar Coder2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-10-05
- The Twitter API is Finished. Now What?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-12-19
- The Pushbutton Web: Realtime Becomes Real2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-07-24
- Mom and Pop, At Web Scale2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-01-26
- /anil/2011/01/mom-and-pop-at-web-scale.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-03-18
What Hacker News says?
Chris Anderson and Wired manipulate facts to forward their theories with whatever new theory and bandwagon they are jumping on. The data cited in 'The Long Tail' was not accurate[1], and actually supported the counter-argument. 'Free' was similarly vague[2] and inaccurate[3]. The entire m.o of Anderson seems to be to take a concept or theory that sounds interesting and package it in laymans terms for a gullible publ…
Comment linking /anil/2009/07/free-criticism-and-science-without-data.html
on “Wired's bullshit "The web is dead" graph”Submitted The Web We Lost as a story · 636 points
HN discussionI tried applying for one of these permits on the largest stage in the US -- NYC -- on several occasions. The Parks Dept, which issues such permits, is a nightmare to deal with: they charge per application, require multiple applications merely to check different dates, and regularly lie about the availability of parks. You might think spontaneous assembly is an option, and in some cases it is, but if you're going to…
Comment linking /anil/2012/03/captive-atria-and-living-in-public.html
on “Nashville police chief shares message, responds to questions”Submitted Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it. as a story · 276 points
HN discussion>Here in Manhattan, where I live, basic search by building names is profoundly degraded in Apple's maps search. "Bloomberg" doesn't find the Bloomberg Tower; on Google Maps it's the first result. Searching for its address "731 Lexington Avenue" yields that address on Lexington Avenue in Brooklyn. It's fine to think that perhaps I wanted the address in Bed-Stuy, but even appending "NY, NY" or "Manhattan, NY" still yi…
Comment linking /anil/2012/09/who-benefits-from-ios6s-crappy-maps.html
on “New Apple maps app under fire from users”Submitted Here is a thing that happened as a story · 148 points
HN discussion> "I'm terrified of doing anything that would make me look like a jerk in front of my family and friends." That just doesn't seem true. He consistently goes out of his way to engage in trivial arguments with people, especially on Twitter. Literally days after the sale, he called out Anil Dash in a needlessly confrontational way about some minute error in his history of Tumblr ( http://dashes.com/anil/2013/05/seven-y…
Comment linking /anil/2013/05/seven-years-ago-my-wife.html
on “I Sold The Magazine, Too”Submitted The Future of Facebook Usernames as a story · 108 points
HN discussionThis is not even about entrepreneurship At some level consider it is? (1) symbolic the evolution of strategy; or (2) its part of a larger narrative on openess vs trusworthiness; or even (3) its might ve PR issue.ETC. Also, its always interesting to look back and put this in context: like this http://dashes.com/anil/2009/12/the-twitter-api-is-finished.h...
Comment linking /anil/2009/12/the-twitter-api-is-finished.html
on “Twitter Removes 'Via' Stamp From Web Client”Submitted Facebook Makes It Official: You Have No Say as a story · 106 points
HN discussionI would disagree that those are two different problems -- "preventing [the site] from collapsing in on itself" and figuring out how to host relevant discussions are tied together more deeply than that. As an example, if heated discussions/topics are systemically removed from view, it makes HN more of an echo chamber, and it will attract more people who will make having volatile discussions more difficult in the futu…
Comment linking /anil/2011/07/if-your-websites-full-of-assholes-its-your-fault.html
on “Chris Beard Named CEO of Mozilla”Submitted All Dashboards Should be Feeds as a story · 92 points
HN discussionpg seems to have said something alex'ish elsewhere: "I once sat in a crowded hall and listened to Paul Graham give a keynote presentation about going big, doing it quickly, and getting tons of funding. During Q&A, someone asked what was wrong with instead of trying to go big with big money backers, you just went for profit and kept ownership to yourself and Graham said something like "you want to run a little busine…
Comment linking /anil/2011/01/mom-and-pop-at-web-scale.html
on “Not A Waste”Submitted What Twitter's Announcement could have said as a story · 79 points
HN discussionI feel bad for him, but his second most recent blog post is odious: why he only retweets females. http://dashes.com/anil/2014/02/a-checklist-of-stupid-things-... Maybe karma works in mysterious ways
Comment linking /anil/2014/02/a-checklist-of-stupid-things-men-will-say-when-they-find-out-i-only-retweet-women.html
on “Here is a thing that happened”Submitted Google's Microsoft Moment as a story · 79 points
HN discussionThen I'll try and be a little more civilized here: Along with some nice things, 4chan is also a notorious breeding ground for some of the worst and most noxious media and hateful activity (e.g. harassment campaigns) on the internet. This has continued to be the case for many years. It doesn't seem much has changed. Don't you feel any responsibility for the behavior of your users? http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/if-yo…
Comment linking /anil/2011/07/if-your-websites-full-of-assholes-its-your-fault.html
on “Phil Fish and the Internet’s war against creatives”Submitted Smug Ugly, OSX presenting SMB shares as a story · 35 points
HN discussionMost feature launches that need a 'scapegoat' use employees' likenesses or profiles. For example: - the 'Twitter Teacher' who appears in the sign up flow used to work at Twitter; - and, the profiles used in the verification flow are also employees ( http://dashes.com/anil/2013/03/what-its-like-being-verified-... ). I agree that this was unprofessional though and hope the offenders learn from the mistake.
Comment linking /anil/2013/03/what-its-like-being-verified-on-twitter.html
on “Twitter caught faking users’ tweets”Submitted Anil Dash: Your April Fool's Joke Sucks. as a story · 32 points
HN discussionNot according to this: http://dashes.com/anil/2012/11/facebook-makes-it-official-yo... Not that users ever had a say in the first place.
Comment linking /anil/2012/11/facebook-makes-it-official-you-have-no-say.html
on “Why Are People More Scared of Facebook Violating Their Privacy than Washington?”Submitted Stupid Simple Things SF Techies Could Do To Stop Being Hated as a story · 27 points
HN discussionAlso easy to keep an argument going by saying "my point is understood to be correct" Citations: On NDAs an etc. .... Why a VC Will Take a Lighter to Your NDA - Wilson Sonsini http://startuplawyer.com/venture-capital/why-a-vc-will-take-... Why Most VC’s Don’t Sign NDA - Foundry Group http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2006/02/why-most-vcs-dont-si... One More Time: No NDAs - Anil Dash http://dashes.com/anil/2010/05/one-m…
Comment linking /anil/2010/05/one-more-time-no-ndas.html
on “The White House's Draft Cybersecurity Executive Order”Submitted A Brief History of Apple's iWatch as a story · 26 points
HN discussionRespectable == toeing the Marxist/feminist line. You can have political opinions in public, as long as its left. Meanwhile, this guy is still employed: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/370362753451827200 Also, "the economic catastrophe facing the global marketplace is a result of a failure of white culture in America."[2] Because, hey!, we all know white people are crazy. Good thing businesses never have to hire…
Comment linking /anil/2009/01/monoculture-is-bad-for-business.html
on “Business Insider CTO Forced to Resign Following Twitter Firestorm”Submitted What Works: The Web Way vs. The Wave Way as a story · 26 points
HN discussionDon't get too excited... http://dashes.com/anil/2012/09/who-benefits-from-ios6s-crapp...
Comment linking /anil/2012/09/who-benefits-from-ios6s-crappy-maps.html
on “iOS 6 and OS X 10.8.2 Now Available”Submitted ThinkUp goes 1.0: First free app to archive & analyze Twitter, Facebook and G+ as a story · 25 points
HN discussionWe might be more focused on getting people to do things, but it doesn't need to be just about getting people to sign up for things. We can also use software to make people behave better, to make people's lives better. Just yesterday there was a post from Grouper talking about how they figured out basically a hack to get people not to flake out ( http://blog.joingrouper.com/intro-to-social-hacking-how-we-l... ). Anil…
Comment linking /anil/2011/07/if-your-websites-full-of-assholes-its-your-fault.html
on “Manipulate Machines, Not People”Submitted What Medium Is as a story · 24 points
HN discussion
