It should be noted that the stated aim of KF is a forum to document and discuss the escapades of people that naturally produce their own drama and spectacle, and actually interacting with the "lolcows", on- or off-site, is explicitly against the site rules. Obviously whether you believe that sentiment to be genuine is your prerogative.
>Most notably Near, famous in the emulation community
While I'm sure others have mentioned that there isn't any direct evidence to indicate that Near actually did commit suicide (I truly hope he is still alive, both on a human level, and because I followed his excellent emulation development), the uncomfortable detail that is always left unstated is that he was not a person driven from a previously well mental state to suicide. The truth is that, prior to his suicide note, Near attracted very little attention on the site, with just a small, HN-sized thread before he made an account to directly talk to people in the thread. In his communication with the KF administrator (which ironically I can't find since the site is being DDoSed right now) he said that his mental state caused him to hyper-fixate on the relatively small amount of negative attention from the community, and he admitted that he didn't know the precise reason that it bothered him so much. Before the administrator finished the email negotiations about what action to take about the thread, Near had sent a follow-up message saying that it was, essentially, too late and that he was going to take his own life immediately.
All this isn't to say that this was Near's fault, and I think it's obvious that the ethical thing to do would have been to remove the thread. But ultimately if the question is whether a website's existence should be made de facto impossible, it's an important detail to mention, and a very similar story to other 2 or so people on the supposed "kill list". To put it crudely, the site exists to document the things that "crazy people" do online. Without ruling out that the site had a hand in people's suicide, it's pertinent to consider that there is a very strong selection bias at play if a person featured on the forum sadly takes their own life.
>CloudFlare continue to host them despite all.
I believe Cloudflare doesn't host the website per se, but proxies traffic for mitigation against attacks. The organiser of this current movement has been pretty overt about getting Cloudflare protection removed so that the site is at the mercy of DDoS attacks and other highly illegal means of disruption.
It should be noted that the stated aim of KF is a forum to document and discuss the escapades of people that naturally produce their own drama and spectacle, and actually interacting with the "lolcows", on- or off-site, is explicitly against the site rules. Obviously whether you believe that sentiment to be genuine is your prerogative.
>Most notably Near, famous in the emulation community
While I'm sure others have mentioned that there isn't any direct evidence to indicate that Near actually did commit suicide (I truly hope he is still alive, both on a human level, and because I followed his excellent emulation development), the uncomfortable detail that is always left unstated is that he was not a person driven from a previously well mental state to suicide. The truth is that, prior to his suicide note, Near attracted very little attention on the site, with just a small, HN-sized thread before he made an account to directly talk to people in the thread. In his communication with the KF administrator (which ironically I can't find since the site is being DDoSed right now) he said that his mental state caused him to hyper-fixate on the relatively small amount of negative attention from the community, and he admitted that he didn't know the precise reason that it bothered him so much. Before the administrator finished the email negotiations about what action to take about the thread, Near had sent a follow-up message saying that it was, essentially, too late and that he was going to take his own life immediately.
All this isn't to say that this was Near's fault, and I think it's obvious that the ethical thing to do would have been to remove the thread. But ultimately if the question is whether a website's existence should be made de facto impossible, it's an important detail to mention, and a very similar story to other 2 or so people on the supposed "kill list". To put it crudely, the site exists to document the things that "crazy people" do online. Without ruling out that the site had a hand in people's suicide, it's pertinent to consider that there is a very strong selection bias at play if a person featured on the forum sadly takes their own life.
>CloudFlare continue to host them despite all.
I believe Cloudflare doesn't host the website per se, but proxies traffic for mitigation against attacks. The organiser of this current movement has been pretty overt about getting Cloudflare protection removed so that the site is at the mercy of DDoS attacks and other highly illegal means of disruption.