entertaining is one word for it. I think its ridiculous, and really offensive. Sam is a human being - and people are tearing him apart all over the internet - who cares if he deserves it, is disgusting.
I don't believe writing public letters about how he has mental health issues helps the issue. think of the consequences if he did
While this site is called "Hacker News," there does seem to be a lot of interest in "online media" issues here - which aren't really "hackerish" at all.
This is an interesting debacle on a number of "online media" levels - both that the people involved are all known within that circle, but also that this imbroglio itself is a demonstration of some curious properties of online media and how it relates to both disputes and law.
Here's how this read to me: "I've put a huge amount of effort into trying to mediate this dispute and get to the point where people could apologise and get on with their lives. I almost got there but let a couple of retarded drunken ranting emails made me lose my temper so badly I now feel the need to throw away any chance of achieving anything positive in the situation by publishing a retarded sober ranting blog post. Also, I am high as a kite."
"The court in no way found that TechCrunch’s statements about you were false, but simply that no-one from the company turned up to defend them."
While a default judgment is not the same as a victory, they seem reasonably similar. I'm as upset as anyone that it's so easy to win a libel suit in Britain, but this story has a "winner" in the popular sense (which is what I imagine is important to this Sethi fellow).
It is only a winner if a U.S. court would ultimately conclude that the UK courts had proper jurisdiction over the defendants. No proper jurisdiction = no enforceable judgment (at least outside the UK).
While it would be more mediagenic if Arrington had to fork over some cash, I think jurisdiction is separate from the issue of who the court of popular opinion sees are the winner.
