Mark Bernstein
markbernstein.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Mark Bernstein, a software developer and writer, covers artisanal software, Wikipedia governance disputes, and the Gamergate arbitration, plus technology and design.
What HN saysHN commenters point to his Neo-Victorian computing essay, his series on Wikipedia and Gamergate, and his writing on Ruskin and digital craft.
27HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
29stories submitted
287story points
10 months agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Neo-Victorian Computing8 people · 16 points · first shared 2007 · 1 comments on HN
- 2The draft decision of Wikipedia’s ArbCom on Gamergate is worse than a crime3 people · 15 points · first shared 2015 · 3 comments on HN
- 3Careless2 people · 3 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 4“I don’t think Wikipedia can be saved at this point, but I might be wrong.”1 people · 54 points · first shared 2015 · 64 comments on HN
- 5Wikipedia’s Emergency1 people · 47 points · first shared 2013 · 60 comments on HN
- 6Why CEOs are so stupid1 people · 44 points · first shared 2009 · 14 comments on HN
- 7Javascript: is 'this' a code smell?1 people · 27 points · first shared 2010 · 28 comments on HN
- 8Dumb Software Isn’t Dumb1 people · 27 points · first shared 2009 · 7 comments on HN
- 9The gas-powered truck killed magazines, not the Web1 people · 24 points · first shared 2010 · 5 comments on HN
- 10Platform Control1 people · 5 points · first shared 2010 · 2 comments on HN
- 11Reprehensible1 people · 4 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 12How Software Is Built Today1 people · 4 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 13Recipe for How To Lose To Terrorists1 people · 4 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 14The golden age of Indie software1 people · 2 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 15Unreasonable: we’ve got to do something about the users1 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
tptacek · 2009-01-10
They're second-class outlets. A blog author can say whatever they want; their posts are first-class elements in Google's corpus; the medium encourages stand-alone writing instead of meaningless squibs.
The original vision of the "blogosphere" rejected comments. "Write a blog post, instead." Here's an old, well-known example:
http://www.markbernstein.org/Apr0401/Whyblogcommentsarebad.html
The problem right now is that the affordances favor comments over posts. The first step is to adjust them; it just so happens that by making a threaded blog-group reader, you're also providing a lot of value to people who don't care that comments are evil, but do find it hard to follow 10 different blogs talking about the same thing.
AlanYx · 2023-12-11
Mark Bernstein has written a bit about this. He used to call it "neovictorian computing" but now uses the same "artisanal software" term, e.g.: https://www.markbernstein.org/NeoVictorian.html
mdisraeli · 2015-01-25
It should be noted that the link is to a supplemental, providing running updates on the response to Mark's series of articles:
Infamous http://markbernstein.org/Jan15/Infamous.html
Thoughtless http://markbernstein.org/Jan15/Thoughtless.html
Careless http://markbernstein.org/Jan15/Careless.html
As such, it will be hard to read, appearing like a rant when taken on its own. A better place to start will be with the above articles, which provide context for the Reckless post.
stfu · 2013-06-05
The idea of an unbiased article is in my opinion just an illusion. In reality truth is a negotiation between different stakeholders and some form of settlement at the end where each side can somehow get away with.
I personally find the next posting of the author much more revealing [1]. It is a discussion on how much meaning one can find in a simple sentence such as "____ is a Jewish-American politician" all the way to the suggestion that some by "tagging all the Jews in Wikipedia dream of a time when those lists might be of service to the police."
Just goes to illustrate how much subjectivity can be infused into a few words that are in itself unquestionable facts.
[1] http://www.markbernstein.org/May13/WikipediaAndTheJews.html
keithpeter · 2012-09-02
http://www.markbernstein.org/Mar12/TheSympathyOfThings.html
Lars Spuybroek's book The Sympathy of Things explores possible links between Ruskin's views and modern digital production. I'm finding it hard reading (maths science background myself) but it is making me think in new areas.
blasdel · 2010-08-01
When people write papers about New Media and The Web, they often cite Vannevar Bush's 1945 article in The Atlantic, “As We May Think”. We had a 65th anniversary panel about the paper at Hypertext 2010, at which I was the designated heretic. My position is that Bush’s paper is essentially a popular science article. It gets some things right, some wrong. It’s cavalier about its sources – especially the very important work of Emanuel Goldberg, which Bush knew and which was entirely forgotten by everyone in the field for fifty years before Michael Buckland rediscovered it.
We can point to other precursors, too. H. G. Wells, for example, wrote The World Brain before the War and tried hard to fund a foundation that would manage an open-source microfilm encyclopedia of the world’s knowledge. But the really astonishing prediction is not Bush’s but Murray Leinster’s 1946 short story, “A Logic Name Joe”…
http://www.markbernstein.org/Jul10/ALogicNamedJoe.html