FOSS Hole

There has been some heated discussion on the Wikipedia Hans Reiser article. It’s about including a link to the ELER comic about Nina Reiser’s disappearance. Nobody there really seems to quite grok the strip.

Five months on and maybe this is a good time to explain that the strip isn’t about what a lot of people might think it’s about. It’s not actually about Nina Reiser’s disappearance, it’s more about the reactions to it. Immediately after the news hit, even with scant information provided mostly by sensationalist local media, there was widespread suspicion of Hans’ involvement. I doubt you’d find many people who didn’t have the thought cross their mind, however fleeting.

The strip doesn’t say what people think it does. Reiser isn’t showing any obvious signs of anxiety (no “umming” or “ermming”) and there are reasonable explanations for everything you see (Lime is used to speed up composting) yet commenters came from far and wide to complain about us suggesting what they thought we suggested.

As one clued-in commenter defended: “If you read accusations in to this comic, they are simply pouring out of the twisted depths of your own subconscious mind.”.

“barely notable outside of a small Internet community”

“no verifiable third-party reliable sources suggesting any sort of achievement or significance”

“what we lack here is INDEPENDANT review in RELIABLE SOURCES. People chatting about it in blogs don’t count.”

You read it here first folks, blogs don’t count as reliable sources. What we need is independent review, as seen in the New York Times or in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

More on the deletion discussion page.